Wilde Stories 2018

by Steve Berman

  I stare at my sent message for who knows how long. People start to line up for the bus to New York and I join them.

  Every city has its own tempo. New York City’s is allegro. It is so easy to become one with the crowds on the sidewalks of Manhattan. In short, swift steps, I dodge and weave around the pedestrians, a Quickstep against the Mambo of the city. I don’t know why I’m in such a hurry. When I get to City Center, Thom won’t be there. His empty seat next to mine is going to be this visible reminder of the gaping maw in my life. Maybe I’m rushing to that doom because almost no one ever produces The Golden Apple, a folk opera re-telling of The Iliad and The Odyssey re-set to the turn of twentieth-century America. I can easily die before I have another chance to see it.

  The usher hands me a program then points me to my seat. It’s empty, which is good. A broad, solid, ostentatiously grizzled man is in the seat next to mine, which is not. I recognize him instantly. There’s a hard elegance to him that’s obvious even when he’s seated a dozen feet away. The person behind me in line has to push at my back before I stumble down the aisle. The remaining steps to my seat feel like city blocks. Falling out of helicopter then charging into building to face the unknown was easier.

  Thom smiles at me. Not a “well, how awkward is this?” smile but the real thing. If he keeps it up, this concert production won’t be able to go on because the house will be too bright. He doesn’t offer me a hug and I’m too scared he’ll refuse to spread my arms to ask for one. I just take the seat next to his.

  “Charlie,” He lays his hand over mine on the arm rest. A thick vein arcs down the length of his bulging biceps. “Why can’t it be—”

  “Are we quoting Sondheim at each other now?” I let out a long breath. “Not a blessèd day—How’s…”

  I have no idea who he’s dating now. It’s been months since we last talked. He rolls his eyes.

  “It’s still Aaron.” He shrugs. “I’m tired of relationships measured in hours. I tend to bug out the instant anything doesn’t go my way and I should stop doing that. Honestly, I’m even not sure I like Aaron, but I have no good reason to leave. If I have to be in a long-term relationship, it might as well be with him.”

  “I don’t think I’d appreciate that if I were Aaron.”

  “You’re not Aaron.” He gaze narrows. “Charlie, have you grown?”

  The program is now this tightly wound, twisted stick in my hand. I’ve squeezed it so hard as we were talking, its pages are now crinkled and tattered. Slowly, I force my hand open and the program falls into my lap.

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean…” I take deep breath. “It’s an optical illusion. More muscle. Less fat. I’m actually three-eighths of a pound lighter—Thom, why are you here? We both know where I’m headed. Did you want to see The Golden Apple that badly?”

  “Well, that, too. But the world is round, Ulysses.” His hand squeezes mine. “You wander far enough away and you’ll find yourself coming home instead. Someone needs to yell at you when you get back and to make sure there’s still a home to wander back to. Not in that order.”

  “Oh, I see.” Actually, I have no idea what he means, but I wonder at his faith in me.

  “Nothing lasts, you know. A handsome face. A muscular body. It all goes away eventually. As they say, even the Rockies’ll crumble and Gibraltar’ll tumble.”

  “Yeah, but they’re made of clay.” My hand pats his implacable upper arm, which gives as easily as marble. “Probably not a face or body, but maybe some things are here to stay.”

  “That’s not how the Gershwin goes.”

  My hand slides down to cover his on the arm rest. I want to feel a shock, as though his faith that I’ll eventually come around is enough to jolt me into strength and bravery. Life isn’t that simple though. His hand doesn’t turn to clasp mine, but it doesn’t pull away either.

  “Hey, it’s not like you got the quote right either.” His hand is tight around the armrest and I lace my fingers between his. The tendons in his fingers give a little. “You know, it’d be easier for both of us you if pretended that I’m already dead.”

  “Yeah, if I could, it would be.” He shrugs and smiles.

  The house lights go down. The stage lights and curtain go up. The conductor walks onto the stage to the applause of the crowd. He raises his hands. The applause ends and the overture starts.

