by Harvey Click
A sign behind the bar said, “Smooth the descent and easy is The Way.” Underneath the sentence was the name Virgil, and he wondered if that was the bartender’s name. He was halfway through his second double scotch when he felt Kyra’s hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve got a table in the corner,” she said. “Maybe you’d like to join me.”
The table was so small that one of his knees bumped hers, and something like electric current shot up his leg to his brain. Her long black hair was nothing like Rue’s—it was softly kinky and some of it was done up in tight braids with colorful beads that caught his eyes like fishing lures. Her eyes were like deep wells of sweet mystery, so delicious he didn’t dare look at them.
A waiter appeared as soon as they sat down. “Drambuie for me,” Kyra said.
“Single-malt scotch, and I don’t want no ice or water in it,” Jason said. “Make that a double.” He gulped down the rest of his whisky and handed the glass to the waiter.
“How do you like the place?” Kyra asked.
“It’s nice. Yep, it’s real nice.”
“Tell me about yourself, Jason. What do you do?
“I’m a musician. I had me a band back home, but the others couldn’t play good ‘nough to suit me so I come here to find me some good players.”
“What do you play?”
“Guitar. I know lots of chords, I can play that song they’re playing up there better than they can. Gimme a guitar and I can make it talk. You ever hear a some guy named Jimi Hendrix? Folks say I sound just like him.”
The waiter was already back with their drinks, and Jason swallowed half of his in one gulp. He knew it was a mistake to drink so much on an empty stomach, especially after smoking a joint, but the beautiful woman sitting across from him was making him nervous, and he swallowed the rest in a second gulp.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Oh, all ‘round I reckon. I been all ‘round and seen it all. San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, all them civilized places, you name it. I seen most a the country, museums and national parks and whatnot.”
Kyra smiled at him, and her beautiful full lips and sparkling teeth made him feel ridiculous despite the alcohol. He tried to smile back, but his mouth twitched into some odd shape he knew looked stupid. He couldn’t bear sitting there looking foolish any longer, so he excused himself to go to the bathroom.
When he stood he was so dizzy he had to grab the back of his chair to keep from falling. Kyra asked if he was okay, and his mouth twitched into another stupid shape.
“I’m feeling good, thank you,” he said. “I’m feeling real good.”
He managed a few lurching step in the general direction of the bathroom before he lost his balance and fell against a table where an elegantly dressed black couple was seated. A tall glass of beer leaped off the table and landed in the woman’s lap. She jumped up cursing and swatting foam off her expensive blue dress, which was soaked from bodice to hem.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m real sorry, I’ll buy you another beer,” he jabbered.
He grabbed a napkin from the table and was trying to dab some of the beer from her midriff when the woman’s date punched him hard in the gut, instantly causing Jason to vomit on the woman. He fell to his knees and vomited some more on the floor and then collapsed face-down in the puddle.
Part Four
Lovebirds
Chapter Ten
Jason awoke on a sofa in a strange apartment. His pounding head felt twice as big as it should, and his stomach churned like a washing machine full of Drano. It took some time before he was able to focus his throbbing eyes well enough to see Kyra sitting at the table in a little dining area beyond the living room where he lay. She was sipping coffee and reading a newspaper.
When he sat up, he saw that under his thin blanket he was wearing nothing but socks and sweaty underwear. Kyra noticed him stirring and said, “Your clothes are in the bathroom. I wiped them off a bit, but they’re still a mess. You’ll have to get them cleaned before tonight.”
Her words triggered a dim recollection of puking all over some woman’s dress, and the wretched memory made him feel so sick he was afraid he was going to vomit again, this time all over Kyra’s carpet. Wrapping the blanket around himself, he tottered to his feet and hurried to where he hoped the bathroom was. Fortunately he found the right room and made it to the toilet just in time to unload the fiery contents of his stomach.
He hadn’t had time to shut the bathroom door and was dismayed to see Kyra standing in the doorway holding a towel. “You’d better have a shower while you’re in there,” she said. “You need it.”
The hot water made him feel a little better, but not much. He used Kyra’s comb to slick back his hair, but he still looked dreadful, eyes bloodshot and his face so puffy it looked as if he’d been stung by bees. His shirt and suit were hanging in the bathroom, the stained shirtfront and jacket lapels still reeking of vomit when he held them to his nose.
He dressed but for a while couldn’t muster the courage to leave the bathroom. He found the vial of love potion in his jacket pocket and lavished some of it on his face, but he doubted it would do much good. It was bad enough to have made such a fool of himself, but to have made such a fool of himself in front of the beautiful woman with buckwheat-honey skin was horrendous. His head pounded with agony as he imagined what she must think of him now.
But surprisingly she smiled when he finally found the courage to meet her in the dinette. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“Pretty good I guess.”
“I’ve got coffee and sweet rolls if you want some.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She brought them and he sat down and munched a cinnamon roll, hoping it would stay down. She was wearing a short pink bathrobe and slinky pink pajamas beneath it, and he couldn’t help stealing glances when he thought she wasn’t looking. She didn’t have any makeup on yet, and he thought she looked even prettier without it. Her eyes were like nothing he’d ever seen, so dark and mysterious, and her skin looked smooth and flawless.
