Down Under
Carnival held on as tightly as he could.
The potted lilies kept swinging back at him, threatening to concuss his skull. The air reeked of manure and bull blood. The shock absorbing qualities of the wooden cart were dubious at best and put severely to test by the bouncing of a full team of slaughtered cattle.
Mario seemed entranced but it didn’t stop him from singing old Hungarian ballads. To make matters worse, Poppa sang along. It wasn’t a pretty sound. In fact it made Carnival yearn for the gentle fog horn crooning of Chollo and his tattoo show-tune medley.
“I should have known better to trust you with my safety,” Carnival shouted. “These things always happen when I let you drive.”
You don’t know the half of it, my son. Remember, I only give you what you ask for. You asked for a ride down to the waterfront and here you are.
Here he was. Down by the city’s waterfront. It was a good place to be, usually. There was always money down here. Tourists and the leisure crowd, their pockets jingling happily, here to get themselves a gust of the dirtiest fresh air you could imagine. The city pumped sewage into these waters. There were dollar bills swimming in the water and the sea gulls shriek like lunatic cash registers. Tourists and locals, wayfarers all. You could smell the silver jangling in their well sewn pockets.
Listen to the voice of the optimist. I remember when you worked down here. Just like the park. Your belly always growling, always keeping me awake.
Shapes moved in every shadow. People pushed their way down to the waterfront casino, eager to sacrifice their meager offerings to the gods of chance and despair. Half cooked hot dogs and greasy french fries. An old Korean stood in front of a propane barbecue, grilling skewers of marinated pork.
The tribes were all out. A thirty year old woman with hair the color of cotton candy peddled her handmade jewelry on a second hand car blanket. There were three tarot card readers sitting on the grass, eyeing each other like a pack of wary dogs.
Look. All your friends are here. Why don’t you socialize?
Carnival thought about saying hello but they’d just think he was trying to move in on their territory. A painter stood at his easel like Joan at the stake. A caricature artist squatted by his notepad and pencils, enjoying a slow cigarette. The wannabe gypsies were out tonight, and everybody was looking to make a buck.
What a bunch of busy beggars. You fit so well here.
“Save your breath to cool your soup, Poppa.”
A panhandler stood a soldier’s vigil in the sodium halo of a street light. His patter, worn so long, becomes a mumbled litany – gotanysparechangegotanyspare? Over and over, a dying mantra, like waves upon the rocks, beating over and over and over.
A pretty young girl, maybe sixteen, with eyes of fifty three and a tight black leather jacket and nearly matching pants stepped out of a shadowed doorway.
“Want a date?”
Carnival kept walking.
What are you thinking, boy? A woman offered herself to you.
“A hooker, Poppa. She just wanted money.”
A sensible girl offered herself to you and you keep walking. What are you doing? Searching for your vampire?
“I need to talk to someone, is all Poppa. I need to talk to someone large.”
Talk to your Poppa. He knows best. You should have brought that girl home for your Maya. At least ask for a business card. Maybe she had some pretty sisters.
Carnival moved past the crowds, down to the ocean where the waves spoke to the shore.
Fegh. It stinks down here.
“The city’s dumped its sewage into the harbor for the last couple of hundred years. It’s bound to stink.”
Don’t the politicians ever walk down here? Such a stink is bad for business.
“There’d been six studies and eight proposals and the current mayor has appointed an action planning committee. He’s assured the citizens and the media that there was a definite motion towards the construction of a water treatment plant.”
Ah, bureaucracy. Molasses uphill at its frozen finest.
Carnival took a step towards the shoreline, ordering his feet to do what they did best and guide his way down to the water.
Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.
Don’t stand so close to the water, boy. The waves will make you lonely.
The water moved against the rocks and the rotted piers and rusty anchor chains in a constant siege of erosion. This is where the rot began, down here in the city’s basement, where the trash got thrown.
