0fu (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} 0fu) wrote,@ 2005-08-24 18:03:00 |
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Automat Opiate chapters 4-6
4. The Requisite Minion Twitterings.
Work. I work in a semiconductor fabrication plant on the perpetual verge of bankruptcy. They call me in whenever someone calls in sick or they need to run the machines all night to fill an order. The work sucks and is infrequent and the pay’s all right. I scrape by, and ever since Duck found out I have access to a certain chemical I haven’t had to pay a dime for room and board.
The place is run down and slipshod, EPA test-marker flags riddle the lawn. Every day I come here I wish this place would finally get shut down, but management always seems to hide the truly noxious stuff before an inspection.
I walk into the main building. The old man is waiting for me.
“You are LATE!” he looks meaningfully at his watch “One hour sixteen minutes LATE! This is Unacceptable!” its best to just let the old man seethe. Run himself down. Zoey hates him because he hires illegal aliens and treats them like chattle, making them do jobs that will almost certainly give them cancer later. I hate him because he’s a crotchety cantankerous shit-heal who likes to abuse his underlings, namely me. Everyone calls him the old man, I don’t know what his real name is. He does sign my paychecks though.
‘Sorry, I missed my bus transfer.’
“Being late is UNACCEPTABLE, not calling in to say that you’ll be late is UNACCEPTABLE.”
‘…sorry?’
“Do you like your job?”
‘Its fine.”
“Do you want to keep your job?”
‘…sure.’
“Then you will not be late from this point on, you understand me?”
‘yes…I understand.’ I scuff the carpet with my shoe, try to look properly chastised.
“Then get on the saws, NOW. There are two runs already backed up and they need to go out by end of business today.”
‘Yes sir.” I start to walk past him.
Satisfied that his brilliant management style has yet again proven effective, the old man takes to time bathe me in his appraising glower.
“Boy, you look like hammered shit, you sick?”
‘Just tired, not a lot of sleep, I’m fine.’
“Well get some damned sleep, after you work your shift. I don’t want you scaring any potential clients.”
No client has visited this plant since Microsoft was just an insult to one’s masculinity.
“Well, get going, those damned wafers won’t cut themselves.” Timeless wisdom, a parable for the ages.
I beeline to the punch-clock, punch my card. Exit our hero, stage left, thankful to have gotten off light. Somebody had undoubtedly caught a full blast of the old man this morning, he doesn’t recharge as quickly as he used to.
I feel defiled, trod upon: it’s a living.
Today I’m working in phase 4, room 12: the saw room. This is my favorite: Alone in a sealed and sanitary room, nothing but me and the sound of eight diamond blades screaming through silicone. Take wafer from slot, affix it with hot wax to the backing plate, place in saw, activate suction clamp, align the space between the chips to the saw blades, press go, repeat. Mindless semiskilled labor: a monkey with a button am I. I use the drudgery to think about last night and get nowhere. At lunchtime I slip the thermos out of my pack and sneak out the back entrance. Nothing unusual there, my workmates are used to me being anti-social. I approach the chemical shed, this is the really iffy part: if any one happens to see me go in or is watching the video camera aimed at the door then I’m fucked. I usually only do this when I work graveyard, hardly anyone around, no management, easy money. Its high noon now and I’m almost to the door, a big lumbering meat sack with this thermos huge and conspicuous in my hand. If I don’t do this Duck will almost certainly freak out, and after a Duck tantrum the old man seems as placid as a bodhisattva. Fuck it. I open the door, step through. Every time I go inside the chemical shed I can’t help but be amazed. They keep this shit in a shed, an unlocked fucking tin shed. If some of these chemicals were to blow it would unleash a fireball of almost atomic proportions. Hydrofluoric acid. Ether. Jesus. Fifty-gallon drums of this shit, laying around in an un-insulated, un-airconditioned shed. The mind reels. Trichloroethelene: you can’t even buy this stuff anymore, its beyond carcinogenic. The old man’s nefarious connections drive it in at two o’clock in the morning on an old farm truck. I walk down the rows of fiery horrible doom until I find it, the anhydrous ammonia. I kneel next to the steel drum, unscrew the cap from Ducks specially-made thermos, hold my breath, open the spigot and poor, watching the vapors billow out. There’s a little bobber inside, when I see the little metal flag pop out I close the spigot, screw the cap back on, and get the hell out of Dodge. I peek out the door, give the grounds a quick reconnoiter: no ones around. Slip out, close door, do my best secret agent stroll to the back door of the Phaze 4 building, put the thermos in the fridge and clock in early, no one will mind. If I mentioned to anyone in management that a minimum thirty minutes of lunch per full work shift is required by law, they’d look at me like a puppy ponders at a ceiling fan. No one would ever complain about such anyway, most people who get hired here are grateful just to have a job.
