“I'll do that.” And moved on my way.
Two hours later, and the bathroom mirror in Room 301, The Omni, etched with the little narcissisms we do ourselves before venturing out into new territory. The lobby door whispered to behind me, the charm and city lay before.
A-Dam on Uram was a beehive of activity, its tourism market in flowering array. I had been told it was a close replica of its mother city, and so it seemed to me, although I had never been to Terra's Amsterdam—which of course is off-limits now. What need, with the library of discs the travel agent had made available to me, with the memories of my grandfather, once stationed there, once in love with the place and its museums. Aesthetically anyway, Uram's copycat Mecca of tourism was exactly as I had imagined it—from the canals, the street lamps and the naughty window offerings right down to the expressions on the faces of the free-spirited mix of folk who thronged the place. All as advertised, all as remembered.
At least so far as my imagination could fit the pieces together.
I could not have known, for instance, precisely how a café would smell, with the smoky odors of its menu's herbal selections permeating the den's secret, moody confines. I could not have named the people glorified in its glass-protected antique posters, nor the artists whose eerie music bled from the boxes posted in no particular order about the hazy place.
No, I could only let my senses enhance the picture I had painted, and that to only a degree—then participation was required.
At my request, the recommendation. The recommendation, the substance lustre—as I had thought it might be.
Half of this corner of the galaxy recommended it. As such products went, this one had two distinct pluses. One, no harmful side effects; and two, the coming forth of who you really were. It was the second I was more interested in, although honestly I thought the whole thing a scam. I was more than a little suspicious of substance enhancers, especially when it came to their effect upon my identity. For if I wasn't who I thought I was, then why be me at all?
Who I thought I was, as it turned out, was still who I was—only without the static, the noise...the “clutter,” as my hippie friend at Receiving had put it.
When I requested my check, I happened to drop my fist against the rubbery surface of the table, and a cloud of fine dust, very strong in smell, rose from the spot.
Stepping out of the café, I took in the fresh air, mizzly though it was. The acridness I had noticed before seemed so slight now, after the smoky interiors of the café, that it was hardly detectable. And yet it was detectable, to my heightened senses, and catching it in my nostrils made me remember the words that had welcomed me to this place. Amusing myself as much as anything else, I did as the graffito had instructed. I paused to listen. But just as the surface distractions were beginning to fade into the background, a woman stepped up to me.
She was lovely and soft, luminous hair, crystal eyes, and all the melodious substance of my mood.
“Who are you?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “That is a good question.”
“Here...” she said, and placed in my hand a spongy object, a growth.
“What is this?” I asked.
“What isn't it,” she said rhetorically. She looked into my eyes as she spoke—which wouldn't have been a thing, of itself, except that we were both participants.
“So...”
“So?” she echoed.
“So why are your eyes so bright on such a dreary day?”
“Hush,” she said.
I did.
She watched me as I listened, and it seemed to me that she was listening, too, without trying, watching me.
As the noises of commercial A-Dam began to slip away, so did her command of me, that subtle, powerful effect of her as I stood before this woman, a victim of my senses.
“What is your name?” I reached, fearing I would lose her to the rising storm.
“Shhh. Listen.”
I did, and I heard.
She touched my ear.
I heard it whispering back.
“Where is it coming from?” I asked her.
“There.” She pointed at a sign. Its announcement spray-painted, so it appeared, and yet shivering in the awareness of itself.
“And there.” Another.
“There!” She pointed at the thing in my hand. I looked at it, was certain it had begun to move. I resisted the urge to toss it away, to let the image of it writhing in my palm overtake me.
“Thank you,” I said, handing it back to her, “but I have one of my own.”
She smiled. “My name is Sha.”
We walked along the crowded street, together, neither of us having invited the other, and the whole affair that was A-Dam on Uram stretching out before us like so much romance for the taking. We dodged bicycles, tossed coins to the colorful blankets of sidewalk musicians, amusedly declined the invitations of sprucely-dressed vendors and their often human wares. Together we visited another café, contributing to our certain lustre while enjoying the company of each other, without much talk, without much pressure, without the constraints of time or any of those other considerations that might stand out there in the way of pleasure and relaxation. We dined at a place called Spores, starting on sautéed mushrooms and moving on to a delicious something covered in mushroom sauce. We drank a bitter-tasting tea and desserted on a puffy “organic” bitter-tasting cake, and all the while loving it and complimenting the chef and laughing for the sheer joy of living the lustrous life.
When we were out among the busy sidewalks again, evening settling over the city, she pulled me to her with almost an urgency.
Whispering, “Where has the day gone?”
I couldn't tell her.
“Will we roam all night?”
“Wherever you wish.”
And somehow we were away from there, and in her place, the sheets and the overhead fluorescence. Her elegance and my newly discovered freedom...
