Armadillos

by P. K. Lynch

  Not a blackness seen through your eyes.

  It’s something you feel with your soul.

  A blackness that coils and stretches and wraps itself round you.

  It constricts.

  Black that heaves your stomach and crushes your bones.

  It fills you, snaking its way through your hair, your ears, behind your eyes, curling down through your nostrils, your mouth, and as your throat tightens, it fills up your lungs and steals your air.

  Black that eats your blood.

  Black that twists and tangles you.

  It’s a blackness where the only color that can be is whatever you find in your head, so you invite them in, all the old faces you’ve pushed away so long, you scream for them to come and fill the void. And boy, don’t they come, whistling like the wildest wind, rushing in like they’re storming a fortress, like they’ve just been stood outside your head waiting, waiting a lifetime for the invitation to enter. Jojo laughing, her head thrown so far back I can see her dangly bit at the back of her throat wiggling like a worm, her eyes wider than a panicked bull, and then she’s crying and knocked away and now here comes Pop, his face looming all sweaty and shaking, his voice grunting, and Cy shouting and Jojo again except this time she’s snarling, foaming like a rabid mutt spitting and hissing Found you, Aggie. And the blood; bright, bright flowers of blood, and all the alarms are going off, high and piercing like the world’s gone nuclear until I realize it’s me, I’m shrieking and I’m alone in the black and thank God for the black, the black is welcome now, the faces are gone and I’m glad to be in the black.

  I didn’t dare lie down. I sat pressed up tight in a corner, feeling the walls behind my back. Behind them was an outside world. The walls reminded me that black wasn’t the whole universe. Somewhere out there, a sun was shining. A little girl was running through grass, laughing with her sister.

  Seemed I stayed awake the whole time. Hard to tell. I had unwelcome visitors for sure, visitors that only came in my dreams, but it seemed to me I was living an eternity, asleep or not.

  I went the whole way around that room, exploring with my hands. The walls bumped up and down. No other way of describing it. I banged against it and the dull noise it made told me it was metal. Someone had put me in a metal box. If I’d found a weak or rusted spot maybe I could have picked a hole in it, made myself some light, but if there was, I couldn’t find it. Endless smooth, bumpy walls and corners and walls and corners and walls.

  The floor was dirty. Grit and dust and what I took to be splinters of wood lay at the bottom of the walls, but I never did summon the courage to explore the middle. The walls anchored me. If I stepped away from them I’d be free-falling, spinning through a black hole of galactic proportions right here on earth.

  The squeak and clang of the outside bolt told me he was back. The door opened a fraction and his shadow was thrown down in the moonlight. A padlock dangled from his finger.

  ‘You in here?’

  That one question told me all I needed to know about the size of this guy’s intellect. He came in further. I shrank back and pushed against the steel wall. He closed the door and the little bit of light was lost.

  ‘Aggie, I’m gonna give us some light now, you hear? I don’t want no funny business, little lady, you got that?’

  A flashlight brought his face into the dark, scarier than all the others. When he caught sight of me tucked away in the top right corner, he smiled and removed his hat. A long white braid slipped over his shoulder. He was in the same suit as before.

  ‘D-D-Duke,’ I stammered.

  His face became dead serious. He shook his head over and over. ‘No, no, no. Not today. Today I’m introducing you to someone else.’

  I looked behind him to see who else he’d brought. He laughed at my confusion. A real tight, high snickering type of laugh. ‘You’ll learn. Now, we need some light in here.’ He set about lighting four candles, two on each side of the long walls. The flickering sent orange shapes dancing along the floor.

  He took off his shoes and socks, folding each one carefully before placing them neatly to one side. He slipped out of his jacket and from the inside pocket pulled out a tie. He flicked up his collar. Placed the tie around his neck. Slid his fingers down the length of the material. Did it up with long pale fingers, all the while checking to make sure I was watching. Sapphire nails. That laugh again. Dread filled my throat. When his tie was tight, he made a show of rolling down the sleeves of his shirt and buttoning the cuffs. Then he slipped his jacket back on and held his arms out in welcome.

  ‘Wait, wait. Almost forgot.’ He bent his head and lifted his hands. It took me a moment to realize he was removing his contacts. He shut them in a little box and laid them down.