I spend the next four hours trapped in the saw room, cutting wafer after wafer, expecting the old man to storm in with an entourage of brutish police officers. I imagine his vengeful wrath, the ensuing pummeling from well-bribed nightsticks. My shift ends, the last wafer cut and sent to the cleaning room, and my wrists are thankfully free of handcuffs. I casually retrieve my thermos, put it in my pack and go to the main building to clock out. My back aches from eight hours of hunching over obsolete machinery. I look at the time on the front of the punch-clock, 5:46 pm: the apex of afternoon rush hour. No way in hell am I riding the bus right now: The remnants of this morning’s multiple conflicts still careen through my stomach, threatening to sicken me with aftershocks. I’ve had a busy day. I should make Duck come and get me if he wants this stuff so bad. No, that could be a very bad idea. Better I just walk to the coffee shop a couple blocks down, get a strong chia latte and kill some time, wait for the bus traffic to thin. The ride home is never as bad. A quick jaunt though the dark heart of industrial America, turn a corner, and I’ve arrived.
The Kharma Café is a tiny bistro nestled in the bottom corner of an office complex. Its hella busy around lunchtime and 2 hours before or after as people sneak in a cappuccino on their break. Come here after business hours though and its all but deserted-everyone except me has someplace better to go. I walk in and head towards the counter. I like this place, dark, small, completely devoid of patrons. Horrid paintings cover the walls, the owner’s daughter makes them and hangs them up, hoping to be discovered. She’s the one tending the counter, popping gum, looking a bored that only comes through hours of practice. I tell her my order in slow clear tones, lay a five on the table. She barely acknowledges my existence, looks around slowly for something better to do, then takes my money from the counter. She doesn’t even attempt to make change. This relationship of mutual apathy and loathing has been carefully cultivated and is one of my most cherished human interactions.
Retreat to a corner table, pull out a dog-eared Bukowski novel, and prepare the next couple hours for sacrifice. I’ll stay until the place closes and the girl clears her throat in conspicuous annoyance, standing next to the door held open just for me. Already she’s coming over with my drink. that was quick. The process of adding powdered chia mix to milk and steaming it is usually so arduous and tiring for the poor cashier/barista/impressionistic-hack that I will not get my beverage for at least half an hour. I don’t look up at her as she approaches, just tap my finger on the table where my chia should go. She sits down in the chair across from me.(odd) There no delicious offering of savory tea for me, she is just sitting there. This break in established decorum is most unwelcome. I look up, intent on asking her what exactly is going on.
I look up and stop. Dead.
The counter-girl is rummaging for milk in the refrigerator below the coffee machine.
This girl sitting here, a slight superior smirk on her face: I recognize this girl.
“You remember me.”
Yes
I do.
I remember her.
I remember everything.
5. About Last Night.
Duck’s. Usual crowd. Business casual meets construction formal for earnest orgy. Portishead pours through the jukebox, sad and succubitic and at just the right volume. A note scrawled in black magic marker is stuck to the glass with yellowing scotch tape, obscuring the available song choices almost entirely.
TOUCH THIS MACHINE WITHOUT MGMT. PERMISSION:
DIE SCREAMING.
WE LIKE IT WHEN YOU SCREAM.
I sit in the usual booth with a subset of usual suspects. I tolerate their presence, basking in my own munificence for allowing them to sit at my prime real-estate table. I practice ignoring their various mouth-noises and think about nothing in particular, just sit back, observe the show.
