John Shirley - Wetbones Read online

  "I'll get back to you. I got another call here -"

  "Take it. Ciao."

  Prentice hung up the phone. It seemed he was going to be twisting slowly in the wind of Arthwright's whim.

  Anyway, they'd reached the exit. That was a start.

  But when they drove down onto the surface street, major street repairs were going on, complete with ear battering jackhammers and backhoes jetting clouds of blue smoke. The traffic down here was even worse.

  Near Malibu, California

  Mitch was at the bottom of a swimming pool. An old concrete swimming pool filled with water so green it was almost black.

  For some reason, he could breathe in here, under water.

  Something big was shaking and quivering over in that green obsidian corner. The big shaking thing was coming closer to him now. A cloud of wiggling things. Worms.

  Wriggling worms, glinting in the faint light from above. Closing around him. When he inhaled, he sucked them wriggling into his throat, trickling and slithering into his bronchial tubes, squirming with a kind of funnybone pain inside his lungs . . .

  Worms in his lungs!

  He thrashed about, trying to gag them up.

  He fell off the bed with a bruising thump. Felt the hardwood floor under his hands. A swatch of bedclothes against his cheek. He'd been dreaming. In bed. The hospital. He was . . .

  . . . not in the hospital, he saw, now, as he got painfully onto his knees.

  He was raw with pain; grinding his teeth with the punishment that came every time he moved. As he looked around.

  It was a room he'd never seen before. It was dark, and the colours of the room seemed to shift one into another when he didn't look directly at them. Old wallpaper, peeling in the comer; a pattern of hook-shapes alternating with drooping rosebuds. Could be this was where the hallucination of the worms had come from; a pattern in the wallpaper.

  He had a sense, though, for a fleeting moment, that the cloud of wrigglers was there, just out of his line of sight, poised and sensitive to him. Then he shook himself, and the hallucination was gone.

  The room had an old brass bed. A four poster, with scratch marks around their metal posts, near the mattress. There was one door.

  He moved painfully to the door. He had laughed at old men, who moved the way he moved. I won't laugh anymore, he prayed, if that's what this punishment's for. He tried the brass knob of the old-fashioned darkwood

  door. Locked in two places; at the old skeleton-key lock and, he could feel, when he rattled the door, that there was a padlock on the outside, high up on the door.

  He felt like crying, but he was incapable of it. It would take too much strength to cry. He took a deep breath. Told himself, it's okay, it's all right.

  He sniffed the air. There was a cloying smell; a rotting flower stink. As if the rosebuds in the wallpaper were rotting.

  There was also - somehow a function of the cloying stink of rotting petals - laughter, from somewhere; sticky, shrivelled laughter, and foreign-sounding music, sort of Arab and sort of Oriental and sort of American. Played on what sounded like a malfunctioning stereo.

  The noise came through the room's single window. A big bay window all veiny with shadows and fragmented with light. It made him think of a biology class where he'd dissected a lizard and the teacher had him hold its bellyskin up to the light and you could see all the veins picked out in a rosy glow . . .

  Roses. Big fat ones, he saw, as he hobbled up to the window. He'd never seen roses this big before. And the veiny shadows were made by thick rose vines, some as big around as his wrist, and all dinosaur-spiny with large thorns.

  The window was nailed shut.

  Bending to peer through a clear patch of window glass - and through a little rosebush cave of green and red - he could see, below, people moving twitchily across a twilit terrace strewn with trash. Most of them walked alone. Others stood singly in the shadows at the edge of the terrace. There was a big stone barbecue glowing with coals; on the grill were steaks, but they'd been allowed to curl and blacken. No one seemed to be

  eating. A woman moved erratically onto the flagstones, then stopped in the middle of the terrace, hunched over a little, hugging herself. Her shoulders began to shake. The others seemed to ignore her. Something fell from her hands: a large green wine bottle. It broke on the stones, splashing red wine and shards of green bottleglass. Then the woman collapsed, failing almost straight down, as if someone had kicked her knees from behind. She lay in a huddle. Still no one moved to help her, though a couple of people shuffled by, within a few feet of her. They didn't even look over at her.

