A man in a tuxedo walked to the microphone set up in the center of the stage. He waved C.B. to a table. When he’d taken a seat, the MC spoke:
“Tonight at the Big Top, we are proud to present the vocal stylings of the beautiful Lena Flügelhorn!”
The lights dimmed to spectral blue as a figure made her way to the microphone. She wore a dress of stars, her hair pinned up in some gravity-defying coiffure. A single white spotlight pierced the stage. The golden skin was a miracle of foundation. The likeness was uncanny, save for a huge Adam’s apple. An invisible piano started the familiar chords to “Home.”
And C.B. tumbled, plummeting to the floor of Hell. But the voice—resolutely male and tenor, yet somehow imbued with the essence of Lena—came and blew his poor body upwards, towards the star-babies of Heaven. C.B. found himself singing.
As he fell (or rose), C.B. felt Lena swell with him in. She rose up and held his hand. Lucifer—or Lena was there for him, as God had never been. If this was Hell, it couldn’t be all that bad. It was beautiful here. A celestial circus of fallen stars. At once, C.B. recognized the anemic heaven he strove for, and rejected it.
Lena Flügelhorn’s song ended, and with it, a chapter of C.B.’s life.
Strange Alphabets
The train was a smoking iron dragon; a mechanical monster that ate people and burped them out as greasy steam. It sat in the station huffing and farting. It was ominous, foreboding, and… exhilarating. Arthur could feel the snake of excitement uncoiling in the pit of his belly.
Adventure began in the bowels of this beast. At the end of this journey there would be Paris, with her cafes and poets. Such beautiful young men, he’d read about, with their revolution of words. No more school. No more Maman.
The thought of her, sternly garbed in black like a human vulture, made Arthur shiver, just a little. He saw her in the parlor, artlessly working at some needlepoint, her mind restless. Her sour face was frozen into its permanent scowl. Her hair, wound into its tight bun. She would prick herself with the needle. A single drop of blood, the bruised color of wine that has turned to vinegar, would squeeze forth and fall on her coarse knitting. And in that instant, she would know that he was up to no good. She was as relentless as the Old Testament God, when it came to sniffing out sin. It was the only thing in her life. Arthur could scarcely believe that she had lain with a man at least three times. Pleasure and comfort were alien concepts to her. Her privates must be as dry and dusty as the Sahara. Perhaps her lower lips were frozen in a permanent scowl, as well.
Snickering as he rushed the behemoth, Arthur clutched the rucksack bearing his meager possessions: mostly notebooks of his poetry and a few pens and pots of ink. Clothes, he could get once he reached Paris. Harsh and metallic on the outside, the train was moist and velvety on the inside. The aisle was carpeted in crimson, like a furry tongue. The plush seats were upholstered in the same color and striped with accents of a more ruby tone. Couples sat side by side in their best. The men crisp in dark linen suits and bowler hats. The ladies accompanying them wore long gowns and sensible bonnets. Peach and lime green seemed to be favored colors. A few children were scattered here and there, in clothes that mimicked those of their parents. The girls had ribbons in their hair. The whole scene looked like an advertisement; the children were as silent as porcelain figurines.
“Excuse me!” A man brushed by him, effectively pushing him aside. Arthur realized that he was staring, and daydreaming.
Dear Madame Rimbaud,
Your son Arthur has in his possession an almost fearsome intellect. He also has an undesirable tendency for daydreaming: an effusive, allusive demeanor that effectively undermines his promise. Strict discipline will ensure that these fey tendencies will be outgrown…
Arthur straightened himself up, and marched down the corridor of tongue. The occupants of this warren politely scowled. And they had every reason to. Here was this thin, pale boy in his brother’s hand-me-downs, a cross between urchin and ruffian. His hair stuck up in tufts and tendrils, a hirsute ocean frozen. His hair always did that. It would start tamed by water and the brush, but end up in disarray by day’s close. The pale auburn follicles ended up in cowlicks, through chaotic hand gestures. Maman always had to chase him to cut it. The appearance of a louse would be the only reason he’d allow her scissors near. To these barristers, businessmen and their families, bathed with the lavender-scented blessings of the bourgeoisie, he was a horror. A wild creature of the underclass and the heath.