There is a line to get in almost every night now. Duck likes to keep as much of that line inside as possible, sectioning them off from the crowd, taunting them with their inability to get into a bar so inexplicably popular. His current set of counter measures also includes the careful choice of doorman. He stations the doorman (to date there have been no women) at the end of the line behind an official looking podium, and bequeaths unto them the most sacred of responsibilities: to scrutinize the ID’s of the conspicuous, the drab, the hopelessly ugly, and deny admission on a purely arbitrary and whimsical basis. The rewards of the job are vast, but the slightest failure is met with swift and brutal punishment. The turn over had been incredible, Duck didn’t really know what he wanted. Sometimes the doorman would be replaced four times in a single night. The guy who now fills the position has lasted five days straight: an undisputed record. Duck lavishes him with gifts of money, praise, and any substance he might desire. I must admit, the lad does show a remarkable talent for the job.
“This drivers license is a forgery, and you are obviously too young to be here, I’m afraid you have to leave.” He hands the banker/broker/whatever back his ID.
The man looks at him in uncomprehending shock. “I am 43 years old.”
“Your lies are transparent and unappreciated, we run a respectable establishment and do not condone the delinquency of minors. Please run along now, as other citizens with the legal right to be here are waiting.”
“Look man,” the guy flips through his wallet “this is a picture of me with my wife and son, this is my debit card, my gym membership, this is my insurance card for Christsake. You know I’m old enough to drink here. I was just here 5 days ago.”
“It is apparent to me now that you are severely unbalanced and pose a grave danger to yourself and those unfortunately around you. We here at Duck’s have neither the facilities nor the requisite training to attempt the healing of your diseased young mind. Please use the door behind you conveniently marked EXIT, turn left, walk down two blocks until you see a screaming man with a piece of cardboard duct-taped to his chest. Read the message on the cardboard carefully as it contains secret instructions especially for you. Give the man twenty five cents and try to accept Jesus into your heart.”
Some people in line are starting to snicker. The burly slab of bouncer that now accompanies the doorman because of repeated threats of various levels of violence slowly shakes his head in the general direction of the offending noise.
“you will leave immediately or I’ll be forced to call the truant officer or whoever it is who enjoys abusing wayward boys these days.”
The man stands there, his mouth a bit slack, apparently unsure what is required of him.
“The exit is behind you and slightly to the left, Don’t make me get my belt.”
Amazingly, I think the guy is going to try and stand his ground.
“If you do not vacate forthwith, you will be forcibly ejected. I have been authorized by the state board of education to administer corporal punishment. This is your last warning.”
The bouncer takes a small step foreword. The man mumbles obscenities under his breath, turns to leave. The doorman plays a quick game of tick-tack-toe with himself on a memo note, gives it to the next girl in line, puts his index finger to his lips in a conspiratorial ‘shhhh’, and nods her through. Duck looks on in absolute adoration. If I didn’t know better I would swear he was in love. Someone at the bar asks him to make an apple sour. He tells them to leave the premises and never come back.
“You’re good, you’re good, you’re bad, very bad, but I’ll let you in anyway. You there! Let me see a valid form of government issued identification immediately.”
The girl gingerly paws through her purse, knowing she’s probably fucked, but hands over her wallet anyway.
“Hmmm, it says here that you do not actually exist, and therefore cannot possibly enter the premises. Please return to whatever vortex spawns your demon kind.” He returns the wallet to her hand with an audible slap. I think she might be starting to cry as she walks out. This affect has not been uncommon.
“Next, yeah your fine. You too. Yes, I am talking to you. Go buy lots of overpriced drinks and wake up in the hairy arms of another man. Unless you enjoy waiting in line, which I can understand completely. We will now pause for station identification.” He stands ramrod straight, a look of utter bliss on his face, his left hand snapping to his brow in the approximation of a military salute. The bouncer strokes his chin with a beefy hand and looks meaningfully at the ceiling. Two minutes pass. The doorman abruptly eyes at the beautiful pair of secretaries next in line. “Thank you for shopping. We appreciate your business. Please have a drink at the bar. Ask for the Duck special” He waves them through. “You too may pass, but only if you return immediately with an offering of expensive liquor in a large glass. You have two minutes to comply. You! You too may proceed to the delights that await within. You, however, must tell me the capital of North Dakota.” The doorman cocks his head, waits. “You are trying to answer with the powers of your mind but in this instance I must insist on a vocal response.”
“Uh, Charleston?”
