by Ray Garton
The man was lying in the exact same position she’d left him in the night before, except now the cat was curled up beside him on a pillow, purring loudly. The man was breathing so silently that, for a moment, she thought he’d died in the night. There was still just enough stiffness in Kassandra’s neck to make her give in to the temptation to stick out her tongue at him.
She took her clothes, jewelry, and a small zipped up kit into the bathroom as Chas began to vacuum the living room carpet. Even his vacuum cleaner was ancient; it sounded like construction work as it sucked up bits of glass.
Before dressing or putting on her makeup, Kassandra opened the kit. Her hands moved with practiced swiftness as she removed a bottle of insulin, rolled it between her palms, and drew some of it into a syringe. She swabbed alcohol on a spot of her thigh with a cottonball, stabbed, injected, and had the kit zipped back up in seconds. She’d been performing the ritual for four years; it used to bother her, but that was before it had become a ritual.
Dressed, made up, and clattering with bangles, Kassandra stepped out of the bathroom and—
—saw the stranger standing at her dresser. He held the cat to his chest with one arm, and was staring curiously at her diaphragm as he squeezed it between thumb and forefinger.
“Hey, hey!” Kassandra snapped, hurrying down the hall to her bedroom. “No bouncing on the trampoline, huh?”
He turned to her very slowly and looked her up and down with something resembling disbelief.
“Hey, brainwave, talkin’ to you. The phones’re working. Got someone you can call?”
His eyes moved back up her body again, settling on her face.
On her eyes.
His stare was intense, deep, long . . . it reached through her eyes, down her skull, and started reeling in her spinal cord—
—until she turned away, reached over and took the diaphragm, just to give her hands something to do. She opened the top drawer and put it in a box of Q-tips.
His cuts were gone.
No, she thought, can’t be, not yet—
—you stupid fuck, Chas, you goddamned stupid fuck you just had to take him in, didn’t you, just had to—
—they can’t be gone . . .
She really didn’t want to look at him, dreaded it in fact, but she had to see the cuts, she knew they were there, she just wanted to look again to make sure, so she turned her head rather quickly, hoping it wouldn’t be so bad, the way tearing an adhesive bandage off suddenly doesn’t hurt as much as doing it slowly.
They were gone.
The cuts had healed.
His skin was unblemished but craggy, and his eyes . . .
. . . his eyes were beautiful.
She pulled her eyes away and it was like pulling her feet out of deep mud.
“That’s . . . that’s a miraculous recovery you’ve made, there,” she said, not quite looking at his eyes. “But let me make—” She stopped, cleared her throat, and continued more firmly. “—let me make a suggestion. Lose the booze, huh? Or . . . whatever it was you were on last night. Now. What’s your name?” When she looked at him again, he wasn’t staring into her eyes; he was inspecting her face.
His head turned curiously this way, that way, and he frowned a moment. Then smirked. It was an expression of pleasure, satisfaction. Lifting a hand to touch her face, he said, “You’ve a painted face.”
She stepped back nervously and he lowered his hand.
His voice was deep, melodic, and sparkled with an English accent; it was a beautiful voice.
The vacuum in the living room had stopped and, no longer wanting to be alone with the stranger, she called, “Hey, Chas, he talks English.”
“What’d you expect?” Chas replied, coming down the hall.
“No, English English.” She turned to Chas in the doorway and gave him a silent look that she hoped said, This guy’s just a little too weird, Chas.
The cat purred ceaselessly, rubbing its head against the man’s neck.
Kassandra felt a little more confident now that Chas was in the room with her and she said, “So, is this the big thing in England? To, like, get blotto-faced, then fling yourself through plate glass?”
He turned away from her as if she hadn’t spoken and scanned the room with interest. He focused on a scattered stack of magazines in the corner, went to it quickly, and picked up a copy of the L.A. Weekly. After looking at the cover a moment, he pulled the magazine close to his face, squinting at something. Moving toward her, pointing to the date on the cover, he said, “Could this . . . somehow . . . be the year?”