  SALAMANDER SIX-GUNS

  MARTIN CAHILL

  He descended on the town like a saint sent from Dark Heaven, six-guns shining like twin torches in his hands, down to the border where we had our battle on. Summers are always the worst in Sunblooder’s Stand, as the scale-folk grow riled earlier in the bright days.

  We’d been fighting the scale-folk off for an hour when the stranger threw himself into the fray. One moment I was shoving a pitchfork into the belly of a croc-man, and next I knew, the flashing of the stranger’s salamanders blinded me, sea-foam flame belching hot lead as natural as rainfall. He danced between us sunblooders like a phantom. Not a one of us knew who he was, but when help arrives, you don’t ask from whence it came. He helped us drive back the line, the gator-kin and the croc-men screeching, the snake-touched and the iggies squirming; their shattered teeth and scorched scales left behind in the swamp as they dove into the murky water and made for the heart of their Scaled Nation.

  Many of the towns inland would have taken to whooping and celebrating, but the thirty or so sunblooders on the swampy shore only sighed with temporary relief; here, at the fringe of civilization, the scale-folk were as consistent as the sunset.

  The mystery man made a show of looking over each dead scale-folk at his feet, before turning his spring-green eyes on me. He had scars across his face and throat, pale against his dark skin, but I didn’t bat an eye; anyone hugging the coast ended up with a souvenir sooner or later. Holstering his salamanders, which hissed and spat like grease on a skillet, he put his hands on his hips, and said, “Looks like y’all could use some help around here,” his voice singing like a rusty six-stringer.

  Something sour settled into the back of my throat, and I spat into the mud. Plenty of fancy folk had come through the town of Sunblooder’s Stand, hoping to make a name for themselves in the last living border town abutting the Scaled Nation. Plenty of other folks had drawn inland, away from the diseased coast of swampwater where creatures became people and hunted us normals like food, but not us. Some said it was the stubborn nature of those in the South, but I’d like to think it was a certain amount of sick pride, too; when you got good at protecting your home, you didn’t give it up easy for the illusion of safer ground.

  I wiped my hair out of my eyes, too long again and as red as my name, and fixed him with the look I gave every stranger with boots that shone too much. “We been doing fine without you, stranger. Reckon we’ll be just as fine with you.”

  He smirked, and I knew I disliked him, like a fish knows it hates the sky. “Sugar,” he said, “You’ll be finer than you ever been with me around.”

  My hands curled into fists, and I bit down the urge to snarl. “Sugar is for horses, stranger. You call me Copper or you call me nothing.”

  The volume of my vitriol took him by surprise. After a moment’s consideration, he took his hat off, and crinkled his fingers around its edges like all the children do with their songbooks come High Dark. “Begging forgiveness, Copper, sir. A man travels a lonely, dangerous road for a long time, and well, he tends to leave his manners at every crossroad, waystone and mile marker he puts behind him, if it means he lives a little longer. Coming back to society, I’ve neglected to bring my manners along with me.”

  I saw the other sunblooders looking for my reaction. Ever since Momma took a claw to the gut and got sent to the bottom of the swamp, they watched for her leadership in me. So I snorted, and stabbed a finger in his direction. “Gather ’em up quick then, stranger, or you’re no better than the scale-folk, understand?”

  He looked like I’d slapped him. Figured I’d hit him where his prid
e lived, but after helping us, I supposed he didn’t deserve all scorn and no sweet. I scratched the back of my head. “Manners or none, you did us a good service today. If you could help bring back the wounded, might be a bed you could hunker down in for the night, but I can’t make any promises.”

  He smiled, bowed at the waist, called me sir again, and began to gather up the injured. Saw him carry Old Kearney back, singing “Take Me Down To Starry Town,” to keep the poor fool’s mind from his missing leg; a clean rip was better than a bloody bite. One bite, and you may as well sink into the swamp or blow your brains out.