  After a few moments, the Handy Man came out onto the terrace, bent down, put his hands under her armpits, hoisted her upright. Strong guy for being so small. She got her footing, and he led her away. She seemed perfectly sure-footed now. (What was that music? Where was it from?)

  The Handy Man, Mitch thought. The little dude from the hospital. Recognition brought back some memories, just flashes, images from a badly edited video: Darkness parting long enough to see out the window of a car, driving through a gate that rolled automatically aside. A black security guard holding a couple of snarling dogs back by their collars. A circular driveway. A big house. A wheelchair. The smell of roses and stale liquor. Another, smaller house. An old stone horse trough, and a stone jockey with a rusty iron ring in his hand. The hulk of a Mercedes, rusting on blocks in an overgrown yard to one side of the little house. Voices. Sobbing laughter. Darkness closing again.

  The gate. Remembering the gate again he saw it was black metal, ornate along the top, with - painted in gold leaf - crossed skeleton keys as the centerpiece of the scrollwork.

  Double keys. The Doublekey Ranch.

  Down below, the music was suddenly switched off. A few seconds of silence, then raucous, jeering laughter. Then more silence. Then the sound of a dog barking. The dog yelped - and made a series of terrified, excruciating high pitched yips, and then that was silenced, too.

  There were other voices, from the hall. A low, deep voice, whose resonance Mitch knew before he recognized the voice itself It was the More Man. Mitch moved as fast as he could bear to, crossed the room, pressed an ear to the door. "This one doesn't party, we cultivate him in-board. Give him a . . ."

  Give him what? Something inaudible. Had it been "bedpan"?

  The More Man went on, "In a month or two he . . ." Inaudible. But knowing with a sinking, plunging certainty, that the More Man was talking about him, about Mitch. "No, no, he's not going to be . . ." Couldn't hear it. ". . . doesn't matter too much but he could surprise us. Pair him with the . . ." Couldn't hear. A murmur of someone, maybe the Handy Man, replying to the More Man. And then the More Man's voice: ". . . unless that asshole Ephram comes back . . ." Lost. The sound lost. Then: ''. . . won't be looking for him, there's no need to -" He broke off speaking, suddenly.

  He was aware of Mitch listening. Mitch backed away from the door.

  Oh no oh no, said a scared little kid in Mitch's head. Just some part of Mitch himself going: Oh no, oh no, oh no.

  Mitch told the little kid, It's okay, I'm getting out of here. I'll get out. But it was exactly like trying to comfort

  a small child when the house is burning down around him. The kid was smart enough to know . . .

  The More Man had lied, Mitch knew, with magnifying glass lucidity. The More Man had lied always and all along, about trading the body-play time for favours in the music business, for being here a little while and then going free.

  Free? There was no way he was ever going to let Mitch go, never, not ever . . .

  It was dark outside, when Mitch woke up again. He didn't remember lying down, or going to sleep.

  Someone was at the door. He could hear them messing with the locks. He thought of waiting by the door, rushing whoever it was, knocking them down, sprinting for the stairs.

  But just sitting up hurt like a bitch.

  If raw hamburger could feel, he thought, it'd feel like
this. I did this to myself, Mitch thought, looking at his arms. I cut myself.

  He had to tell that to himself, again and again, to be able to think about it at all. It just didn't seem real.

  The door opened, and the Handy Man came in, carrying a plastic tray holding a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a sponge, bandages.

  Bandy-legged and puppet-faced, the Handy Man. Smelling of hot dog grease and creosote. He ignored Mitch's rasped questions, whistling rather loudly and tunelessly as if to blot up anything Mitch said, and lay him back on the bed, bathing his wounds with foaming hydrogen peroxide. He smiled as, with nail-less hands, he bandaged Mitch, and smiled as he gathered up his supplies and left. "See you in the hot tub," the Handy Man said.

  He didn't lock the door behind him. Mitch stared at the door, slightly ajar, hope rising like a feeble dog in his chest, and then the More Man came walking in, and the dog died.

  "Hi Sam," Mitch said. Trying.

  "Howdy Mitch," the More Man said. Mitch always thought of Sam Denver as the More Man. That's what the kids called him, on the street. The More Man was carrying a wooden tray containing a bowl of sprouts, wheatgrass and tomatoes. A few grainy looking vitamins lying beside the ceramic bowl. A wooden fork. A ceramic cup of what was probably carrot juice.