To Chas, Kassandra whispered, “See? Get the idea he stayed in the sixties a little too long?”
“Three . . . centuries,” the stranger breathed.
Kassandra took the man’s arm and led him to the bed, plucking the magazine from his hand. When he sat on the bed, she picked up his feet and stretched him out. “Why don’t you just lie there and let the big gray Delco recharge, huh?”
The cat purred like a well-tuned sportscar on the man’s chest.
Kassandra went to her dresser and picked up the thumblocks, dangling them from her fingers.
“Your doo-hickies are right here when you want ’em, okay?” she said slowly, as if speaking to a sleepy child. As an afterthought, she took one more bracelet from her dresser—a shiny silver charm bracelet—and slipped it on her wrist, whispering to Chas as she left, “He’s creepy.” She’d meant it to sound funny, glib. But it didn’t. It sounded like she meant it very much because, of course, she did.
Chas followed her into the living room, where she swung her bag onto her shoulder.
“Glass guy coming?” she asked.
“That’s the rumor.”
“Look, Chas, I’ve got a few things to do before I go to work. Think maybe he’ll be gone by the time I get back?”
“I’ll drop him off at the mission on Sixth Street. It’s on my way to the shop.”
“You take good hint.”
“But I can at least fix him some breakfast. If, of course, that doesn’t offend your impersonal, self-centered, Reagan era sensibilities.”
Kassandra rolled her eyes as Chas hugged her and laughed.
“Have a good day, Kass.”
“Later days.” She started for the door, but something made her stop and turn back to Chas.
He was still smiling; there was such kindness in his face, such goodness. She still thought it was stupid to take in a stranger—especially this one, who seemed to be more of a risk than most—but she wished, secretly, that she had it in her to do the same. She stepped forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Look, Chas, be careful, okay? I mean, don’t hesitate to call somebody if this guy . . . you know, gets wonky. Wonkier.” She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it; a lump of worry grew in her chest. “Just don’t make him one of your famous grab bag omelettes, okay? Or we’ll never get rid of him.”
Then she left Chas with just one last kiss . . .
Chas approached the task of making an omelette the way a good sculptor approached a block of granite; he put whatever looked good in the refrigerator into a pile on the counter, then cut and chopped until he found the omelette inside.
Standing at the counter, chopping an onion with a fat, heavy chef’s knife, Chas heard the toilet flush again. That was the fourth time it had flushed since the stranger went into the bathroom. If it happened one more time, Chas decided he’d knock on the door and ask the guy if he was having some sort of problem.
He was probably weird and maybe Chas shouldn’t have taken him in, but he’d never had a problem with weird people before. A good turn, he’d found, usually got goodness in return, even from people not accustomed to giving it. He wished Kassandra would understand that.
She was still rough around the edges, but then, so was he at twenty. What bothered him was the fact Kassandra seemed to have no interest at all in improving herself. In anything, really, anything but the moment. Oh, there were things she considered important in her life, bu
t she seemed to get little more than a glimpse of their importance. Like her acting. She’d taken a few classes, but had never finished an entire acting course. She looked for parts—really looked around and pounded the pavement—but only in fits. She’d done a play in a small theater in the Valley, but it closed after the second performance; she shrugged it off, didn’t seem to mind at all.
Chas didn’t think she had no feelings, but neither did he think she was burying them. His theory was that she just hadn’t found them yet. Her life had moved along at a smooth and even pace; nothing had ever happened to make her realize there was more to life than paying the rent and having a good time. It would happen someday, he knew, and it would probably be very painful for her. But she would feel that pain, it would affect her. Most of all, it would make her grow.
Butter sizzled softly in the omelette pan on the stove and Chas turned down the heat, quickly whisking his eggs in a bowl and pouring them into the pan. He reached for a saltshaker to salt them, but it was empty, so he turned to the cupboard to get the carton—
—and blurted, “Oh!” when he came face to face with the stranger.