“Such miserable guesswork is a discredit to your species. You are henceforth banished until you complete a geography course at a community college of your choosing. Admittance will only then be granted with written proof of a passing grade. Don’t think I won’t remember your face.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not even a State Capital. The previous offer is hereby rescinded. Be gone with thee,
your presence makes me queasy in a naughty place.”
The bouncer uncrosses his arms and rubs his fist menacingly, intentions of physical violence obvious. The potty mouth has wisely decided to exit.
“You though, I like you, you’re not like the others in the trailer park. You may enter. Enjoy the fish.”
Someone walks up tentatively to the doorman, a tall glass in his hand.
“Here is the expensive liquor as you requested, sir.”
“Bless you my child,” He takes the glass, holding it up to the light, appraising its contents. “Your entrance into this holy place was not in vein, despite what it says in your file. You get a gold star and five bonus points, use them wisely.”
He takes a drink, grimaces grotesquely.
“Sheeeeit, I think my left testicle just dropped.”
He drinks the rest of it down in 3 big gulps with no apparent affect, picks up the blank memo note pad, ponders it, turns it sideways, nods gravely.
“Well gentle-folk, it appears that we’ve reached our capacity for the moment. You are welcome to stay on hold or call back at any time. Remember that in the case of an emergency the thing falling from the ceiling will most likely kill you. Thank you Charleston, Goodnight!
He executes an intricate handshake with the bouncer that ends in a formal Buddhist bow and leaves the mountain of flesh by the door to keep the mob at bay. He slowly and pimp-limps through the crowd to the bar and Duck’s exuberant clapping.
I’ve been a bit of a fan-boy ever since he first started working here. Some people are born to greatness, he was born to be a doorman at Duck’s. In truth his effectiveness in the position is beginning to become counterproductive. Some people show up just to wait in line, knowing they won’t be admitted-they just want to watch his antics. When he does finally tire of abusing the natives he goes to the bar and gets immediately sloppy drunk. The nectar of words that then flows from his lips soon reaches unknown heights of strange. Duck hangs on every utterance, countering with his own version of witty repartee, making sure that his star employee wants for nothing. If some poor fool makes the mistake of trying to order a drink while Duck is in the depths of reverie, they are lucky to merely get banished from the bar. Duck has been known to throw bottles of liquor at the heads of paying customers for no apparent reason whatsoever. Then there are the times that he really flips out. Amazingly, no lawsuits have yet been filed, knock on formica.
Usually I’d delight in spending the evening in vicarious observation of their endless banter, but something from the door keeps drawing my attention. A brief flickering of clothing, skin, somehow strangely out of place, an indecipherable discontinuity, suddenly gone again. I keep glancing back to the line of people still packed alongside the south wall, suspecting that I could be suffering flashbacks from the acid I’ve never taken. There it is again: there, a head between two patient chino wearing middle managers, just like she’s been there forever. Has she? Her large vacant eyes quickly scan the crowd. Her face is completely forgettable, her features perfectly passive: a mask of a thousand people I could pass by everyday. But there is something else. Something. Else.
What the hell? I’m reading something from her. This can only happen if I’m close enough to someone to smell them, feel the warmth of their flesh. Only then do I begin to pick anything up, and even then it’s only sometimes.
This girl radiates.
I feel it from here. This is not right. My body tries to panic in an instinctual reaction to another’s life invading my own, but there is nothing to panic about. There is nothing. No hints of life or love or pain or want.
The only thing I get from her is absence.
The only thing I get from her feels like she has no soul.
Then like a switch, gone, poof, like she was never there. Did I blink? The people she had just stood between seem unaffected. I think I can see glimpses of her as she slowly weaves through the crowd of waiting people, no one seems to notice her. Weird. There, another one. there are two of them. A little further back in line is a man, his face just as bland and forgettable, his presence exuding the same sense of emptiness. His clothes seem deliberately, conveniently neutral. He slips in front of a middle aged woman as she looks around the bar, he starts to scrutinize the patrons. Suddenly his face becomes animated. The difference is subtle, shocking. He looks over his shoulder at the woman just as she turns and sees him.
He smiles.
She smiles back, like he’s always been there in front of her, like they share the same befuddlement as to what the big fuss over this place is about.
She smiles just like he expected her to.