“I don’t rightly remember getting here,” he said at last.
“You weren’t quite able to walk,” she said. “I had to ask the doorman to help you up here and undress you. I’m afraid he wasn’t very happy about it. His plan was to throw you in the dumpster.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t a drank so much on an empty stomach.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it empty,” she said.
He looked away and forced down the rest of his roll.
But Kyra’s voice was soft and friendly despite everything, and she kept giving him that sweet smile whenever he looked up from his coffee, and he started thinking there were plenty of women a lot prettier than Holly and a hell of a lot nicer too. In fact, that scrawny twerp Cosmo was welcome to keep her for all he cared. If Kyra could be so nice to him after he’d made a fool of himself, then apparently Drew’s love potion was working on her after all, that and the spell he’d performed in Rue’s bathtub.
It was amazing what magic could do.
He imagined what it would be like being her lover, maybe even her husband. His friends back home probably wouldn’t approve, owing to her color, but he would set a high moral example for them and shame them into realizing that to a man of the world racism was backward and ignorant.
She probably wouldn’t want to live in Glum Fork, so he imagined them sitting here in their pleasant little apartment having breakfast every morning while she smiled sweetly and they chatted cheerfully about their plans and dreams. Maybe one day they’d want to go to the zoo and another day they’d just want to stroll around in a park.
Of course it would take more than a small splash of love potion to win her heart permanently, and he decided he’d offer Drew whatever he wanted to cook up a huge batch of it and cast another powerful spell as well.
He wondered what would happen next. Would she allow him to hang around here all day to recuperate, maybe ta
ke his clothes to the cleaners for him and then come back with some Big Macs for lunch? Maybe if he smeared the rest of the potion onto his face and under his armpits, maybe then she would take him into her bedroom and—
But she interrupted his thoughts by saying, “There’s a bus stop just a couple blocks away.”
Jason knew nothing about buses, so she had to tell him how much the fare was and how he could transfer to the High Street bus. It was clear she was eager for him to leave, despite her sweet smile, so he gulped down the rest of his coffee and got up.
“Just one thing,” she said as he was stepping out the door. “When you show up tonight at six o’clock, your suit’s going to be clean and you’re going to be perfectly sober.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said.
Her apartment was above The Way, and when he got to the sidewalk he admired the club’s colorful sign with a certain degree of pride. He had been in this city for just two days and already he’d landed a job at a ritzy joint and had attracted the interest of two women, one of them maybe a bit too interested and the other maybe not quite interested enough, but in another day or two who could say what might happen?
During the whole bus ride he kept trying to think of a plan to make Drew do what he wanted, but his head was pounding like a drum and no clear plan emerged. He knew Drew would be upset if he came right out and asked for a new love spell, but maybe if he worked up to it slowly by telling him what Mingo had said about Rue, then he could argue that he needed protection from Rue and then maybe somehow he could work Kyra in as some sort of necessary part of the protection, but when he tried to think of why she would be necessary his head pounded even harder.
He got off the bus just a block from Drew’s street and kept working on his plan as he walked the rest of the way, but couldn’t make it add up to anything he thought Drew would buy.
When he arrived at the apartment, he stood at the front door and listened to Drew speaking inside: “Getting fond. Sit for eighteen years and your brains go to your ass. Fondness makes the heart grow distant. Why does this strange tempest come now, of all times, stirring up all these old miseries like dead leaves spinning in the wind? Everything’s topsy-turvy and inside-out.
“Must record my dream. A man is lying face-down on a hospital bed. The back of his skull has been removed and the rear third of his brain is gone; the tissue is raw and bloody. The doctor can be seen doing something, but before you can make out what it is you realize that his face is demonic—he’s some sort of satanic creature performing an evil experiment on the patient.
“The surgery door opens and a young woman enters. She has long golden hair and pale blue eyes, and though she looks very much like Marma she isn’t. She’s younger and a bit different in her features, very attractive but not quite so beautiful.
“Now it becomes apparent that the mutilated man is conscious—he turns his face to the girl and motions for her to leave, but she ignores him. He moves his lips desperately, trying to warn her of something, but he’s unable to form words.
“The scene shifts, and at this moment you stop being an observer and become the man. Now you’re out of the hospital with an egg-shaped head and expanded brain capacity. With your experimental brain, you should be smarter than everyone else, but you have bad headaches, you feel confused and stupid, and your neighbors believe you’re insane. They surround your apartment with pitchforks and torches, like villagers in an old horror movie.
“You flee with the young woman, who is your long-lost daughter. You’d never seen her before she found you in the hospital, but now she’s the apple of your eye, and your feelings for her are strange and confusing. For some reason she bashes your fragile egg-shaped head with a small…china figurine and puts a deep dent in your artificial skull. Your headaches worsen, your head begins to ring like a telephone, and you hear nonsensical words when no one speaks. You want her to travel south with you, where you believe the fresh air in the hills will cure your brain, but she tells you she can’t go, she’s going to be married, and you have a tearful parting.”