The man looked at him curiously, looked all around the room.
“Jeez,” Chas sighed, “you . . . scared me.”
He frowned into the pan on the burner. “Omelettes. Um . . . look. I’m heading out in a little while. I’ll give you—s’cuse me—” He stepped around the man and got the carton of salt from the cupboard. “I’ll give you a lift downtown, okay?”
When Chas turned around, he saw the man staring at the hand in which he held the salt.
“What? What’re you—oh, my ring?”
Putting the carton down, Chas held up his left hand and wriggled his little finger. On it, he wore an amber-stone pinky ring; inside the amber, a small scorpion curled its tail threateningly.
“I’m a Scorpio,” Chas said. “Well, I was. Don’t believe in astrology anymore.”
The man blinked, cocked his head. “No?”
His voice startled Chas and he hit the salt carton with his wrist, tipping it on its side.
Salt poured off the counter and onto the floor with a whisper.
“Shit,” Chas muttered, going to the small closet for a dustpan and whisk broom. “Uh, no, I don’t. Believe in astrology, I mean. It’s so . . . I don’t know, so sixties, you know?” He turned from the closet and saw the man staring at the salt anxiously, as if worried. “Hungry?”
He looked at Chas again, looked at his ring.
“There’s plenty here.”
The man was not interested.
Chas put his left hand on the cutting board as he bent down and swept the salt into the dustpan, which he held down with his foot and—
—shot upright again when the man touched his hand, fingered the ring gently.
“Look,” Chas said, “I’d let you try—” His mouth snapped shut with a wet clack when the man looked in his eyes.
Don’t hesitate to call somebody . . .
His eyes were . . . deep. The kind of deep that held dark things at the bottom . . . dark, soft, wet things that made no sounds when they moved.
“I’d . . . I’d let you . . . try it on, but . . .”
Don’t hesitate to call somebody . . .
“. . . I broke my little finger and now it’s pretty much . . . stuck.”
Chas bent down and began sweeping again. The eggs were beginning to smell as if they were on the verge of burning, but Chas ignored them for the moment because going to the stove would mean standing again and looking at him, and Chas didn’t want to do that just yet.
“Now there’s a story,” he continued, trying to sound jovial, friendly. “How I broke my finger, I mean. I was—” He glanced up and didn’t finish his story because it was falling on deaf ears: the man was still staring at the ring, his jaw shifting back and forth thoughtfully. “Um, did I hear Kassandra say something about England?”
Don’t hesitate to call . . .
“I was over there in eighty-six.”
Don’t hesitate . . .
“Did this package thing with some friends.”
. . . call . . .
“The whole trip included England, Wales, Scot—”
The man pounded something on the counter so hard that Chas’s hand jerked away and he stood and snapped, “Hey, what the hell’re you—”
—he’d spilled something, spilled juice, or something, all over the counter, something dark that would probably stain the wallpaper, and that made Chas angry—
—“Dammit, now why’d you do that, Jesus, I can’t believe some—”
—but what the hell was it doing on the wallpaper, where was it coming from and why was it—
—on his pant leg, soaked through already, warm and wet on his leg and he lifted his left hand and looked at it, just looked at it for a long moment, trying to understand it, trying to make sense of his hand because—
—his little finger was gone and in its place remained a small stump cut at an angle, squirting pencil thin streams of blood from the tissue around the small core of bone and he fell against the counter, head bowed above the cutting board where—
—his finger lay beside the chef’s knife, its ten-inch blade smeared with blood, but the finger wasn’t there long because—
—the man plucked it up between thumb and forefinger and backed the ring off and tossed the finger away and—
—Chas’s wide eyes followed it as it arced through the air, landed on the kitchen floor, and rolled away, leaving little trails of blood, coming to rest in a puddle of salt and—
—Chas moaned, “Oh . . . sweet Jesus . . .” as he felt the floor lurch beneath him and he grabbed the wrist of his left arm as if to steer his fall, which landed him on his ass, legs spread, holding his arm away from him as the finger stump fired off again and again like a child’s squirtgun—
—shooting at the man who stood over him, a black tower with a face, slipping Chas’s ring on his own little finger but—
—it was too small and—
—the man lifted the ring off and tried again, looking angry and—
—it was still too small and—
—Chas laughed.
