Weatherhead

by J. M. Hushour

  He walked on, carried by the flustery, blustery riot and rot. There was an abandoned mansion, a greathouse the looters called it, though none of the dastards could tell him who had occupied it. Some muttered, others screamed, that it’d been one of her dungeon hovels where she kept the city’s children lost and unkempt, keys on a piano made out of bruises, tied down to the instrument as long as the world had been so cruel. He knew this was a lie. Peering inside, he saw the interior was full of abandoned socks and clowns, stacked chaotically in piles and mounds. He nodded, satisfied. These were both things that Maggie Mechaine did not like.

  As he descended the disoriented staircase in the front of the mansion, a trio of old women, talons clutching at piles of mismatched socks, shook the latter at him, screaming, Where are the feet? Where? Down the block, down a row of fire- and curse-gutted structures, was the church, the church where she’d first spoken to him, the church she’d had pulled to pieces, drawn and quartered by the survivors of her baptisms. Here, now, it was mere sigil to the suppuration of church and state, a vegetative and meditative rot, ignored by the rabble, it festered alone and abandoned, moss and epistle thistle had yawned and stretched across the remnants of its stone walls and the roof she’d bade the fiends leave, though it leaked red rain here and there from whatever anti-goddess had punched it repeatedly, it seemed an alien season unfurled from where the holy water spilt below had spat back up as things do in Weatherhead, in a great white crescent, to splatter against the false sky painted in god’s house where it washed away one heaven and served as surf at another lord’s feet.

  He felt drawn to nothing here, but nodded, satisfied, so he moved on to survey the furthering of the revolution and what kind of revolution could it be, when the tyrant wishes it to happen? A labor of loathe? A self-effacing coup-coup clock erasing the hours and days of winter, counter clockways to autumn, to red Octobers? All revolutions and revolutionaries are red, especially Maggie Mechaine who won the reddest coup of all: the one against herself. He understood now that tyranny is an illusion, like the life it tries to rule and the death it tries to dispense. All thrones are made of smoke. One can never rule alone no matter how harsh the rule.

  He paused amidst the destruction. He’d seen cities like this before, in the desert, in a not dissimilar plain during a not dissimilar great and stupid war based around misunderstood motivations. But there was something different and more desperate here. Weatherhead was no funeralopolis, emptied of everyone but the dead. No, it was very much alive, just different than the alive we think we know.

  Ringed by fire-bearing, leaf-gilt rampagers was a planetarium. The structure was tall, cylindrical and completely covered in glass. Inside was an identical, but smaller, crystalline cylinder slowly rotating on an unseen axis. A sign on the door in familiar, hers, handwriting read “NO STARS”. The folk were attempting to bash in the sides of the thing and gain purchase. A grimy, fussy, profane grandmother whose every other word was ‘fuckness’, told him the door’d been welded shut. She and a few others he interviewed had a hunch that the night sky was holed up inside the crystal canister waiting to be freed. He left them to their hammers and fists.

  Northwest, he guessed, if the black mountains were west, there was a sunken sort of dome covered in fog that bewitched his interests for a bit. He clambered about the outside, found it to be condensation-slicked glass and slipped back down. He walked the perimeter for a good while until he came to a small unobtrusive door. He looked about. The mobs ran furious in the neighboring quarters, but they seemed to have left this building alone. It was, he saw, as he walked its jagged edges, the rough shape of a fallen leaf. The door popped open at his touch and the relieving warm flow of a most familiar smell hit his senses. Ah, here it was. He stared in terror. Between the legs of the squat, turreted and cannoned coppery, walking tank that guarded the entrance, that now whirred and clockworked and spun about to bring every single weapon in its arsenal to bear on him, between its legs he could see a vast field of her lovingleaf and it struck him that this of all things had never been part of Weatherhead, indeed, seemed incongruous with Weatherhead, but here it was, the gust and gale of her second wind, rows and rows of it: an eternity’s worth. What was this place, then, the allotted plot of paradise for hell? Or something simply hidden? It struck him, too, that Maggie Mechaine had never once worn lingerie or high heels or left him with his sins. Love, life, hate, and death were such strange, unsingular things when remembered in a certain order, he decided.