Your room will start to smell this way, if you’re not careful, boy.
“I know Poppa.”
He didn’t like it down here. There was too much stink. All of the dead in the universe have washed up on these shores. All of the plastic flushed, the latex and sogged out tissues; all the dead babies and all the memories. All of the dead bodies drifting lonely circles and all the regrets.
Try not to think of Olaf. It’s bad luck to dwell too long on the dead. They grow on you, if you’re not careful.
“Thanks for your kind advice, Poppa.”
I’m not trying to be kind. Your thoughts are more depressing than bad elevator music. Try not to think of him down in that water. Rolling in a soft wet tomb. How much of him is left, I wonder. How much is still waiting.
“Poppa I don’t want to think about him. Not now.”
Careful, boy. The night has ears, and can hear your darkest fears.
Carnival moved farther down the waterfront, past the crowds and into the working areas. There’s an old warehouse, leaning against the edge of the water like drunken suicide. Boarded up windows and walls you can see through. Like the ghost of a memory. They’ll tear it down one of these days.
“Hermit?” Carnival called.
A voice echoed out of the shadows of the warehouse.
“It took you long enough to come.”
It was the hermit. Dressed the same way Carnival had seen him dress any other time. Carnival didn’t know if the hermit ever washed, or if he owned that many suits. Wrapped in black, with a long battered top hat, like a poor white Baron Samedi.
The man has class. A regular Fred Astaire. When was the last time you bathed, boy? You’re beginning to smell like the gift that the gift horse left behind.
The wind blew in from the water, chilling Carnival deeper than bone.
“You ain’t been eating enough,” The hermit said. “You’re shivering like a widow’s last D-cell battery.”
How he kept warm was a mystery to Carnival. Perhaps it was a tribute to the insulative capacity of dirt. Everything about the hermit was a bit of a mystery. He’s lived down here for as long as Carnival could remember. He was older than the warehouse, maybe older than the city. Time doesn’t hang anywhere close to the realm of the hermit.
“Come in to the shadow where it’s warm. We can talk in the darkness.”
Carnival shook his head.
“I didn’t come to talk to you old man. No insult intended. I came to talk to her.”
“Did you bring the price?”
Carnival held the bag of bottles out, the price for Benny’s revenge. The hermit took the bottles. There was magic in used items. People left traces of their existence, of their auras, of their very being upon the faded plastic.
“And the ticket?”
Carnival held another bottle out. A dead man’s bottle, Elija’s last, nothing left in it but kissing memory of all Elija’s aching want and need.
“I’ve brought it.”
The hermit took the bottle from the Gypsy’s hand. He stepped down onto the rocks and stood ankle deep in the water. It looked like a wave might sweep him out to sea. He brought the bottle down hard against a mossy rock. It was to be a street fight, between a man and the sea.
He dragged the broken edges of the bottle across the skin of the ocean.
And the waves began to bleed.
Chapter 52
Red Tide
The sea was full of bloo
d.
Why not? This is where we all go to die.
Poppa was right. The ash filled clouds rain us down upon it. We leap from bridges into it. Fall from ships and drown in sinking barges. We rot in the dirt and wash down to the endless green and black. Vikings burned and Indians drowned and lovers leaped and men pissed and spat their bitter memories from a thousand aching docks.
The sea is always thirsty. That’s why it tastes of salt. The sea is where we all begin and where we all must go. We touch it in our dreams and it vanishes like the slap of a mermaid’s fine frothy tail.
Carnival stepped into the water, accidentally stomping on the beached carcass of a small jellyfish. He felt a little guilty.
Guilt is for Gaijo. You were bigger than it was. Why not stomp?
Poppa was right. It felt good to stomp on those that can’t stomp back. The hermit hacked at the water, muttering the old words, scrying in the murky darkness. And the waters began to churn. Something pushed periscope like from out of the deep wet darkness.
Oh look, it’s Raymond Burr. Godzilla will be showing up, any time soon.
