grinning at him
“I cut my hair, Gordy, like it?”
* * *
grabbing for the light, elbow to the clock so it fell, cracking sound and the light went on and he saw it, all of it, rich and matted at the foot of the bed, surreal pet awaiting his regard.
Bundling the blanket, hands shaking, call the fucking cleaning service first thing in the fucking morning, first thing and he did. With empty professional regret, No, of course not, of course if you’re certain another crew can be dispatched, and residue of half-hysteria smothered by the light of day, the office sounds around him, coaled down like a fire but burning, still, beneath.
His hands, shaking on the phone, his first cup of coffee sitting too far to grab. “You can get the key from the building manager,” he said. “I want that fucking place cleaned this time, all right?”
Hang up hard, whacked unwitting his elbow, swore and snatched the coffee. Lukewarm, he drank it anyway, up all night watching the blanket like a kid, certain it was moving, it was –
Moving like the hairs in the bottom of his coffee cup, slow swirl, unspeakable choreography, he flung the cup against the wall. Picked it up before the office door opened, made a gritty joke, a worse excuse, shut the damn door. Shut the damn door! Go away.
He bought two Pepsis from the machine in the cafeteria, drank them warm and suspicious. The cleaning service called around one to tell him that a crew had been out to his apartment, and in the future, please inform the service that there was a pet, there is an extra charge for pets.
He didn’t want to go home, but he wasn’t hungry, didn’t want to sit through a movie, anyway he’d have to face it sometime, right? If there was anything concrete to face. Which there wasn’t, don’t be such an asshole, key in hand and pushing open the door. Are you going to get spooky about a bunch of hair?
Poised, he realized it, almost tiptoe with apprehension, but a walkthrough showed the apartment was clean. Clean and empty. He drank a glass of ice water (clear liquid, no darknesses to hide in), washed hard in the shower. Disconcerting erection. He called Andra from the bedroom: “How about I visit you this time?” and Andra thought that would be just fine.
Her apartment smelled like air freshener, room freshener, fake cinnamon in the kitchen and fake orchids in the john. The sheets of her bed were a raveling warm vermilion and he crawled between them like salvation, spread her slack honey thighs and felt beneath his fingers the sweet landscape of hairless skin, smooth and soft and safe.
hair on the blades of tile scissors
her gummy touch, scrabbling for the scissors out of reach and her face, her face
“Like it?”
hair stuck to his fingers, bits of it under his nails
Hands on his shoulders, shouting and he struck at them, saw in the last confusing shreds of nightmare Andra’s hands, coated with hair, swarming with hair and he pushed away, she started yelling but oh no, not again, not another screamer and he rolled out of bed and got gone, safe, leaning against the moving solidity of the elevator wall.
Called in sick. To hell with it. He washed his face in the bathroom at McDonald’s, drank two cups of coffee, tried to eat the soggy muffin but found, nestled in its depths like a perfect pearl, a bloody hair.
Afraid to go home. Afraid to find out, to see. Just like old times, isn’t it, Sophy, you cunt, you twat, you dead filthy hairy bitch, screaming in the car and get a grip on yourself! Get some kind of grip on yourself. Get some help. Go home. Call the shrink.
And tell him what?
And tell him nothing.
Clear things. Bouillon, and water and vodka, and weak tea, pale enough to see if anything waited inside, moving in the thin spoon-current. Sitting up in bed with an unread magazine, covers pushed a safe distance, the better to see you, my dear. Naked, to catch the drift and creep of hair, last night he had woken from the nightmare (again) to see a sly and messy braid halfway up his unsuspecting thigh, who knew what it was planning to do.
Hair in the shower, plugging the drain. Hair on doorknobs, the phone, coiled in cups and glasses, smoldering in the microwave. He had given up on restaurants, he had sent back enough food to fill a supermarket, a city of supermarkets, they all thought he was crazy. Hair up his nose, for God’s sake, not many but enough, oh yeah, you didn’t need many for what she had in mind. It took him long minutes, sweaty minutes, to blow it all the way out, and when he clenched it in the tissue it moved.