  ‘Meet Mr Dee, Aggie.’ Duke fastened the buttons, pulled the jacket tight down and twisted his body from side to side, as though he were looking in a mirror.

  ‘Don’t he look good? I tell you what, he feels fucking great.’

  He flexed his arms and grinned.

  My heart was yammering so hard I thought it would burst. Mr Dee sat cross-legged on the floor at the far end of the room. He brought his thumbs and middle fingers together, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled, looking for all the world like some corporate Buddha. When his eyes snapped open, they found me immediately. I couldn’t tell the real color.

  ‘Your friend Freak owes me rather a lot of money, Aggie.’ His voice sounded mellow in the closed container. ‘Normally I’d find a way for silly girls to pay me back, but Freak… uh… Freak’s past normal usage, you know?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s regrettable.’

  He lifted a soft square package from his lap, laid it before him and unwrapped it. Rows of sharp steel flashed in the dim light. He grinned at me, goblin-like. He liked showing off his teeth, I realized.

  ‘Mr Dee likes it special, Aggie. Poor Freak’s got nothing left to offer Mr Dee. You’re a good friend to her, aren’t you? A good girl? Say you’re a good girl and we’ll be fine’

  My teeth rattled as I nodded: yes, I was a good friend, yes, I was a good girl, yes, yes, yes to whatever he said, holding on to the thin hope that this time, this one time, no one would hurt me.

  ‘That’s a good girl. Come on now. Come and lie down here for me.’

  I looked at the space he’d created between the candles. An altar space. A sacrifice space. I opened my mouth to speak but the words stuck in my throat. My jaw hung open and I moved my head back and forward to dislodge the sound.

  ‘D-D-D-Duke,’ I spat the word out, finally. ‘I can g-g-get your money.’

  He frowned. ‘You’re not understanding me, Aggie. It’s not about the money. Not anymore.’

  ‘Please, Duke…’

  ‘Mr Dee, Aggie.’ He gave a wide, tight-lipped smile. I was testing his patience. ‘Now come here.’

  I staggered to my feet, trying to locate the closed door behind him. My only chance was to rush him, maybe knock him over, but he’d overpowered me once already. Besides, I was just discovering I could barely stand.

  ‘Come here,’ he said again, a little firmer. My feet were welded to the floor. He clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘Dammit, Aggie, Mr Dee hates to use force.’

  He left his position at the head of the altar and went back into his bag, which was lying against the side wall. When he turned round I thought one of his hands had turned black, and then I realized he was pointing a gun at me.

  ‘Now get down here,’ he said.

  Hardest thing to do is walk toward a gun that’s pointed at you. I peeled myself away from the wall and forced my feet a step closer to him.

  ‘Jesus Christ, what’s taking you so long?’ He swung the flashlight straight in my face. I twisted my head to escape the glare.

  ‘Oh, you little bitch. You’ve pissed yourself.’

  Shielding my eyes, I looked down, and when I looked back up at him I apologized, because not only had I pissed my pants but I’d shit them, too. The evidence was staining i
ts way right down my legs. He dropped the gun, marched over to me and hauled me into the center of the room.

  ‘Take them off. Clean yourself up.’

  I stood, frozen. I tried to read his lips to make sense of what he was saying. I held my hands out in front of me to keep them clean, and I remember thinking I was holding my arms like a dancer, like the ballerina in Momma’s jewelry box that Jojo kept safe at home.

  ‘The pants!’ he screamed. ‘Take off the pants! Jesus Christ, it stinks in here.’

  He threw his hands up in the air as he took giant steps to the door. He pushed it open and stuck his head outside, making a big show of taking in fresh air. I stood there waiting, maybe crying, maybe not, I don’t remember. What I do remember is the look on his face when he turned back round and realized that he was at one end of the room, his gun at the other, and I was standing between he and it. He looked past me, his thin, moth-like eyebrows raised to heaven, his mouth open like his jaw’s about to hit the floor. I turned to see what he was looking at. In a dark corner, I saw the gun. Over my shoulder I became aware of his movement and I didn’t need telling that this is my moment. We dived for it, me reaching it a split second before he did. I’m flat on my back, pointing the gun right at him, holding it level as I can given the shit-storm shakes I’m experiencing. He’s three, maybe four feet away from me. I get the smallest satisfaction when I see his face flood with fear. He holds his hands out, palms toward me like they might somehow protect him from the volley of bullets I’m ready to unleash on his sick fuck ass.