  Walking back, we cleaned our weapons with rags, and began to murmur amongst ourselves. I watched him go, this stranger, watched him smile and laugh in a cluster of shocked, scared people, and found myself even more distrustful of him. What right had he to smile so? Easy enough for a stranger to pick up such habits inland, away from the Scaled Nation and the cancerous holes in the sky that hovered over the coast. But bringing those habits right to the edge of civilization, mocking the people who lived there without a second thought? Made me uneasy.

  But I tried, I really did. I tried not to judge too quickly, tried to be the best person I could under the eyes of Shadow Matron, shades keep her. A person is made of nothing but show and bluster, a hurricane wrapped in a shirt and pants, and sooner or later, they’ll blow themselves apart, or quiet down. I had to wait and see what this man would do.

  Except he walked into my town like he’d lived there all his life, and I felt like the only one who remembered he’d only shown up an hour before. The people of Sunblooder’s Stand were fascinated with him, his Northern drawl, his green eyes, the way his black coat seemed to bend the light; he seemed to be a long-lost relative, not a random gun newly arrived. Only thing he didn’t seem to show off was the fancy silver chain around his neck, but I figured he was saving that for a rainy day.

  He sauntered around town like a rooster, clucking and crowing at every person who fawned over him. Bunch of bright-eyed toad-lickers, to be taken in, to not see him for the threat he was. I fumed to see him chat up every man, woman, and child he happened to walk by. Respect had to be earned, and they were just giving it to him. Looking back, I can see why I fumed so: took me years to gain the same level of respect, and here he was doing it as easy as breathing. Not my proudest moment, no.

  Come New Dark, as the sun slipped beneath the world, he smoked scales, the air burning magenta, steel, emerald, depending on the variety stuffed into the pipe. Children gathered around him, asking for stories from the safe world, and he delivered. Four people offered their homes to him, and before I knew it, he was a stranger no longer. The Mayor was here to stay, it seemed, and some furious and hurt part of me settled to the bottom of my heart like a stone in the sea.

  Ah, right. His name.

  A week or so after his arrival, folks started calling him Mayor. I said to them, “We didn’t have a mayor before, why we need one now? Even Momma didn’t have such a title and you all looked to her like she was Shadow Matron come High Dark to bless!”

  People shrugged with moony eyes, and glanced at him, sitting on the barstool, talking and talking and talking, like words were water and these people hadn’t been rained on in quite some time.

  So they named him Mayor. What was his name before? Doesn’t matter, I don’t think; he slid into the role like a knife into a heart. It fit him.

  He tricked the town into loving him, and not a one of them could see the strings he was pulling within them. Day after day, he taught them that the scale-folk were nothing to be afraid of. He’d lay his supernatural six-guns into the coals of fires to warm their guts, tell stories over their crackling, stories that gave every sunblooder a sense that there was more to life than survival. There was another world out there, he said, one free of scale-folk, where a body could live a day doing whatever they wanted, not always having to rush into battle come the clarion call of the bell.

  He was going to get everyone killed. Every single person who drank in his poisonous stories became a little less cautious, a little more reckless. He was inspiring them at the wrong angle. The truth was, there’s no part of the world that’s safe anymore; only lands that the swampwater hasn’t touched yet.

  It finally hit him when Fennel got his throat ripped out by a pyth-person, on account of he was too busy singing “Guts, Gators, and Glory” to notice the alabaster fangs snapping for his throat.

  The Mayor had taught him the song the night before, said how it would lull a new baby to sleep in a moment. The young lad had blushed, his wedding band bright and clean, and the Mayor had roared with joy to see his cheeks redden.

  It was the Mayor that put a bullet through Fennel’s brain. If it was because of the snake poison that swept through his blood, or the scales that had begun to boil down his neck, I never found out. Mayor carried him home, silent like the sea.

  No more songs were sung at the border after that day.

  But no matter who fell, the Mayor was loved and I found myself alone. They’d trail after him, asking about this song or that, and everywhere they went, in the opposite direction I’d go, dragging along a bottle of whiskey, swallowing shots like bitter medicine. The town didn’t ignore me, but they didn’t love me like they loved him and it hurt like the oldest wound known to this world.