The adults glanced at him with genteel hostility. A fat girl, imprisoned in rhubarb-colored bows and a pinafore, scuttled away as he passed by her seat. In a delicious moment of impulse, he stuck his tongue out at her, the quivering rabbit-girl. She whimpered.
This car, then, was not his. He passed through two more filled with confectionary classes, until he reached a more suitable car. He wouldn’t feel at home here, either. Ah, but that was Maman’s voice in his head, with her aspirations. Arthur tried to find something appealing about it.
Instead of plush velvet seats, there were wooden benches, as harsh and comfortless as pews. Families sat together, in Slavic grays and blacks. A ruddy nosed drunk snored loudly on an entire bench. Even from here, Arthur could smell the sweet medicinal scent of his wine. A Jewess, her head covered in a coarse shawl, watched over her dark-eyed children. The little boy looked up at him with suspicion. As he passed them, the Jewess clasped the children to her meager bosom. A boisterous family, clothed colorfully in rags, shared a meal of stinking fish and cheese. His own stomach grumbled. He’d only had the thin morning gruel he always had.
No matter, he told himself. In Paris, he’d feast. Bakeries were on every corner, offering buttery croissants, and crusty loaves of warm bread. Cafés served dark, chocolately coffees, sprinkled with cinnamon. Velvety soups, scented with wine and fortified with broths, tender fish, soft, piquant cheeses…
He shook himself out of the culinary hallucination, and steadfastly walked by the masticating family. They looked grotesque, like weasels given human form for a day. Towards the end of the car, there were two seats available on opposite sides of the aisle. In one, sat a villainous young man in a bowler hat and a dirty suit, long since ruined. His eyes looked shifty, and his face unshaven. To his right sat a grandmotherly woman. Her dress was dark blue and pleated. The flouncy frills of a bonnet hid her hair. A silver cross, with the tiny, tortured figure of the Savior dangled above her desiccated bosom. A Bible, well thumbed and creased, lay next to the most heavenly pastry ever.
Though the early day was grey and threatened rain, the pastry, on its napkin, was illuminated, golden, preserved underneath an egg wash. Raisins peeked from hillocks of crisped dough that swelled to suggest other treasures. Maybe marzipan, or vanilla custard. It lay enticingly against the Good Book. Its flaky sweetness rested serene on the nest of blue muslin napkin. Arthur’s mouth slavered. The grandmother must have felt his eyes on her, for she stirred from her beatific repose, and smiled at him.
It was her eyes, of innocent liquid amber, that made the decision for him. For they were the eyes of the Jesus that lived above Maman’s bed. Guileless circles, lit by the fire of blankness. Eyes that focused on you, with bemused blandness. Kindness that knew no darkness, but no true joy, either. Arthur knew that to eat this pastry—this, delicious, freshly baked pastry, would be to eat of His flesh. The custard would be His congealed blood. And no matter how sweet the flesh and blood, he must resist. The creature comforts were the enemies of all poets. As a poet, he must embrace the wicked and sacred at once. He turned from the offered sacrament, to the swarthy would-be criminal. A guide to Hell was what he needed now; heaven could wait.
As Arthur sat next to him, the man stirred in sullen acknowledgement. Arthur plucked up some courage.
“M’sieur, do you have a cigarette?”
His neighbor stirred, and dug around in his pockets. Slightly damp and sloppily rolled cigarettes were produced.
“Thank you, my good man.”
“No problem.” The man fumbled in his coat pocket for matches.
Arthur inhaled the sweet and swampy scent of the smokes after they were lit.
“I am Franz.” He extended his hand, which was rough and sprouting course hairs.
“Arthur,” he replied. He noticed half-moons of dirt underneath Franz’s fingernails.
“Shitty day, no?”
Rain streaked the window of the clattering train. The small, irregular gems were the only things of beauty in a landscape of smudged mist and bending gray grasses. They smeared together, water necklaces destroyed by wind and velocity.
“Very shitty, yes.”
The warm tobacco’s fumes lessened his hunger pangs considerably. Arthur leaned back on the hard wooden bench, and closed his eyes. He was tired, after all. He fell into dream, induced by the clattering rhythm of the locomotive. Each click and clack bought him closer to the capital, with her temples and cafes, her ragamuffins and rebels. The rocking went through his body, the back of his knees, his buttocks. He became hard, and exulted in it. This journey was arousing, after all. He was a vagabond. First, he would conquer Paris with his words. Then, he would move on, to other glittering cities. Maybe London with her fogs and wretched poverty, or Amsterdam with her dens of vice and whores. Venice, with its dark canals and moss-eaten buildings, spectral cupids, and drowned saints. Or the Americas, that lawless, uncouth place of deserts, plains and religious fanatics. And from there, who knew?