The bouillon was cold again. Tough shit. He put it aside, no hunger left, except of course a hunger for meaning, as in what is your problem, Sophy, smug and dead what is your trouble. No need to ask why me. Slivered ice in the vodka glass, clear glass, good going down because he was cold and it was warm, isn’t that funny, iced vodka so warm, down his throat and tickling
like a hair
a lot of hair
and frightened fingers down his throat, jabbing hard for the gag reflex, come on, come on, reeling it up and the vodka bubbling back, swallow it
struggling into the bathroom, stop it, you’re panicking, stop it! Trying for air. Trying for air as all the hair on his body stretched, curling undersea dance, slow and stately mimic as he saw, cloudy in the mirror, the empty bedroom reflected: and a figure, black like thready ropes, like slick necrotic veins, hair in the shape of a woman writhing sweet and ready on the bed.
EDWARD BRYANT
Human Remains
NEBULA AWARD-WINNING author Edward Bryant first met Harlan Ellison, who assisted his early career, at the Clarion Writer’s Workshop in 1968 and 1969, and the following year he sold his first short story, “They Come Only in Dreams” to Adam.
Since then his short fiction has appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and has been collected in Among the Dead and Other Events Leading Up to the Apocalypse, Particle Theory, one-third of Night Visions 4, and Neon Twilight. He has also collaborated with Ellison on the short novel Phoenix Without Ashes and has edited the original anthology, 2076: The American Tricentennial.
More recently, his work has been showcased in various small press chapbooks such as Save the Last Death for Me and Darker Passions (both from Roadkill Press) – a growing publishing trend which he regularly champions in his monthly horror review column in Locus.
VICKY FIRST THOUGHT a little girl had lost the doll in the women’s room just off the main lobby of the West Denver Inn. It was a Barbie, just like she remembered from years before. The doll was straight and pink and impossibly proportioned. It lay on the dull white tile beneath the tampon machine. Vicky had heard the clatter as she passed on her way to the sink. Perhaps she had brushed it off, somehow, with an unwary elbow.
Something wasn’t right. The doll did not look at all as she remembered.
Vicky set her black patent-leather purse on the faux marble counter by the sinks, switched the soft leather briefcase to her left hand, and knelt. She saw that the doll was tightly bound with monofilament. Tough, nearly transparent fishing line wound around the doll, binding the ankles, the arms at the waist, the chest, the shoulders, the throat, even around the head, taut across the parted lips. The line wound so tight, plastic bulged slightly around the loops. The bindings actually cut into the doll’s unreal skin.
She gingerly extended the fingers of her right hand and touched Barbie’s shoulder. Cold. Had a little girl lost this here? Vicky forced herself to pick up the doll. Had one of the other women out in the restaurant bar left this? She brought the doll close to her face. Was that a glisten of something red at the corner of Barbie’s lips? The fishing line caught and reflected the harsh overhead light. No, there was no blood. It was only a trick of the light.
Vicky wondered at the obvious strength of the line. If it could do this to the durable synthetics of the doll, what would it do to a caught fish? She had a feeling it would take superhuman – super . . . what was the word for fish? – strength to break these bonds.
Caught would be caught.
She saw no knots where the l
ine ends connected. And maybe there was no need to find them. No point. Trapped. Caught for good. Vicky wound her fingers around the Barbie and turned toward the restroom door. Suddenly she wanted to leave the sharp light and the harsh, astringent odor of disinfectant.
She noticed nothing now save the doll’s seeming to become warmer. Lose heat, gain heat. Barbie was taking heat from Vicky’s grip, her skin, her body, her living, pumping, blood.
As she swung the door inward with her left hand, Vicky thrust the doll into her briefcase. Now she had a secret. It was a long time since she had had a new secret.
This weekend, she had a sudden feeling, it was important to keep a secret or two ready and waiting. Something chilling and exciting rippled through her.
When she’d left the table, her companions had been talking about politics local to Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington, presidential campaigns, ballot initiatives to alter the whole tone and conduct of capital punishment. Now the other four women were talking about shoes.