Jason heard a click as the tape recorder was shut off. He crept down the steps to the sidewalk, and then returned noisily, coughing and clearing his throat before he knocked.
“It’s nearly noon and I specified ten o’clock,” Drew grumbled before he’d even opened the door. When it was open, he stared at Jason and said, “My God, where on earth did you get that preposterous outfit?”
“Mingo give it to me. He wants me to work for him ‘cause he wants to get me outta Rue’s clutches. He says I’m in terrible danger with that woman.”
Jason plopped into the old armchair and told Drew everything Mingo had said, embellishing just a bit here and there.
“Good lord,” Drew said when he was finished. “I’ve known Rue Anne for seven years, and I don’t believe a single word of this. I know Jerry Mingler, and I’ll call him today and get this nonsense straightened out. By the way, she left something for you this morning.”
“Rue was here? I guess she was mad I wasn’t home…um, I mean at her place?”
“No, she wasn’t angry,” Drew said. “I’d say she was concerned, concerned about your erratic and rude behavior.”
He picked up a manila envelope from his coffee table and handed it to Jason. “What’s that on your lapel?” he asked.
Jason glanced down. “I don’t know. Puke I guess.”
Drew scooted his wheelchair away hastily and rotated his shoulders with distaste.
“I won’t ask how it got there,” he said. “Rue Anne said the message is for your eyes only, but if you want me to be your advisor I expect you’ll tell me exactly what it says.”
The sealed envelope was marked “PERSONAL” on front and seemed to have something spongy inside.
“If she come here looking for me, then it proves I’m in danger,” Jason said. “Mingo said if she finds me I’ll disappear into thin air. Maybe you can help me, I’m thinking maybe I need some new kinda spell.”
“My dear boy, I assure you you’re in no danger whatsoever. Rue Anne is nothing like what Jerry Mingler said. She’s actually quite a kind and sensitive woman, once you get to know her. But enough of this, I have some major news. Jason, my spell has worked!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that your sweet princess Holly called me this morning. She’s had a change of heart and wants to see you.”
“Holly? How’d she get your number?”
“Why, you gave her father my flier, don’t you remember?”
“Maybe I did,” Jason said sullenly, “but I’m not so sure I want to see her right now. Mr. Drew, the truth of the matter is, I’m in love with another.”
Drew’s arms began to flap like duck wings. He seized the rims of his wheels and scooted across the room like lightning into the kitchen. A moment later he whizzed back out, his round face scarlet with anger.
“Don’t tell me your lurid tales!” he shouted. “You young punks make me sick sometimes. You wanted Holly, and you begged me for a spell to win her back, and I gave it to you, and the spell worked. Now you’re going to go see her and do the right things for her and your baby, and that’s the end of that. Now you’re going to act responsibly, probably for the first time in your life. Here, I’ve written down her phone number and address”—he handed Jason a scrap of paper—“and it’s only a few blocks away, so you’re going to call her right now and tell her you’ll be there in ten minutes.”
He handed the phone to Jason, who very reluctantly dialed the number. Hempy answered.
“Is Holly there?” Jason asked.
“Yes. Let me get her.”
“Just tell her I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Jason said and hung up.
“I was young once too,” Drew said wearily as Jason left. “But I wasn’t such a dope.”
Jason asked a student for directions and was told that Holly’s street was on a street to the right just a few blocks north. He slowed his pace as he neared her building. H
e wished he had some chewing tobacco to help him think, but that was back at Rue’s place along with the rest of his gear, and the thought made him remember the manila envelope he’d shoved into his jacket pocket.
He tore it open and found the pair of skimpy green panties Rue had removed before painting his portrait.
Seeing no one on the sidewalk, he held the panties to his nose and sniffed. The sweet smell of nutmeg and ginger whisked him back to yesterday in bed with Rue, the feel of her cool smooth skin, the sharp tingle of her fingernails against his back, and suddenly there was no room in his mind for Holly or Kyra or any other woman, and more than anything he wanted to hurry back to Rue’s house and bury his face in her long black hair.
Now he was more confused than ever. He sniffed the panties one more time, then stuffed them in his hip pocket and tossed the envelope into a yard. He trudged along like a man to the gallows, watching the house numbers grow bigger like Holly’s belly, and all too soon he was staring at the squalid brick apartment building where she waited.
Chapter Eleven
Jason climbed the outside stairs to the second-floor apartment and knocked. Hempy opened the door, and a moment later a wide sardonic crevasse appeared between his thick mustache and his thicker beard.
Jason had never seen him grin before. It made him look like a crazed grizzly bear about to attack.
“Where’d you get that ridiculous asinine clown suit?” Hempy asked.
Jason ignored the question and asked, “Is Holly here?”
“Come in. She’s in her room waiting for you.”
The tiny living room had very little furniture but was cluttered with clothes, books, pamphlets, and boxes piled any old place. On the coffee table Jason noticed a sandwich bag filled with tiny purple pills and said, “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Hempy said. “Just something for my arthritis.”
“There was some talk back there in Glum Fork,” Jason said. “Some folks said you was cooking up LSD.”