He turns his head again toward the crowd, the features of emotion bleeding from his face like they were a sudden and fleeting affliction. Large empty eyes methodically search the room. He is looking for something. They are looking for something. What could they possibly need to find in a bar stuffed full of drunk people trying to get laid?
…oh
They are looking for someone.
Legs propel me of their own volition up and into the crowd. I walk around a table just in time to see her stroll out of the line of waiting people, crossing the hallowed space that separates them from the teaming mass of bodies deemed worthy enough to actually consume alcohol here. Just as calm and cool as you please she slips into the crowd: the perfect party crasher. The bouncer didn’t see it, he was busy scrutinizing the buoyant and all but exposed breasts of a girl farther back in the line. Duck didn’t see it because he was actually making a drink for someone. No one waiting in line saw it, they were all somehow consumed with their various dramas. No one drinking noticed it, they were all busy…drinking. Nobody in the whole bar was paying attention to that small little section of floor at the exact moment she calmly walked over it and disappeared into the crowd. What are the chances? I think of statistics, probabilities. She did it in plain sight of everyone. What are the odds that she could pick the exact moment that 150 or so people were not looking and infiltrate a bar developing a vehement aversion to uninvited guests. Any one of the people here would turn her in without hesitation for so flagrantly violating the first rule of the bar. The odds are complex, too many variables, permutations. It couldn’t have been just luck. She somehow knew the exact moment. Nobody has paid her the slightest shred of attention except me and the man with vacant eyes still waiting in line. His face is empty and expressionless as he watches her progress through the crowd. What is he? Backup? What is she? What is she doing?
I’ve lost her.
I push through the crowd, using his placid gaze to roughly triangulate her position. I try to get in front of her, manage to come up a little short and off to the side. I watch her slipping through the crowd, her eyes locked on some guy at the end of the bar. She stops in mid stride, like a switch labeled ‘walk’ was suddenly thrown. She stands there, motionless. A man beside her puts his glass down on the table, turning back around to continue his seduction of an obvious transvestite. Without even looking she reaches her hand out, takes the drink,and starts to walk again, glass comfortably held in front of her. She doesn’t drink, but it does help her look like she belongs here. Did she know through some understanding of body language that the guy was going to set his drink down? She couldn’t have been watching him very closely, her eyes never strayed from the man at the end of the bar. Like her entrance into the bar, she just seemed to know what was going to happen and was there to take advantage. Goose bumps raise on my arms as I watch her walk. Her hips slant back and start to sway, her stride begins to undulate, becoming sensuous. Her face contorts slightly, softens, little by little, as she gets closer to her objective. Lips push out, become luscious, her eyes become slightly slanted and sultry. Before my eyes she is changing into somebody. I stumble around people, their curses, as I shadow her. Just as she reaches the man she has been walking towards there is an almost audible click, and sex pours out of her, hits me like the shockwave of an explosion. My cock becomes rock hard, my mouth waters, she touches his shoulder.
“Hey there stranger.” Her voice drawls with a slight southern accent.
He turns towards her, tries to conceal an immediate attraction. “…Hey there yourself.”
“I haven’t seen you in forever, how the hell you been?” her mannerisms are confident, confortable, alluring. She has his complete attention. In the space of 10 seconds he has become completely ensnared.
“I’ve been great, things at work are really picking up…How are you.” His face betrays slight confusion. He’s sure he knows her, but doesn’t quite remember how.
“Life is beautiful, And getting even better now that I’ve run into you again.” She bats her eyes slightly, grazes up against him, perfect fluid gestures.
“Yeah, definitely…I can’t believe it, but I seem to have forgotten your name.”
She punches him lightly on the arm, “Well don’t you know how to make a girl feel unwanted.”
“I’m sorry, if you tell me one more time I am certain that I won’t forget it again.”
“That’s all right Sugah, I’m bad with names too. I’m sure you can remember my name though, why don’t you try, don’t worry, I won’t get mad if you’re wrong.”
He furrows his brow, thinks. “…Sarah?”
she squeals with delight, sticks her tits into his chest, leans up on her tiptoes, kisses his nose.
“I knew you would remember me!” She sets her drink down, looks around. “Hey, do you like this bar?’
“Its fine I guess, why?”
“I know this other place right down the road, its more intimate, better for us to get reacquainted…” She lightly strokes his forearm.