Vicky smiled and sat down. Her half-empty supper dishes had been removed. From her side of the table, she could look out the wide expanse of restaurant window, down across the Platte River valley, off to the east across the glittering October skyline of Denver. Above the lights, a nearly full moon had risen. It was another week until Halloween. Trails of fast-moving lights limned the freeway below.
Dixie, the Oregon blonde Vicky already thought of as the wannabe, was saying, “Listen, tomorrow’s Saturday, there’s gotta be a lot of fall shoe sales at the malls.”
Sonya and Kate, the dark-haired sisters from Utah, looked at each other and laughed. Kate said, “Listen, we’ve got malls in Salt Lake.”
“If we want to shop for pumps or ogle Birkenstocks, we’ll just crank up the Shoe Channel on cable later tonight in the room.” That was Sonya, the elder sister by maybe two years.
Vicky scooted her chair forward and took a sip of coffee. It had cooled to room temperature. Entropy. She remembered the word from a magazine article in her gynaecologist’s waiting room. “Southwest Plaza has 27 different shoe stores,” she said absently.
“You counted?” said Carol Anne. She was conspicuously younger than the other women at the table. Vicky wondered about that but had stopped short of asking directly. “I shop there too, but I never counted all the shoe stores.”
Vicky shrugged. “Anyhow, you can’t try them on on the Shoe Channel.”
“I bet Mrs Marcos watches,” said Dixie. “Is there really a Shoe Channel? We don’t get that on cable in Eugene.”
The supper crowd was beginning to thin out. Vicky realized that most of the faces were women she had seen, and some she had talked to, earlier in the afternoon, when everyone had arrived at the hotel.
“Okay, I’m not going to argue,” said Dixie, smiling. She, Vicky already had noted, laughed a lot. “Tomorrow’s another day. How about tonight? Are we all going to go out somewhere? I know you two sisters have got a car. Is there a Chippendale’s in Denver? Carol Anne? You look hip and you live here.”
“Beats me,” said Carol Anne. “I’m out west in Golden. That’s the suburbs. No stud dancers out there.” She seemed to be blushing a little.
Dixie looked at Vicky. Vicky realized she was hugging the soft briefcase with the bound Barbie doll. She could feel its hardness through the leather. “Don’t look at me,” Vicky said. “I haven’t been to a place like that since –” A chill ran through her belly and up her spine. She felt her shoulders twitch involuntarily. Since the ride.
A man walked up to the table. Vicky at first thought it was the waiter, and then realized that he was another diner. She recognized him as the guy who had been sitting with a woman, probably his wife, at the next table. He was a florid man, perhaps in his fifties, in a dark gray suit. His blue eyes were small and piercing. He had a gray mustache.
He stared down at them. Vicky thought Dixie was going to say something.
“Listen,” said the man, looking quickly from face to face. “I was talking to the manager. He’s a friend of mine and he told me what you’re all doing. I gotta tell you something. I think you’re all a bunch of sick fucks.” He turned on his heel and walked away. His wife quickly got up from their table and followed her husband toward the door. She had averted her eyes, Vicky noticed, from the whole exchange.
The five women at the table stared at each other. Sonya turned and looked after the retreating figures of the man and his wife. She looked angry enough to spit, but said nothing. Kate shook her head.
“Yeah,” said Dixie, “me too. What a jerk.”
Carol Anne looked as if she might cry.
Vicky hugged the doll in the briefcase even tighter, then took a few deep breaths and relaxed her grip. She reached over the tabletop and touched Carol Anne’s hand, wanting to comfort her, reassure her.
The waiter picked that moment to return to ask if anyone wanted more coffee.
They tacitly agreed not to keep talking about the business-suited man with the silent wife. The enthusiasm for male dancers had dwindled. Dixie started talking about movies. Sonya mentioned that the front desk rented VCRs to guests. “Do any of you have the tape?” she said. “The Dobson tape? $29.95 before it got discounted at K-Mart?”
“I looked at it once,” said Dixie. “All that bullshit about booze and porn.”
“I –” Carol Anne started to say something but stopped. She looked to be in her early twenties. Very pretty, Vicky thought. Long brown hair styled back across her shoulders. Maybe like my daughter would have looked if I’d ever had one.