Couplets, sonnets, doggerel, and sestinas—they all swirled within his head, like galaxies waiting to be born. Winged things of the finest filigree, exploding stars in violet-tinged detonations all danced within him. He was possessed! His muse was a succubus, with skin of milk and rat’s tail hair. Her eyes green as the sea of the sirens. She was crowned with the secret flowers of the deep. Her feet were suppurating with wounds, blood that clotted and never fell. He longed to kiss her rank, sweet breath, and ingest the opium of art. For what were words? Mists, insubstantial, ephemeral, and female. You fucked them, waiting for the burst in the brain, the spurt of white, the rush of blood, all for ten seconds of bliss. And then you fell to the cold, unforgiving earth, and found that your wife was fat, her beauty faded. Oh, but for that one kiss.
He bent towards her, and kissed. And he found her lips hard. Whiskers brushed his face. He opened his eyes, and found the face of Izambard. His mouth was tough, his tongue questing and relentless. Art, thought Arthur, was about finding forbidden treasures, the pearl prized from the monstrous clam, the drop of blood that hardened into a ruby. If he was a criminal, what of it? The flesh was incomplete, the spirit tethered. If a muse were male, who was he to deny that? Vampire or angel, lover or enemy, all experience was the same, was to be tasted, sampled, challenged, embraced. His penis throbbed to the locomotive’s tattoos, the hidden drum of the earth, the pulsing of stars. It was a private pillar that connected him to the universe. He bent forward, for another kiss—
“Tickets, please!”
Arthur jolted awake. Franz brushed him as he searched for his ticket, as did everyone in the train, including the woman with the Sacred Pastry. Arthur paused, frozen. He did not have a ticket, or money for one. He turned, and saw the clerk behind him, in his authoritarian-blue outfit. Panic fluttered in his stomach. He slithered down in the seat, a useless act, since the clerk would see him.
“Franz,” he whispered. This was a gamble, but things didn’t happen if you didn’t risk once in a while. “Franz.”
The man stopped his frantic searching long enough to stare at him.
“I… I am afraid that I don’t have money for a ticket.”
“What the fuck do I care?”
Arthur flinched. “You shouldn’t care. Only, if you could help me, my friend in Paris shall be able to make restitution.”
Franz laughed. “You little shit. You think I believe that? You think I haven’t used that same line about ‘a friend in Paris’ a million times?”
Arthur turned away from him. He’d probably be kicked off at the next stop. And then, there would be the humiliating scene with his mother. A telegraph, and her arriving on a coach, garbed in her black carapaces like Death herself. He already felt the resounding clang as she boxed his ears, and dragged him back home like a naughty lamb. He saw the drab text of catechism; back toiling labor around the cottage. All his poems would be stillborn, wrapped in papery cauls and strangled by umbilical cords.
Something hit him, covering his face and body. He struggled with the coat that someone—Franz?—had thrown on top of him.
“Sink down, you fool,” came Franz’s voice through the cover of cheap linen. He felt more piled atop him. A valise or two. Arthur pulled up his legs, and got into as close as a fetal position as he could manage. He was small for his age, something for which he was thankful for once.
“Tickets, please!” He heard the collector’s voice, sharp and efficient, nearby. He sensed, rather than saw, Franz handing the ticket over.
He prayed to God or any other nearby deity that the collector wouldn’t notice Franz’s lump of stuff breathed. I am coat and valise, wooden bench and nothing. Then, he heard the mechanical “Tickets, please!” as the collector moved on down.
Arthur relaxed. Franz muttered, “Don’t move, idiot. Wait until he leaves this car.”
He pretended to be wood-coat-valise until his legs ached. He dechrysalized when he felt two valises being lifted of off him. Franz was chuckling, as Arthur unfolded. His legs tingled with a thousand needles, as the blood rushed back.
“Thank you,” his whispered.
Franz shrugged his acceptance.
“Why did you…?”
“I was a stupid shit, too. I still am.”
He grinned back at his new friend. He would pledge fealty to him. Or better yet, immortalize Franz in words. Could Franz even read?