It was Olaf, looking like a mildewed moldy Detective Ironsides, still belted on to his office chair. To make matters worse, Poppa started to sing.
…should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind…
Olaf stared at Carnival, with a wet baleful glare.
…we’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne…
“So you’re the fuck that killed me,” Olaf said.
He sounds happy to see you. Do you always make such close immediate friends?
Olaf looked a lot worse for wear. There was seaweed and a couple of cranky crabs crawling through his mossed over hairline. Carnival could see a cluster of funky barnacles clumping beneath the man’s armpit. Carnival wondered briefly what antiperspirant tasted like.
“You killed me.” Olaf repeated. “You used a knife. Goddamn amateur.”
He’s dead right. In fact, he’s dead in every direction – right, left and straight up the middle.
“Yesterday’s Dow Jones,” Carnival answered. “There’s nothing to worry about it now. Death’s just another step in the dance, that’s something you’ve got to come to grips with. You might as well accept it.”
Carnival wondered if the dead man would buy any of that.
I sure wouldn’t.
“I’ve seen you, somewhere before,” Olaf said.
“I’ve got that kind of face.” Carnival told him.
“No. It’s not like that. It’s deeper than that. It’s like I’ve been lying down here dreaming about you. You and some woman. She’s got one of them Ouija boards, and a bright red pendulum.”
Ouija board? What would she do with a child’s toy like that?
“She’s looking for you, I think. Like she’s worried about you. Worried about what you’re getting set to do.”
Olaf looked up at Carnival, his eyes as sharp as rusted bayonets
“What do you want?” Olaf asked. “You sure as shit didn’t call me up to just say hello.”
“I want to use your body.”
That struck Olaf as pretty funny.
“Ha! You’ve used it plenty enough, haven’t you? You and that thirsty bitch. The one with the teeth. I remember her.”
He shook his head. Carnival thought it might fall off.
“She fucked me, that’s for sure. You and her both fucked the shit out of me.”
“I just need to use you for a while.”
Olaf laughed again. It wasn’t a pretty sound.
“Why should I let you? I want to kill you. Want to drown you. Want to stick my head down your throat and listen to you strangle on my rot. Why should I help you to do anything?”
“I can give you peace. Aren’t you tired of the dreams? Tired of listening to the waves and the crabs chewing on your skull meat?”
Ha. You have him there.
Olaf looked up sadly. “I never even cared for sea food, you know that?” he shook his head. “Do you just want to wear me for a while, is that it?”
Carnival nodded.
“I kind of like that,” he looked up. “All right. So what do I have to do?”
“Nothing,” Carnival said. “Just lean back and relax.”
Carnival leaned forward, reaching for the dead man’s mind.
Chapter 53
Repossession
It felt dirty and tight inside of Olaf’s soul as if Carnival was wearing a used condom for a necktie.
You call this tight? You ought to try living in someone’s chest. Compared to that, this is roomy.
“Thanks Poppa. Hearing somebody talk inside you while you were inside somebody else is a really entertaining experience.”
There you go again, Deja Voodoo. What goes around, comes around, posh rat.
What else could you expect from something so temporary? This was strictly just a rental like putting on a pair of rubber boots after going out to play in the water. It wasn’t comfortable in here. Carnival could see himself, could feel the aching gape of the knife hole in the wound that was left of his throat. He could see a woman, lying upon a bed, tied to it. He was standing over her…
“Now?” the hermit asked.
Carnival looked up at the old man out of Olaf’s eyes. The hermit was a stranger to these eyes but he’d always been, Carnival guessed. He knew him well enough, even inside of someone else’s spirit, he knew him well enough to ask him one more favor.
“Now,” Carnival said.
The hermit began to chant.
“Come avatar. Come city. Come concrete and brick-bone. Walls and halls and avenues, come tar, come pavement, come window glass and dream,” The hermit chanted.