It wasn’t a real laugh because Chas didn’t really find any of it funny, but the laugh came naturally, as if the brain, in the heat of the moment, had chosen its method of release a bit too hastily.
“Ha. Haaaaaah. Ha.”
The man looked down at him, frowning; his frown opened into a smile, a grin, and he held his hand out, rubbing the ring between his fingertips.
Chas’s laugh became a whimper beneath the man’s cold gaze and he squeezed his left wrist even harder, whispering, “Please . . . give it . . . back . . . give it . . . back . . .”
The ring danced between the man’s fingers and something began to rise slowly from his hand . . .
Smoke . . .
Tendrils of smoke crawled into the air as the man rubbed the ring faster and harder but—
—Chas didn’t care about the ring, it wasn’t the ring he wanted back, Chas wanted his finger because—
—it was gone, lying a few feet away on the floor and—
—the man tried the ring on again and—
—it fit.
Perfectly.
A small voice in Chas’s scrambled, frantic mind told him that something was not only wrong here, something was very very wrong here because that was impossible, wasn’t it? Impossible . . .
The man slowly lowered himself to one knee, his embracing grin never wavering.
Chas tried to find his voice—his speaking voice—among the screams and wails fighting to burst from his lungs.
“If you . . . i-if you’ll j-just go . . . I-I won’t tell . . . I pruh-promise . . . I won’t . . . t-tell . . .”
His voice faded to a breath until his mouth was working uselessly, making dry smacking noises.
The man’s eyes were soothing and so . . . deep . . . and Chas thought he would fall into t
hem, just tumble right in like Alice going down the rabbit hole and that was okay because he was beginning to feel so weak . . . so small . . .
Wrapping a hand around Chas’s left wrist, the man lifted the maimed hand toward his mouth and blood sprayed over his face. His smile opened—
—and his lips closed over the stump.
Chas made weak staccato sounds—
—“Uh-uh-uh-uuuhh . . .”—
—as the man’s tongue rolled over the meaty stub, scraped over the protruding bone, his eyes sparkling with smiles, and Chas’s cries grew louder because—
—something was burning his hand and smoke began to curl from the man’s lips, carrying the sickening odor of burning flesh—
—“No, no, please, what—what’re you—oh God, God—Jesus!”—
—and the man let go and Chas pulled his hand away, held it before him, and screamed because—
—the stump was a black smoking gob of charred meat.
Words poured from Chas’s mouth, senseless, garbled words uttered in a high child-like voice. He felt dizzy, began to sway, and would’ve fallen backward if the man didn’t grab his shoulder.
He leaned toward Chas slowly, smiling, eyes brimming with secret promises as he gently touched his mouth to Chas’s, silencing his words.
Chas protested at first, trying to shake his head and pull away, but a big strong hand came to rest on his jaw, the fingers reaching all the way past his ear and into his hair, the thumb stroking his skin as the man’s tongue flicked Chas’s lips . . .
Chas’s own thoughts were distant, the whispers of far away ghosts. This . . . isn’t . . . happening . . .
Tension left his body; his arms fell limply at his sides and he leaned back into the man’s solid hold. He didn’t want to, knew it wasn’t right, because this guy, well, this guy was about a hundred miles of bad road, but . . .
He couldn’t help himself.
The omelette hissed impatiently on the stove, billowing smoke . . .
The antique mantel clock Grandma had given Chas gonged once in the living room . . .
Grandma, Chas thought. Grand . . . ma . . .
He gave in to the kiss slowly—
—Maybe you two should get together, Kassandra had said—