“If I were you, I wouldn’t stay in any place too long. They’ll catch you eventually, but maybe you can stay on until you get to Paris.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Arthur stood in order to move to a car further down, to perhaps find a more secure hiding place. Franz stopped him.
“Sit down,” he said. Arthur complied. “You don’t want to move too soon. There are many tattle-tells on the train.” Franz indicated a particularly nosey looking kid sitting not too far ahead.
Franz leaned forward, and whispered in his ear, “Besides, you owe me one.” Arthur could smell his garlic and tobacco breath.
“But of course,” Arthur said back. He shivered at the closeness of Franz. Did he feel a tongue tickling his ear? He was repulsed.
“Sit back,” Franz commanded. Arthur was uncertain what to make of this change in demeanor. Franz arranged his moth-eaten coat over both their laps, and looked around the train. Arthur followed his gaze. Most people were resolutely facing forward. The neighboring Madonna had nestled down for a quick nap. This appeased Franz.
“Lay back.” Franz’s voice was thick and sluggish. “And close your eyes.”
Arthur obeyed, even though he had an inkling of what Franz wanted. The dull mercury in the lining of his stomach stirred and gave birth to clumsy butterflies. They shone dull silver in the red-dark of his insides. His closed eyes were a screen where his could watch them bounce. He took a slow, calming breath. He was unsettled, yet curious at the mixture of dread and excitement he felt.
He heard Franz fumble with something, beneath the coat, and resettle. It was not long before Arthur felt the man’s hairy paws guiding his hand to his crotch.
Franz’s penis had the texture of ruined silk. Moist, dewed from sweat. Tufts of hair, foul smelling he was sure, scratched him with their composition of sweat, urine, and crusts of dried semen. In the red-dark of his closed eyes, Arthur explored this new shape. He felt the weird tree of a vein plastered on the front of penis, and followed its path with slow determination. The testicles hid in a dense forest of pubic hair. Beneath the groundcover the land was cratered and barren
as the moon herself.
“Ahh.” Franz let a hiss of pleasured, tobacco-scented air escape.
Arthur was abruptly bought back to the here-and-now.
“Monsieur, I cannot.” Arthur’s eyes opened.
Franz shushed him. “But you must.”
Arthur struggled, but his digits mere twigs compared to Franz’s laborer’s hands.
Franz leaned forward, and whispered in Arthur ears with a sibilance that barely held back violence. “I will tell the collector of your deception. He’ll throw you in jail. I’ve seen it done before.”
“I don’t believe that. In fact, you told me—”
“Hush. Do you want to get caught?”
Arthur continued in a lower tone, “You told me that should they catch me, they would send me back home. You lie, sir.”
Franz paused, but he did not relinquish his grip. “That is true,” he began slowly, “but you can never be sure. Policy varies from train to train. Do you really want to risk being put in chains, or having your delicate face all smashed up? A little fellow like you might even die. The choice is yours.”
Arthur closed his eyes. Behind his lids, a scenario played out, of him wrapped in chains as tight as the swaddling of an Egyptian mummy, sitting in some dark, hellish cell forgotten by the Revolution, were no light ever came, and loup garou worse than Franz prowled, with malicious intentions of sodomy. All of his words would be burned out of him. The poet must visit Hell; he need not stay there.
He leaned back, closing his eyes in defeat. Franz relaxed his grip. Arthur resumed the blasphemous petting. In moments, the limp and wrinkled flesh (no doubt, the color of a mud besotted swine’s member) stiffened. Arthur felt its fleshy length, which combined the soft wrongness of a mollusk with a center of bone, and renewed his focus on the head of the penis. In the dark, Arthur peeled back the foreskin, as if it were outer casing of some exotic fruit. The head was tender, and dribbled juices. Arthur replaced the foreskin, and peeled again. Izambard’s face floated behind his lids, with eyes of kindness. He was a saint. Arthur felt Izambard’s member receiving the gentle ministrations. He would do anything for that one—in palatial bedroom or dirty train. Yes—those magnificent eyes, squinting in rapture. Arthur increased the speed of his stroking. He tightened his grip on the tube of flesh, revealing then hiding the mushroom head. It felt like a thing of liquid, it was so smooth. The cock as malleable as clay, the clay of Creation.
Sea Swallow Me and Other Stories Page 13