  The More Man was a tanned, muscular man wearing a white linen jacket over a blazingly colourful tie-dyed t-shirt. Linen pants, white canvas shoes, no socks. He had a slight suggestion of wattles, a lot of lines around his foggy blue eyes, his collar-length, swept back blond hair receding a little. But he seemed to move about on a wave of youthful energy.

  Mitch knew the More Man wasn't armed and he knew that didn't matter.

  "Wheatgrass, Mitch," the More Man said, in his boyish, hearty voice. "Wheatgrass!" There was a sense of distraction about the voice as if the speaker was not really listening to himself, despite the heartiness. ''Wheatgrass cleanses the blood, rebuilds the cells, revitalizes the chakras, energizes and feeds! Not too much, just enough, with a little alfalfa, some nice tomatoes. My dear Lord, Mitch, you're going to be shakin' the bacon and dancin' on air in no time!"

  "Sure," Mitch said. He was sort of hungry. Queasy but hungry. "I'll eat it, Sam." All the questions were hiding just back of Mitch's teeth. Was it possible to ask this guy questions? Could a person even do it?

  "And the vitamins!" the More Man said, setting the tray on Mitch's lap. "This one is Vitamin A. The carrot juice has a lot of A in it too! Good for healing! Needja strong! Got big happenins' comin down! The vibes are all there!"

  "Great," Mitch said. What was he talking about? Songwriting?

  "Record deals cookin' ", the More Man said, winking. "Hang in there. Sufferin' builds character - you're almost there. Just hang loose and heal. Record companies snappin' at my heels."

  Mitch knew, this time, with a bedrock certainty, that the More Man was lying. There never had been any career in the making. Not for Mitch.

  But. Say anything. Just say anything, Mitch told himself. Anything he'll like. "Great, rad, I'm stoked, Sam!"

  "Just let ol' Handy take care of you!" The More Man flashed a fluorescent grin at him and started for the door.

  Panic. "Uh - Sam! Listen - the pain. I need, I dunno, something. To chill out behind. It . . ."

  "I'll get you a painkiller, just a little, wouldn't want you to get hooked!" The More Man chattered, opening the door, bouncing his head a little on his shoulders like Ronald Reagan used to do when he was in a good mood. Sort of like an excited cockatoo.

  Sometimes there was a squirming at the More Man's crotch. Sometimes his eyes dimmed with euphoria. Sometimes his smile became a rictus.

  "I was thinking of the Head Syrup . . . I mean, the Reward." Mitch said. Heart pounding. Hooked? He was already fucking hooked.

  The More Man's smile went out like a popped

  lightbulb. He turned Mitch a look of sucking vagueness. "Rewards have to be earned," he said, lifelessly.

  And Mitch was relieved when the More Man went out and shut the door behind him. Even though he locked it.

  Mitch made himself eat the meal. Take the vitamins, washed down with carrot juice. The Handy Man came in and brought him a cap of something, maybe a "dilly", judging by the way Mitch was feeling after taking it. Feeling like he was melting into his bed. A dilaudid. The pain ebbed . . . the starved and beaten dog in his gut dreamed about being a happy and stupid puppy . . .

  A noise outside the door. Sounded like it was down the hall a little, but coming closer.

  Mitch opened his eyes and stared at the door and, after a minute, it came into focus. He listened.

  It wasn't the Handy Man's padding footsteps. It was a dry, scraping sound, like something being dragged or . . . more like crawling. It kept going. After a while it was gone.

  4

  The Outskirts of Bakersfield, California

  The guy was kind of cute, Constance thought. He had a nice smile.

  He's got a nice dick too, Ephram told her. Yes, she thought dutifully, he's got a nice dick.

  When Ephram told her things, it didn't come like words in her head. Just little pushes of idea, maybe a picture or two. But Ephram was in there with her, all right.

  She knew his name was Ephram, by now. She knew some other stuff about him, too. She knew that Ephram was a murderer. She had glimpsed it through the kaleidoscope strobing of mental ideation. He was a murderer, but he didn't let her care about that.