  He was marveling at the metal construct, the penny-smelted thing with the two interlinked Ws—and immediately he knew this signified Wellingwish—branded into its torso, the first true unfamiliar thing he’d seen here—Maggie had never said anything about robots—and picturing his wife perched on its shoulder, smoke and swollen, when someone threw a bag over his head and a choke around his neck via cord and dragged him backwards ankly out into the tumult of the streets. His protests were punched back into his throat. The sack smelled like shaven legs and purple things. Further he was dragged, kicking and suffocating. There was then a pleasurable round of punches delivered to his ribs and the bag was pulled even moreso tightly over his breath-holes, silencing his screams.

  Love! His heart leapt when Frank pulled off the sack and helped him to his feet. He looked at the quartet of thieves. They were worse-for-wear. They were shabbier than normal, their faces bruised and cut. Longknife-fights in the alleys of Weatherhead with Hate, shootouts with transparent bullets in the open spaces—a sniper had nicked the Colored Girl’s ear—the shattered holster of Rapey’s pistol, broken by a bottle-bomb thrust into his side—it had cushioned the worst of the explosion—Frank had circles burnt into his thumbs from thumbing rounds into his six-shooter—

  Pardon, friend, Frank panted, but we hafta keep up ‘ppearances, Frank explained. Rapey and the Colored Girl, spectrums, knives, and revolvers at the ready, watched the mouth of the alley. Weatherhead was all alley that day.

  Mr. Moustache chuckled but his mirth was of an uneven quality. It was clear something terrible was abroad. He looked up at the two frowning faces from where he crouched, coughing and covered with hurt. Love didn’t look happy. High noon, Mr. Moustache crept in words.

  With something between anger and shame, he exclaimed to Love’s leader, This is what you meant. This is why you showed me your symphony. All the faces and variations of a thing. All her faces—what were they—why can’t I remember them? The scarlet symphony didn’t work—she still doesn’t know—I tried to—I stabbed her—What do I do? Bring her down? Me instead of Hate? Become the Lord of Weatherhead?

  Mr. Moustache laughed louder now. They all did. Rapey slapped his knees with an incestuous guffaw There’ll—heh—ha—there’ll never be no ‘Lord of Weatherhead’—sheesh—hem—haw! Not like yer talkin’!

  Then why—

  The ancient bandit scrubble-scratched his weary chin. Ha! Heh! She’s lettin’ it fall so you’s can do the makin’. You found the thing that she is, all the things she is, so you can save sheself. It brought you here to end the wars on the plain. You need to show her why you’re here.

  But I can’t remember what it was that got me here.

  You’ve been doin’ it since the moment you arrived, Frank smiled.

  He cast about for answers. He’d remembered her, yes, tried to rebuild her out of all her pieces, who she’d been, but also who he’d been to her, too. Not who he was, but who he’d been to her. And it was not an unterrible thing, he. Memories unlost in translation and—yes!—the high voice! His silver sister reading to him—what was she reading? Those were Maggie’s clues, weren’t they? To her name—

  It ain’t her name, Rapey cried, that ain’t who nobody is. He thrust the barrel of his revolver at him. Lookitchoo—you ain’t got no name!

  Please, he pled, help me understand.

  We’re just here to fight and steal and kill, Mr. Moustache said half-gravely gravelly.

  For her.

  For both of ye.


  Shudder-green, shutter-red, the Colored Girl winked.

  And poetry, Frank nodded cheerfully, we’re here for the poetry, too.

  What poetry? he demanded to know.

  She, Frank intoned, always knew. He gestured towards the Up with his gun.

  Mr. Moustache was quiet for a piece, then finally spoke, lighting a cigarette and he winked at him over his hand. Ye did good with that there sweetknife, poke. Mind who ye get swaddled up with. Keep up your defenses when Hate’s about. ‘Tis a sexy thing, hate.

  Rapey licked his chops. He’d had a go at it more than once in his career. He, for one, demanded to know why Hate was there: for him or for her? If they refused to be forthright, then at least tell him that.

  We are black and blue, the Colored Girl laughed with unbecoming grimness, they are black and white.