She sat atop me, naked. And mathematics were too severe, physics too limiting.
“So...”
“So.”
“When my holiday is done...”
“We must return to our lives.”
“It doesn't have to be so final.”
After that first dialogue we had shared, strangers outside a café, I was never completely sure which one of us spoke, which one of us brought the thought to the surface.
“No, I suppose it doesn't.”
“Then...”
She lowered herself to me, letting her breasts, the necklace she wore fall against my chest. We embraced tightly—lovingly, I thought, as I knew I was taking her back with me.
And then she was sitting again, the pressure of her thighs against my legs, the terrible beauty of her nearly overwhelming me.
I touched her necklace, pieces of gray pulpy matter strung along a chain.
“We only bloom for a day, you know.”
“I know.”
And that was enough. If it was all, it was enough.
There were no special arrangements to be made. Visas were a dime a dozen in this place. She might as well have been from here as anyplace else, and I suspected she had been here a long time. I noticed as we boarded the ship that she carried with her the scent of the place. She was smoking before we had set off. The stewardess said it was a nonrestrictive flight, she even brought us a pipe, and a package of the scented combustible crystals that aided in the burning of the stuff. I shared part of Sha's necklace with her as we were lifting off. We brought no more. On the other side of the galaxy it was forbidden.
We arrived on Abar Seven as the sun was completing its cycle. A pin
kish glow possessed the northern skies, and the land was cast in a weird silvery-pink light. As we walked from the port toward the parking pad, I threw my arms wide, which was my way of welcoming my Sha to her new home. But she looked away to the north and the fading skies and said quietly, “Hush hush, little kitty...”
“We are not on Uram any longer,” I reminded her.
“Shhh...listen.”
I did as she bid, humoring her, thinking it would take some time to acclimatize her. At first I heard nothing, nothing unusual...then...
The whispering seemed to come from all around us, as though it had always been here, as though our arrival had nothing to do with it. I turned to Sha, who had fallen behind, and found her on the ground, on her knees, her arms failing her as she tried to reach out to me. Before my eyes she began to wilt, as from the strenuous task of living. The material of her, the flesh of her, becoming spongy, dry, brittle beneath the retreating eye of the day.
A Fixture on River Street
We had just come out of the Rumdog Café, feeling just about right, when Jamie drew our attention to the street musician on the next corner. The bright glint of his sax caught the eye first, then the man himself, black as the surrounding darkness, and every bit as ancient. The smell of the Mississippi was on the air, seeming to hover out here on the fringes, in accompaniment to the old man’s soulful song. The din and bustle of thumping River Street to our backs, we might have been on the brink of a ghostland.
Jamie’s first time to town, he was fascinated by the prospect of the lone jazz artist doing his thing in the soft light of an old-fashioned street lamp. They didn’t have such fixtures where he came from. Tina and I were amused by his excitement, but followed him for the beacon of innocence that he was, not to be left out if any cosmic secrets were revealed.
Spotting us, the old man put more passion into it, bleeding through his instrument, summoning the longings of the night. As we crossed to the glow seeming to radiate from the musician himself, we saw that he was barefoot. Between his feet rested a tip bowl with scarcely a dime in it. Jamie immediately plunged his hand in his pocket, finding to his satisfaction a whole fistful of coins, which he tossed into the bowl when we reached the curb. The man played on, with renewed intensity, his eyes closed as he expressed his gratitude in the one way he knew how.
Tina, to my surprise, produced a bill of some denomination and let it waft down into the bowl. The old man pretended not to be aware of it, but I knew he could see through his lids. Men with bowls between their feet always can. I backed up into the street as the wailing reached a painful pitch, but it proved to be the finale, taking what emotion had been called forth and warping it out of all context. Jazz. You wouldn’t know I loved it by my wince.
“Man, you are the shit!” touted Jamie, shaking the old man’s leathery hand.
“Where ya from?” the old man said in a gravelly voice.
“I’m from Knoxville. My friends here are from New Orleans. We’re in town for a convention. Record industry thing.”
“Good place for it.”
“That’s the truth.” Jamie’s fogged eyes seemed to catch another burst of revelation. “Man, do you do.”
The old man was used to the one-too-many sort, in fact seemed to appreciate Jamie’s straightforward way of expressing his appreciation. Revealing an incongruous collection of nicotine-stained teeth, he said, “I been doin’ it for a long time. Always comin’ back here, where they love to groove the most.”
“Good-looking instrument.”
“Old as dirt. One day I’ll be able to buy me a new one. It’ll do til then, though. Hell, it’s been doin’ since Bobby Bones was cookin’ up the blues on the corner. You’d be too young to remember him, I s’pose.”
I thought I vaguely remembered the name, from down around the Quarter, but I told him I couldn’t be sure.
“He was better known hereabouts,” said the old man.
“Bobby Bones played that very sax?” asked Tina.