  ‘Now, little one,’ he said, and his fingers start waggling, like he’s playing some stupid game with a damn toddler. ‘You know I don’t mean you no harm, don’t you? We was just fooling around. Why don’t you put that down now, honey, huh?’ He put out his hand to take the gun from me, and I scrabbled backwards, keeping it trained on him best I could.

  ‘I know how to shoot this, mister. I aint afraid to use it.’

  He cocked his head to the side and actually fucking smiled as he leeched towards me.

  ‘Oh, sweetpea,’ he said, taking another step, ‘don’t you know not to point a gun at something unless you’re willing to destroy it?’

  He reached out, his hand almost touching the muzzle, the charm bracelet dancing beneath his sleeve.

  ‘Oh hell, Duke. Mr Dee. Whoever the fuck you are. You pointed at me first.’

  His body spasmed and jerked like a puppet in some horror circus until somebody cut his strings and he crumpled to the floor. The noise of the shots echoed and faded as the blood crept out of his body and pooled around the candles. White wax dripped into it. Ice cream and jelly. The room shook until the sound died away.

  Me and the shitty pants that had just saved my life stepped over him. His eyes were open, staring into forever. His tongue lolled to one side. He didn’t seem as creepy now.

  There was a sound stuck in his throat. A rasp, a gurgle. I gave him a gentle kick and the sound escaped. It all felt strangely peaceful. And then the darkness came back but this time it was in his groin area. The fucker was dead but he could still pee his pants. I picked up the padlock and shut him in.

  The night was electric quiet. Beneath my skin, the shock of the gunshots still crackled. An oddness made me look down. Somehow the pistol was still in my hand, like it was welded to me. I turned and above me was sky, around me fresh air. I lifted the gun, pointed it straight to heaven and laughed. I was so alive. I took a long, deep breath and felt my lungs inflate, filling my whole chest, lifting me up. All around me were towers of shipping containers. I moved silently through the stacked-up maze, knowing there was a way out for me somewhere. Like a hound, I sniffed the air and caught the salty scent of water. I headed towards it, all the time just one thought turning over and over in my mind. It struck me as bizarre, and even a little funny, and I tried to chase it away. I was a big girl. I was a killer now. Yet all I really wanted was my momma.

  The jetty was a mile long and made out of concrete blocks all stacked in, one on top of the other. I ran along it, stumbling on the uneven surface as I went. The sea ran inland both sides of it, but at the end of the jetty it went out forever.

  The moon barely made it through the heavy clouds. Water whipped up and splashed me. The path was foamy with waves. I was wet up to my waist. Salt in my mouth. Jojo’s voice caught on the wind: You can’t swim, Aggie.

  The wind pushed against me, knocking me sideways. I slipped and fell, my knee slicing open on a jagged rock.

  I made it to the end of the jetty. Just me and the sea and the dull moon in the sky and a few inches of cement beneath to keep me from disappearing forever. Freedom. Or as far as I could go. The end and the beginning.

  26

  I woke up on the beach next morning, my jeans lying beside me, cleaner than they’d been. They were still damp but I pulled them on, wincing as they dragged on my cut knee. I slipped Duke’s gun into my waistband. By the time I limped my way back to the motel, the sun was almost at its highest point.

  Marj’s car was gone. I guessed she’d set off to meet her contact again. As I walked towards my room, Freak’s raised voice carried down the corridor, and what sounded like the banging of drawers, which was weird, because Marj had forbidden us from bringing more than one change of clothes on account of her rubber trinkets taking up all the space.

  I slipped the keycard into the slot and the door opened. I thought they’d be freaking out that I’d been gone all night, but it seem they hadn’t even noticed. Ade was sitting on the balcony, scribbling madly into a notebook. Freak, wearing only a bra and panties, was standing on one of the beds, which were now both stripped of their covers. A bloodstained bandage wrapped around her upper arm. She gave me such a look of misery, I almost turned straight back round again.