  Der’s three storms comin’ or truths or whatever you wanna call them. Strength, evil, passion, Frank ticked off his fingers. The tip of his middle finger was missing. She’ll shatter again, bucko, and again and again. Hate’s tryin’ ta use you to turn Weatherhead against her.

  But, he protested, she started this on purpose!

  Aye, Frank tipped him a wink, to see what is what.

  Blister blue, coven oven orange, the Colored Girl said darkily.

  What, then, Mr. Moustache snorted, ain’t there nothin’ left but the damage? S’at all you can think of? Whys and hates and wherefores and therefores. Ye can’t truck in those for long here on the plain. This is a place for loves and lovely things. Or it should be. Look at it now. Weatherhead is no mere turning outward of the darker angles of her nature. He seemed to grow several feet and had he a shadow, he’d’ve cast it like a thousand spells over their eyes.

  His gaze fell. It seems like that a lot of the time.

  You got a wealth of memory—

  Memory is just time—

  No. No, Mr. Moustache cut him off, time is the vagabond no one sees. He leaned back and hooked his thumbs through his suspenders. Unless you’re us.

  Death, said Frank, only fills history with the sound of its passing.

  Anger forced him to smile worthlessly. So?

  Rapey’s wild eyes softened for a moment. That ain’t where we are, sir. Her name ain’t who she is, it never is.

  He pressed his knuckles into his eyes in frustration. I never did find her barometer.

  The weather, Frank predicted, will be fine.

  He stared at them each in turn. What was unspoken was this: he didn’t want her to change. Whatever this city was, whatever the nature of the plain, this woman was Maggie Mechaine. Love was wrong: it was her turned inside out. But he loved this. It was the unabashed roar of a life. It was what he wished now that he had always had in her. But he had never listened to her.

  Find the angle in, Frank said softly.

  Find the angel in, the Colored Girl put in except what she really said was Ivory washes blacknight but he understood anyway. He smiled at her weakly. She’d have made a fine policewoman, he decided. He turned back to Mr. Moustache.

  And if I do nothing?

  Then Weatherhead falls anyway, they’ll find her, break her and it’ll be Hate even more than before that jumps claims to putting her back together, not her alone like it was the first time. All your memories wasted—taken over by ones worse when it could’ve been you or her, one or the other, or both fixin’ things. Mr. Moustache gripped his shoulder like a father. Love finds a story in every crossfire, son. ‘Tis a puzzle you been workin’ since the day she died. Same as she’s done and did since the day she was born. What neither you nor she understand is that she ain’t gotta shatter again.

  He nodded. And Hate? What about that woman?

  Craven encounters, son, your instinct tells you that. Disease in the clearblood. Find her, she’s a clever one, ol’ Lux, and he saw Mr. Moustache’s bottom eyes dart hither and thither in alarm, though the upper visage remained calm, ain’t no gropin’ yer way through darkness with her. She’s all-in. Or he, dependin’. You’ll have to call her and she’ll make ye giddy. Hate’s simple, ain’t like us. We love the stories and the poetries like my man said, he gestured to Frank, and the makin’ ‘n all. Them’s lot—anyhow ain’t fer such things, but bed down in a big tired and she’ll be there. Mind her wiles and fanfares, ain’t quite ripe time yet for our hail of bullets—‘tis on you, keep her fell and bay, don’t give in ta her, keep the ruse up. Hunt the lady of Weatherhead.

  He nodded once more, unsure.

  What’s that poet say, Frank scratched his drawn-on beard, with a whimper?

  Nine months pregnant with silent memories around a book made out of faces.

  Mr. Moustache took his hand in both of his and pressed something into his palm. You have the knife, the gun, and the chase. All you need now is weathers. He looked down. It was a barometer. The one made out of bone that the ruler of Weatherhead had shown him once. Rising, Love laughed, rising.

  The blood was—oh, what did Maggie call it—evaporating—flowing Up to seed the clouds and flowers. Like the Street of Spit on a larger scale—the City of Spit.