“Well lets go!” he can’t hide his excitement: he’s so going to get laid. He slams his drink on the bar, turns around, offers her his arm.
“…Lets.” She wraps herself around his arm. It has taken her all but two minutes to pick this guy up. He’ll go wherever she wants, which is almost certainly the purpose of the exercise.
I’m standing in front of them, my eyes locked onto her, awash in the sex-vibe she emanates.
She looks at me.
An expression I can only interpret as shock passes over her face, temporarily loosening the mask she created for seduction. She quickly recomposes herself, walks up to me, ahead of the confused looking man. She comes right up in front of me. The lusty vibe flickering like she somehow can’t keep it up. She looks in my eyes, her own seen to contort, as if they are trying to take up a thousand shapes at once.
She stops. Right in front of me. I can smell her. She smells like rain.
“Leave Me Alone.” She growls, pushing me hard in the chest.
Her touch. Cavernous. For that brief moment she seemed to absorb every part of me. Every hint of feeling. Gone. Replaced. With nothing. But sex. Nothing else. No specifics that decode into a history, a life. Nothing but sheer animal lust. I stumble, fall back against a table, contorting in a sexual pain I never thought possible.
I feel her walk past me. I hear the man’s voice come from behind.
“Who the hell was that?”
“I don’t know, just some loser. He was bothering me earlier. No worries, Lets go, eh?”
I get up off the edge of the table, ignoring the looks from the patrons around me. Nothing exists except the want for sex. Primal. Every part of me. I watch her guide the man out the door. Her cohort exits the line and follows close behind. They are gone. The need remains, expands. I’m hyperventilating. This yearning, infecting me. Too potent, blind and violent instinct, It does not feel remotely human. It grows, needs, ripping everything it touches. Fear beyond that for which the name of fear is given. I know that I am losing myself. I walk slowly to the bar, sweat soaking through my shirt, my erection a bar of iron pushing against my jeans. I catch Duck’s eye, motion him over.
“Give me a drink.”
6. Comes the Dawn
Shock. The latticed haze of recollection congeals around her, quenches on the flavor of her emptiness. Every instance of question, every riddle of recent history, solved. My mind touches the pain of lust she left me with, recoils, urging my flesh to flee. My body does not remember how.
She was the impetus.
Dark eyes bore into me, without motion. Her smile is the flicking tongue of a reptile.
‘What do you want?’ words move my mouth without volition.
The smile fades. Replaced in increments with an analog of confusion. These four words confuse her.
“…I do not.” Her face vibrates, attempts some posture, fails. She looks away, breathes, returns her gaze to me. Eyes almost urgent, searching. Gone. A barest hint of feeling, diving under oceanic depths of nothingness. The smile remains, meaningful as the ripples left from the flicking of a tail-fin.
‘You do not… what?’
“want.”
What? Is she playing word games with me?
‘Why are you here?’
“Because you are here.” Her lips move just enough to form her speech, never disturbing the edges of her smile.
I see the counter-girl stand up with a gallon of milk, she look at my table, slants her head to the side, confused that a girl, a not unattractive girl, is sitting with me. Concentrate. This is potentially a bad situation.
‘How did you find me?’
“…You are here.” Again, the briefest confusion, like she doesn’t know what she is to say.
This is getting nowhere. Be specific. Ask a simple closed-ended question. My mouth opens, is overruled by the roaring of hot air forcing itself into milk and tea mix. A welcome pause. I compose my line of questioning.
My ears ring slightly in the aftermath of viscous drink preparation.
‘What is your name?’
“You call me Sarah.” Such odd phrasing. Like she doesn’t have a full grasp of the language, but I’ve heard her talk like a born-n-bread southern bell.
‘That is the name that guy you picked up last night called you.’
“Yes.”
‘Is that your real name?’
“It is the name you call me.”
Great.
‘Well ok then, Sarah…Are you here to pick me up like you did that guy last night?’
“No.”
‘Then you’re here just to have this little talk with me?’
“We are talking now.”
‘And what, exactly, are we talking about?’
“You ask questions, I answer them.”
I let out a frustrated sigh, rub my face with my hands. This is like pulling teeth. The counter-girl approaches with my chia, sets down the paper cup on the table. The woman sitting next to me animates, flips her hair to the side, grins, nods at the wall.
“I really like those paintings, where did you get them?”