  They were admiring the young man in a Sizzler steakhouse. The man was sitting across the aisle from them, a few booths up. He had long, wavy brown hair past his shoulders and a new-looking Levi jacket and a gold watch. There were some keys on the table with a

  little plastic BMW tab on them. He had a nice face that looked slightly Latin. And probably a nice dick. A nice dick, A nice dick. A nice cock. A big fucking cock.

  Constance had eaten most of her steak, though she didn't feel like eating. But she was afraid of what Ephram would do if she didn't. This was the second night they'd stopped at a Sizzler. The time before they'd had the All You Can Eat Shrimp Dinner and Constance hadn't wanted much so Ephram had jolted her in the Rewards, gave her a flush of pleasure if she so much as looked at the Shrimp, and even more if she ate it, so she did, she ate it, and ate more of it and more of it, and he sat there silently laughing, his jowls shaking, watching her, jolting her with pain if she complained that her stomach was too full, jolting her with pleasure when she ate more, so that even the big guys in the restaurant who could polish off five platesful, even they stared at her when she went back for number seven, and she wanted to cry but Ephram wouldn't let her, he kept making her eat, Constance wolfing the stuff down noisily and rapidly, till she threw up, she projectile-vomited half-chewed shrimp across the table and then he made her eat some of that and enjoy it and everyone was afraid to come over and tell her to stop and then they left, Ephram pasting a hundred dollar bill to the cash register with some of her vomit, "just to pay for her disgusting mess", and she'd tried to run away again and he'd punished her terribly as they drove away . . .

  So tonight she ate her steak.

  She looked out the window. Headlights like stars going two by two fell horizontally along the horizon (what was up and what was down? Constance didn't know, she didn't think anyone knew) under a sky heavy with slate and indigo . . . Nearer were the motel signs,

  the gas stations and fast food places, this place so like the last town it was as if the day of slow driving hadn't happened, as if they hadn't travelled hundreds of miles.

  "Come on, Constance," Ephram said aloud, as the young man Ephram had picked got up lithely and went to the door.

  They followed him. Constance wanted to warn him but she didn't try, she knew Ephram wouldn't let her.

  And why should she? (Was that her own thought or Ephram's? She wasn't sure). Why should she warn him? She had seen the world as she had never seen it before. Just watching TV with Ephram, she had seen it anew.

  "Look there," Ephram had said. "
Ethiopia, the government murdering thousands of its own people. Look there, our own government playing footsy with the Khmer Rouge after they murdered millions of innocent people. Look there, the industrialists are poisoning us - everyone knows they poison our air and water and people die as a result, but they feel no remorse, these men, and we are all too greedy for our economic comforts to truly punish them. Look there, how many thousands of rapes every week? How many murders? How many children are locked in closets or used for sex? How many infants used for sex? How many men have made how much money making nerve gas? Look there! The man who invented the Neutron bomb is on CNN, sweating with desire, urging that we use his toy on the enemy! How much murder are we considering, at his behest? Constance, did you hear that? Fifty thousand children die, every day, around the world, from famine! Think of the vast scale of the suffering! In Burma, in Ceylon, in Guatemala, people are murdered at the convenience of the government - but we are safe here, aren't we? Those of us free of persecution - what

  do we have? If we're not beaten to death by men with baseball bats at our ATMs; if we are not dying of cancer on the fringe of some nuclear power plant, why . . . what do we have? What is our reward? Television and beer! Then: death! Or worse: abandonment to psychopathic strangers in nursing homes. Slow suffering! The horror of Death! Annihilation!

  "Let us at least be ourselves, Constance! Let us at least prey before we are preyed on! Let us reward ourselves and take part in the slaughter instead of being the slaughtered! Let us not mouth the lie that the world was not made for murder!"

  He'd said all that. She wasn't quite sure if he'd ever said it aloud.

  "Hi," she said to the handsome young man in the Levi jacket. Walking up to him in the parking lot of his motel. "What's your name?"

  He looked at her, and at Ephram, then back at her. He swallowed. "Darryl. And uh what's - "

  "Eloise. And this is Benny. We're kind of bored - my friend just likes to watch . . ."