  Raining blood, he sang from her lips. For it was. Clutching the barometer in his fist, he drove his unvirtuous empire through puddles and sheets of downpour from the blossoming storms above. He was hardly aware of himself anymore. He had to find Lux Vomika before he bled edges over Hate for the last inning or two, innings of wild pitches.

  Maggie had, he reflected as he skirted the edges of lootings and cruelings and device-wrecking and demolishings, always glued puzzles together when they were finished. Even those ones, the ones where she tore off the top layer, the actual image, to reveal the plain ol’ cardboard beneath where anyone could draw whatever they wanted. She’d only ever made a real puzzle once, when he took her to that shop for her birthday, but she sure could unmake ‘em. They stayed glued, though. They sure did, even if naked and smooth, they were featureless, they were unmade for the making.

  As he ran, he couldn’t help notice the weather vanes everywhere, thrusting up out of the top of the buildings of Weatherhead, crosses on which to crucify the winds, a second graveyard between ground and sky, seeded by the rebirth of weathers, springing up on all the buildings and he knew that he could never have wept for her dead and blue-lipped because she was breath alive, she was the whisper where the door closes, she was all the weathers—all the weathers of the heads. How many of them, he wondered, had he ever spoken to? All, soon, he promised, without knowing it.

  Lightning and thunder crashed above. The three storms had finally broke. Created again out of her crimson breath, the three storms had finally broke. People he met in the street interpreted this as a sign of her imminent death and downfall, in that order, the reordering of heavens and hells, the retracing of exact lines separating this from that and these from those, illusory borders, he knew them to be, soon to be effaced when all bloods and weathers joined, but he could not tell the people of Weatherhead that. Yoked to an anvil of atrocity, they saw her only once, not twice as he had.

  After searching through several floors of a low, squat former store of some kind to make sure it was secure, free of flames and collapse, he prepared a bed for him and Hate. He sat and waited. The building was empty. He found a rubble-free corner and urinated.

  How to summon Hate? He laid himself out on the bed of newsprint he’d made. Still illegible, he could see now that the faint presses of the counter-revolution had been at work for he recognized the loopy, childish scrawl of his former wife beginning to well up in black from below the page. How to summon hate? He thought of dirt, dusty tirades against the gruesome. He thought of all the names he made up for the retarded and the handicapped. He remembered racisms that the plain had mooted and called up ferocious invectives and invocations against peoples of all ilks and milks. He thought of injurious poems written in sand with spit.

  He had drifted off. It was already dark outside, freak-flickers of tonguing fire danced against the wall. She came in the swollen,
tolling night, a coarse tongue licking the bruises left over from his unsuccessful sparring with the ruler of Weatherhead. The unsettling cord dangling from her nape tinkled as she slid up him and he half-sat up. What were bells in the night? They were usually bad signs. Floods, death, a phone call at night must be dreaded. In the darkness, he saw the long, lanky nudity that had wriggled its way into the thick of his blankets. She began stripping hatreds off of herself like rotting, pinched skin and caressing him with them, first his feet, his legs, then— Had he gone so mad? He considered the ramifications of this thought as Lux Vomika fumbled with the front of his trousers.

  She greeted him with I bet I can bite harder than you. Her hands weren’t cold, but they were roughed with calluses. He declined the wager. She oozed up his length and breathed her stink into his throat. See how you want Us here. As she. She likes to keep us near the city.

  No, he countered, careful in his dogging the witch, she doesn’t. Maybe she’s using me to destroy you all, he laughed. You’re dead anyway.

  Good point. She hummed as he drew his hands over her back, knuckles brushing the cord there. She thought him yoked by the strength of her pores, half-drowned already in the strength of her fuck. That changes nothing, sire. We are misunderstood, yes. We don’t feed off of misery but the sugar of death. We seek no succor, sire, in drowning misery, but we bite at the ankles of fleeing prey, oh, yes, yes. Do you know what Lux is? He saw her empty black eyes shine in the night. She drew up and touched her breast. I am the hate in every memory you have and this is what she cannot keep at bay. Can’t you see? As you remember her, she weakens, as you remember all that you found needless and fallen about her. The tyrant hangs herself on whims and her wits are overtaken by your devious flesh.