“I painted them.”
“For real? Wow, you’re quite talented, they remind me of Dali’s earlier pieces.”
“Dali is my idol!” all pretense is gone from the counter-girl’s manor, “You know, all my paintings are for sale…”
The woman looks up at her, laughs “If I had a dime to my name, you’d have yourself a patron. But I do know someone who would definitely be interested in your work. Would you mind if I brought him by, take a look-see?”
“Oh hell no, that would be great! Hey, do you want anything to drink? It’s on the house.”
“That’s ok sweetie, I’ll just share with my friend here.”
The girl looks dubiously at me, shrugs, turns to leave, “Well just holler if you end up wanting anything.”
“Will do, thanks, and keep painting, you have a great future.”
“Yeah, definitely, art is my life.” She returns to the counter, humming underneath her breath, happier than I’ve ever seen her. I look back at Sarah, her face now emotionless as plastic.
‘Why did you talk to her like that?’
“It is what she wanted me to say.”
Simple as that.
“What do I want you to say.”
Her face seems to flutter, stops, flutters again. “…I do not know.”
‘Why am I different?’
“You are different.”
Jesus fucking Christ on a stick. I take the plastic cup off of my tea, more frustrated now than afraid. I take a sip. Heaven.
‘So, Sarah, you want a drink of my chia?’
“If it is offered I will drink.”
‘Sure, Sarah, have some.’ I push the cup towards her. Why the hell am I doing this?
‘You don’t have any cooties do you?’
“My body is free of communicable disease.” She takes the cup, cradling it in both hands, raises the edge to her lips, and takes the barest of sips. Her eyes close. She swirls the tea around her mouth, swallows.
“This is good.” Her eyes open. She pushes the cup back to me.
‘Have some more.’ I am fascinated that she can express an honest enjoyment.
“I know the flavor of it.”
…ok then.
‘Well…Sarah, it is obvious that you’ve come to this little café because I am here, correct?’
“Yes.”
‘So, your purpose for coming here involves me, correct?’
“Yes.”
‘Sarah, what, exactly is your purpose for being here?’
“I am to bring you with me.”
I let out a pent up sigh. There. Finally
‘Ok, where are you supposed to bring me?’
“To a man who wishes to speak with you.”
‘Why would I go with you?’
“Because that is what you do.”
‘What does this guy want to talk to me about.’
“That is not for me to know.”
‘Look, Sarah, cut the cryptic bullshit. I saw what you did last night. I saw how you corralled that guy and got him to leave with you. Now you’re here for me. Its beyond creepy. What happened to that guy, anyway?’
“That is not for me to tell you.”
‘Either you tell me exactly what happened to that dude, or you can count on me not going anywhere with you.’
“That is not for me to tell you.”
‘Did you take him off and kill him?’
“He lives.”
‘Are you holding him for ransom?’
“No,”
‘Then what, goddamn it, what did you do to him.’
“That is not “ ‘I know I know “That is not for me to tell you”. Honey, listen to me very carefully, there is no way in hell I am going anywhere with you.’
She smiles. Tentative. Almost childlike, bashfull. Not at all what I was expecting from her. She lays her palm face up on the table.
“Give me your hand.”
‘Oh fuck no.’
“Please, I will not hurt you.”
‘I still remember the last time you touched me. It fucked with my soul.’
“Your reaction was…unintended. This will be different. Please.” She nods to her hand.
Against all good judgment, against the voice screaming in my head to stop, I watch myself slowly reach my hand out and place it in hers.
Purity.
Gentle hints
of sex.
Like kitten paws playing with my fingertips.
Intricate, beautifully simple.
All I feel is want for her.
No panic, no pain, no reaction.
No torrent of her life forcing itself into mine.
Just simple, wonderful attraction.
‘What is this?’
Her other hand is on top of mine lightly stroking my skin. I almost lose myself in it, but not quite. She is emanating just the right amount, the perfect algorithm.
“I am to offer myself to you.”
What? I want to jerk my hand away, but can’t bring myself to break the contact.
‘You were told to do this?’
She lightly traces the veins on the back of my hand.
“I agreed to do this.”
Goosebumps travel in waves up my body.
‘What happens now?’
“You are to come with me.”
‘To the man who wants to talk with me?’