  ‘Tell him, Aggie,’ she wailed.

  ‘I told you,’ said Ade, not bothering to look up from his notes, like he’d been listening to her for hours. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

  I kicked my jeans off and fell onto the vacant bed, wrestling a sheet from the tangle on the floor to wrap myself up in. I pulled a pillow over my face to block the light and rolled on to my side.

  ‘Aggie.’ I felt Freak’s weight on the bed beside me. She pulled the pillow away and shook me.

  I sat up. No fight left. ‘What is it?’

  ‘He’s leaving. He’s going back to England.’

  ‘Scotland,’ Ade said. I’m guessing he still didn’t look up from his writing.

  ‘England, Scotland, what does it matter?’ Freak pouted. ‘Tell him, Aggie.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That he can’t leave.’

  ‘But he can,’ I said. ‘He can go where he likes. Wherever the fuck he likes.’

  ‘Oh, Aggie, no!’ Freak punched the pillow that seconds before had been lying across my face. The bandage on her arm began to unravel. ‘That aint it. Tell him something to make him stay.’

  I looked at her and then him. I tried to think of something, any reason why he should stay.

  ‘Sorry.’ I shrugged.

  Ade came in from the balcony and took a seat on my bed beside Freak.

  ‘Aint you got some sightseeing to do?’ I asked, desperate for them to be gone.

  ‘It’s here, Aggie. Look.’ He held out what looked like a tourist guide and pointed. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? She’s called Elissa.’

  ‘Ade, it’s just a boat.’ Freak exploded with tears. ‘How can it have a fucking name?’

  Ade stroked the photograph like a love-struck loon. ‘She was built in Scotland,’ he sighed.

  I cast my eye over the page. ‘That’s a day’s drive from here, Ade,’ I said. ‘Marjorie won’t like it. Now let me sleep.’

  When I woke up everything was quiet. I rolled over to see Marjorie on the balcony, blowing smoke rings into the sunset. My head felt like it was being crushed by the devil. I tried to swallow and it was like drinking broken glass.

  The room hadn’t got any tidier.
In fact, the other bed had been pulled away from the wall. The pizza boxes from last night were lying open on the floor by the wastepaper basket, and coke was splashed down one wall. Classy. I reached for the almost empty bottle and swigged the remains back, wincing as it washed over my raw throat. I joined Marjorie on the balcony and noticed my jeans were drying over the back of a chair. Someone had washed them for me.

  ‘Wild night?’ she asked, but I knew she didn’t expect an answer. We sat in silence for a minute or two, and then she said, ‘Well, Aggie, I sure hope you don’t mind, but it looks like it’s just you and me for the rest of the trip. Far as I’m concerned, it’s good news. You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas.’

  ‘Where’d they go?’

  She blew one huge smoke ring. We watched as it floated up. Then she stabbed it through with her smoke.

  ‘They’ve gone to steal a boat and sail to Scotland,’ she said, and she flicked the butt over the edge. ‘Crazy fucking fuckers.’

  I had nothing to say to this. I nodded like stealing a boat and sailing to some shitty butt-fuck country from nowhere was a rite of passage for every Texas teen.

  ‘Marj,’ I said.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she replied, dancing her fingers across her lap now they needed something to do.

  ‘I feel like shit.’

  ‘Baby, you look like shit, too.’

  ‘Go to the store and get me some Advil?’

  ‘Sure thing, Aggie. Reckon you could use some strawberry milk, too.’

  When she was gone, I checked in my bag. I wasn’t surprised to discover Freak had cleared me out. She’d left a note scribbled on motel notepaper: Thanks, Aggie! Love you for this! She’d drawn a heart around the words and signed it: Sis. I screwed it up and tossed it in the waste basket. I lay back down on the bed to think.

  They say killing is wrong. They send you to the chair for that. But there’s something about killing a man that frees a person.

  I’d been at one end of the room, he at the other, but already I could feel him. Pointed fingers, stabby tongue. And Jojo there, like she always was.

  It’s funny how your head plays tricks until your body feels it as real. I’d come as far as I could and still she was there.