“You were saying?” Dixie said encouragingly.
An alarm sounded in Vicky’s brain. Don’t push her, she thought. Maybe she really doesn’t want to talk.
Carol Anne said, “I watched it, oh, maybe a hundred times.” The rest of the women stared.
“Why?” Vicky almost breathed rather than said the words aloud. Obsessed, she thought. And so, so young.
The younger woman looked down at her lap. “I thought maybe there would be . . . a clue. Something. Anything.” She drifted off into silence.
Vicky knew the others wanted to ask, what clue? What are you looking for? No one said anything at all. But lord, they wanted to. Obsessed.
And then there was another new presence at the table. It was a young man in a busboy’s jacket with brown corduroy trousers. “Bobby” was stitched over his heart. He looked from one face to the next. His eyes, Vicky thought, looked far older than his fresh face.
“’Scuse me, ladies,” he said, “did one of you forget – ”
Vicky’s hand was already unconsciously reaching for the black purse. Which wasn’t there on the corner of the table where it should have been.
“ – your bag?” He raised his hand and there was Vicky’s black purse.
“It’s mine.” She reached and took it from him.
“You left it in the ladies’ room,” said Bobby. “You gotta watch that around here. This is the city.” He caught her eye. His gaze lingered. Boldly.
Vicky touched the leather with her fingertips. This was mildly disorienting. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it. Thank you very much.”
“Don’t think nothing of it,” said Bobby. He made a vague waving gesture with his left hand. “No harm done.” He bobbed his head as if embarrassed, caught Vicky’s eye again for just a moment, then turned and walked back toward the kitchen.
Vicky stared. Had the young man smiled? She thought she’d seen a fleeting twist of his lips as he turned. Had he just flirted with her? Returning lost items would be a great way to meet women. Flirt. She hadn’t thought about that word in a long time.
And then she thought of something else. Could lost items be used as bait? But who was fishing?
“Vicky?” Dixie was saying. “Hello, Earth to Vicky? You there, girl?”
Vicky started, realized she was shaking a little, tried to breathe regularly. “I’m here. I guess I was just thinking about how terrible it would have been to lose this
,” she said, cradling the purse in her hand.
“Cancelling the cards would be a royal pain,” said Kate, the younger sister.
“Never mind the cards,” said Dixie. “I’d be worried some wacko’d track me down from the driver’s license and show up on my doorstep.”
“Isn’t that a little paranoid?” Kate said.
Her big sister smiled faintly. “Aren’t we all probably just a little paranoid?”
As it turned out, no one went anywhere. The five of them stayed until first the restaurant kitchen, then the bar closed. They talked. Lord, how they talked, Vicky thought.
They talked about that fatal, climactic morning in January, those few years before. Sixteen minutes past seven, EDT.
It was like, where were you when President Kennedy was shot? When John Lennon died? When the Challenger exploded. What were you doing at 7:16 in the morning, January 24, 1989? Listening to a radio. Watching television. Praying his appeals would be turned down.
“I slept through it,” said Dixie. “I’d been watching on CNN most of the night. I went to sleep. I couldn’t help it.”
“Let me tell you something,” said Kate. She glanced at Sonya. “My sister and me, we know a woman whose daughter was killed. But she was also against capital punishment. She wrote letters and made a thousand phone calls trying to stop the execution.”
Sonya looked off toward the dark space above the bar. “What can you say? She was entitled. She was wrong, but she was entitled.” Her voice dropped off. She said something else and Vicky thought it was something like, “Burn him. Burn them all.”
There was muted laughter at the table behind them. But none at Vicky’s. They talked more about the execution.
“I’ll tell you something really interesting,” said Dixie, “though the rest of you may already know this.” She shrugged. “I didn’t. I just found out. There was a guard who looked real close at the executioner. The guy with the hand on the switch was all covered up, with a black hood and all, you know, just like in a horror movie? Anyhow, the guard says the guy’s eyelashes were incredible. Thick and long, he said. He thought maybe the executioner was a woman.”
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