  He tried to include me, invited me to meetings, to drinks at the saloon, but every time I saw that damned smirk of his, I hated him a little more, even if I didn’t want to; it had been nearly a whole month of bluster, and it pushed me to an edge I didn’t think I’d see again.

  And if I said it didn’t bother me, would you forgive me for lying? After Momma died and Da ran, taking up the town was the only thing that let me ignore the pain in my gut, made feel important, loved even. Mayor had taken that from me, taken them all from me, and now I couldn’t do anything but sit beneath the stars and scratch at that terrible itch in my heart.

  I went looking for him one night, and I had been at the bottle a little more than usual when I shoved him. He fell back against the wooden fence atop the only grassy knoll in town; folks said you could see clear to Coaltown from there. His six-guns were sitting in the dying embers of a fire, drinking their fill, some scale-folk magic in their hot hearts lapping up the heat.

  He adjusted his coat, and coughed. “Something on your mind, Copper?”

  I felt the whiskey in my blood urging me to say something mean, something that’d cut him down. But I was still my Momma’s son and I wouldn’t let liquor get the best of my decorum. “Just expressing my feelings as to your new position within the Stand, Mr. Mayor.” Was there venom in my voice? Aye, a little.

  He took it all with grace, though. “Told Duncan to quit it with that damn title, but that boy has a mouth bigger than a full-grown croc, and twice as loud.” He looked back at me, must have seen something that made him stoop a little lower, pull the collar of his coat up. “Right sorry, Copper. Didn’t mean to take anything away from you. This is your town, and I have no right to be making calls on it.”

  A wind cut through me, the wet of the swamplands settling into my bones, the night chill making me hold myself, the bottle dangling limp in my hand; relief and paranoia warred within me at his words. “Why are you here anyway, Mayor? What’s a body to find in the Stand but death? We don’t leave because there’s nowhere in this world we can go. Too many of us are poor, and lack in all things but heart; what else is out there in the safe world for us? That’s our excuse, weak as it is. So what in the Bright Hell is yours?”

  He pulled out his pipe, nestled a fresh ball of tobacco and scales into the end of it, and lit it with a salamander shell, tamping its metallic end down until it caught. “Looking for someone.”

  The way his voice went frosty, the way his eyes cast down into the swamplands with a searing heat, made me take a step closer to him. He was reeling me in, telling another of his damn stories, and I fought hard to shake off its magic. “If you got business here, let us help so you can
be on with it. You’ve been tearing through scale-folk for a month, but never once ask for anything in return. Let this be it. Let us get you what you need and get you out of this nightmare. You came here by choice, and you can make the choice to leave, too.”

  He took a long drag. The smoky, flesh-like stench of the scales burning in his pipe filled my nose, made me feel drunker than I was. To smoke of the scale-folk was said to be elixir before it killed you. How long had he been at it?

  He huffed out a noxious cloud smoke, red at the edges, and smiled through its dissipation. “Kind offer of you. But what business I got would get a body killed for its doing. And I’m not the kind of man to throw people on the Red Coal Trail, just so I have something cool to walk over on my way to Bright Hell.” He smirked with sad eyes. “But as I said, mighty kind of you.”

  I threw my fist into his side, the cold in my gut making way for the red-hot rage I loved so. “Toads take you! Don’t go playing that card, Mayor. I’ve heard enough dramas on the crank to know a foolish line when I hear it. You’ve been giving and giving to this town without a single receipt for bullets. You’re aiming for something and I want to know what it is!”

  I wasn’t backing down. I wouldn’t let this town become beholden to the stranger in the dark coat with pistols of flame and a past that swallowed him like thorns. This close, he smelled like dying fires and hot lead. His eyes shone through the red smoke like evergreens bowing beneath a volcano’s weeping.

  And if our lips were only inches apart, wasn’t it because I was trying to shout through the scent of him? If I was lonely and a little out of touch with the world, wasn’t that to blame on the whiskey in my blood and the scale-smoke in my nose and Momma passing without a goodbye and Da leaving me to die and my lovers packing up in the night, afraid of being singed by the hurt in my heart?