He nodded, eyes seeming to slip back in time.
She said, “The Rumdog Café’d probably give you a new one for it. They’ve got jazz paraphernalia hanging all over the walls.”
“Nope. Gots to be on my terms,” he said. “Hangin’ it up like a museum piece is too damn final for my taste. I’d just as soon wait till I’ve collected enough pennies.” He looked down at the bowl. “Which ain’t gonna be too long with tips like that.” He offered Tina a yellow grin.
“But…” Jamie’s face had fallen under a shadow. He looked at the emptiness around us, down at the bowl. “Have you got nobody, Pops? Do you get by on tips?”
“No complaints, young man. I play my sax. I do my thang.” He leaned forward, conspiratorially. “On top o’ that, I got this other gig.”
The way he said it made us all want to know what. Licking his lips, he said, “For a five-spot apiece—‘ceptin’ you, young lady—I can take ya to see Bobby’s body.”
“His bod—are you kiddin’ me?” Jamie swayed on his feet, his body not up to its sudden reaction.
The old man waved his hand. “Never mind. It’s for kids anyway.”
“I’m a kid!” said Jamie. He turned to us. “How about you guys?”
Tina giggled. “A body? Sure, I’m a kid. What about you, Mark?”
Whatever Gramps was up to, I didn’t see that any harm could be done. He was too old to mug, maul or molest. I was in.
~
Having stashed away his money, he led us, saxophone like a torch in his hand, down dark city blocks to a walled place near the river. Though I’m rather young to have to visit them often, cemeteries have never bothered me much. Tina, on the other hand, was thrilled to the point of latching on to me—for which I silently thanked our guide. Overhead, stars pierced the urban pall, bringing some light to the places lamps did not reach.
But it was into the deepest, darkest hearts of the cemetery that he led us, an interwoven canopy over our heads challenging any and all illumination, the markers and resting places of the dead darkening to shadows within shadows. He brought us to an impressive tomb amidst these, producing a key which clinked on its ring in the mute night.
“How did you get a key?” Tina whispered.
The façade of the tomb was columned, and before its massive door was a sill wide enough to accommodate the four of us as the key was inserted.
“Bobby had no one but me,” said the old man. “His fans loved him enough that they paid for this beautiful tomb for him—he was truly a legend on River Street—but they were fans not family.”
The door opened inward. The stony silence enveloped us as we entered. Along one wall was a ledge on which lay an open, rather scarred saxophone case. As the old man placed the instrument in the case, our eyes wandered to the opposite side of the vault, where an ornate iron handle provided access to the body’s resting place.
“It’s scary as hell,” said Tina.
The old man held out his hand. Jamie and I produced the required fee.
Stuffing away the bills, he stepped over and grasped the handle. We stiffened for the worst as the drawer came open on its grinding runners.
It was empty.
All eyes fell on the saxophonist.
“One of these days I’m gonna have that brand-new sax,” he said. “And when I do, I plan to set River Street on fire all over again.” He tossed his key ring behind the instrument case.
Returning his attention to the void that had been revealed, he added, “I’d ‘preciate it if you’d close it behind me. And the door, too, as ya leave. It will lock on its own.”
And with that, he climbed with some clumsiness into his songless bed.
Mousse
Put a whole pile of mousse i
n my hair that evening. Best threads, packed wallet, Italian shoes. Gone hunting.
At the door, they took me at my style, waved me in ahead of the line. I felt the envy of the men like the spray of a flamethrower on my back. Fed on it. Took it for just what it was—inadequacy, weakness. I felt nothing from the women except the venomous greed slinging from their collagen-bloated lips onto their exposed, silicone-narrowed cleavage.
Stepped into the Spaceship, as I like to call it, with an air of supremacy. Whatever I said was the Word, whatever I did was the Example. Beneath the strobes, the globes, and the scent of perfume and smoke and sweat, all eyes were upon me. Come to me, they said. Oh let it be me.
I chose her for her delicateness, I chose her for her sass. I chose her for her fearlessness, I chose her for her ass. I chose her because she dripped superlatives. Because she was an exceptional wine. Because she was less impressed by me than the rest were. Because she thought herself my match.
“Are you a vampire?” she asked me.
“No.”
“A psycho killer?” she asked me.
“Now, now.”
“Do you find me alluring?”
“You appeal to my darker tastes.”
Red tongue, clear green eyes, the viper. “I would not wish myself upon any man.”
“Perhaps I am no man.”
“What then?” Pressing herself closer.
Let us dance, I intimated. Dance we did. Killed each other, killed the house with our moves. Carnage strewn about the place. Seemed the lady and I did not honor the fair spirit of competition. Go home.
Suggested it to her. Tongue appeared, disappeared again.
“Of course.”
“Are you a vampire?” I said.
A Dirge for the Temporal Page 17