And the red waters began to churn once more, like that part in the movie where the sea monster comes out onto the land.
Carnival stood there, in Olaf’s body, watching.
These were the moments that Carnival lived for. These moments when he could peel back the veneer of reality and have a peek at what hid inside. He wasn’t sure of why he was so damn hooked onto seeing what was really there. All that he knew was that the world, as it stood, was so deadly dull and boring without these fleeting opportunities to roll the dice of destiny.
Watch and see. It will happen just as I told you. Any minute Godzilla is going to clamber up out of those murky depths.
And then a minute later, that’s just how it happened.
Chapter 54
Getting Familiar with the City
The human body is like an atom. There’s the nucleus, and that’s important, but then there’s all that empty space moving around it, charged with spiritual ions whirling like dervish satellites. That’s what really counts. Never mind the thunder. It’s all of those uncountable fruitless raindrops beating down between the rumble and the roar.
That’s where the real action is.
That’s the spirit and everybody’s got one. Same as everybody’s got muscles but some of us look like Woody Allen while others resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger. It all depends on what you do with it. There are businessmen and politicians who never climb out of their money belts long enough to grow a spirit more comfortable than a rotted chunk of fungus. Then there are the people who learn to dance with life and their spirits know no boundaries.
Carnival figured his own spirit fell somewhere between the two. It was probably bigger than a bread loaf but not much larger than a Doberman Pinscher. It probably had a greenish tinge to it from all of the murky dealings he’d been in. Still, he had something in my spirit that most folks didn’t need to deal with.
He had a hitchhiker.
He had a hitchhiker and he was hitchhiking in Olaf.
The three of them.
Poppa, Olaf, and Carnival - and that woman tied to the bed.
She was in this somehow, too.
Tied into it.
Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub with a woman to scrub.
“Shut up, Poppa.”
&nb
sp; Aye, there’s the rub.
Every city has its own spirit, a sort of body politic, a cumulative creation of all the souls that have passed through its domain. When that many people fart and sweat and breath and curse there’s bound to be some kind of residue. And that residue is the city familiar - the Aggregate.
The city’s spirit lived down in the water because it was easier to hide. Not that it needed concealment. The average citizen couldn’t see the city spirit any more than they could make sense out of the latest census. No, it preferred the murkiness of the waters. It wrapped itself in ancient obituaries and the fog of forgotten legend.
Its actual being was no more substantial than your breath on a cold November morning, but to those who worked these long dark areas, like the hermit and Carnival, the city spirit was huge and all too visible. Some mornings Carnival could hear it from his bedroom window, howling like a wounded foghorn over some particularly tasty soul or a juicy one liner told to it by the Indian sea serpent that haunted the passage beneath the old city bridge. This was the city spirit. This was the Aggregate.
It reared up out of the water, long and wormlike, its skin the color of dirty concrete, eyes of window pane cracked with age and dangled with underwater cobwebs, yellowed eyes, like piss in snow, the color of moonshine over misery. A small colony of lamprey dangled from its scaly hide. A homeless bag lady clattered a shopping cart through its sinus cavities, sang midnight lullabies all day long. They were nothing more than parasites. Fleas and heat rashes and memory stains.
No one could escape such irritations. Not even a god.
Carnival saw the tiny bourbon bottle like a miniscule tick, nestled in the great beast’s lips. The city spirit loves its booze. You would too if your veins were haunted with the memories of all those souls that had lived and died within your walls for the last two centuries. You heard them shuffling, like blind drones, still walking the long streets and avenues that accomplished the great beast’s form. They were all in there, all of the Olaf’s and Sally’s and nameless pizza boys. An acre of regret crammed into a matchbox.
And then it noticed Carnival/Olaf. Perched like a lonely widow on a lonely widow’s walk, still belted tight to that ridiculous gutted office chair, feeling about as secure as Woody Allen’s last conviction.
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