“Yes.”
‘And then?’
“Then we have the rest of tonight.”
She wraps her fingers into mine, stands up. I get up to follow her.
She reaches back to the table with her other hand, puts the plastic top back on the cup, picks it up, hands it to me.
“Don’t forget your tea.” She squeezes my hand reassuringly.
‘…Thanks.’
We walk out the door.
4. The Requisite Minion Twitterings.
Work. I work in a semiconductor fabrication plant on the perpetual verge of bankruptcy. They call me in whenever someone calls in sick or they need to run the machines all night to fill an order. The work sucks and is infrequent and the pay’s all right. I scrape by, and ever since Duck found out I have access to a certain chemical I haven’t had to pay a dime for room and board.
The place is run down and slipshod, EPA test-marker flags riddle the lawn. Every day I come here I wish this place would finally get shut down, but management always seems to hide the truly noxious stuff before an inspection.
I walk into the main building. The old man is waiting for me.
“You are LATE!” he looks meaningfully at his watch “One hour sixteen minutes LATE! This is Unacceptable!” its best to just let the old man seethe. Run himself down. Zoey hates him because he hires illegal aliens and treats them like chattle, making them do jobs that will almost certainly give them cancer later. I hate him because he’s a crotchety cantankerous shit-heal who likes to abuse his underlings, namely me. Everyone calls him the old man, I don’t know what his real name is. He does sign my paychecks though.
‘Sorry, I missed my bus transfer.’
“Being late is UNACCEPTABLE, not calling in to say that you’ll be late is UNACCEPTABLE.”
‘…sorry?’
“Do you like your job?”
‘Its fine.”
“Do you want to keep your job?”
‘…sure.’
“Then you will not be late from this point on, you understand me?”
‘yes…I understand.’ I scuff the carpet with my shoe, try to look properly chastised.
“Then get on the saws, NOW. There are two runs already backed up and they need to go out by end of business today.”
‘Yes sir.” I start to walk past him.
Satisfied that his brilliant management style has yet again proven effective, the old man takes to time bathe me in his appraising glower.
“Boy, you look like hammered shit, you sick?”
‘Just tired, not a lot of sleep, I’m fine.’
“Well get some damned sleep, after you work your shift. I don’t want you scaring any potential clients.”
No client has visited this plant since Microsoft was just an insult to one’s masculinity.
“Well, get going, those damned wafers won’t cut themselves.” Timeless wisdom, a parable for the ages.
I beeline to the punch-clock, punch my card. Exit our hero, stage left, thankful to have gotten off light. Somebody had undoubtedly caught a full blast of the old man this morning, he doesn’t recharge as quickly as he used to.
I feel defiled, trod upon: it’s a living.
Today I’m working in phase 4, room 12: the saw room. This is my favorite: Alone in a sealed and sanitary room, nothing but me and the sound of eight diamond blades screaming through silicone. Take wafer from slot, affix it with hot wax to the backing plate, place in saw, activate suction clamp, align the space between the chips to the saw blades, press go, repeat. Mindless semiskilled labor: a monkey with a button am I. I use the drudgery to think about last night and get nowhere. At lunchtime I slip the thermos out of my pack and sneak out the back entrance. Nothing unusual there, my workmates are used to me being anti-social. I approach the chemical shed, this is the really iffy part: if any one happens to see me go in or is watching the video camera aimed at the door then I’m fucked. I usually only do this when I work graveyard, hardly anyone around, no management, easy money. Its high noon now and I’m almost to the door, a big lumbering meat sack with this thermos huge and conspicuous in my hand. If I don’t do this Duck will almost certainly freak out, and after a Duck tantrum the old man seems as placid as a bodhisattva. Fuck it. I open the door, step through. Every time I go inside the chemical shed I can’t help but be amazed. They keep this shit in a shed, an unlocked fucking tin shed. If some of these chemicals were to blow it would unleash a fireball of almost atomic proportions. Hydrofluoric acid. Ether. Jesus. Fifty-gallon drums of this shit, laying around in an un-insulated, un-airconditioned shed. The mind reels. Trichloroethelene: you can’t even buy this stuff anymore, its beyond carcinogenic. The old man’s nefarious connections drive it in at two o’clock in the morning on an old farm truck. I walk down the rows of fiery horrible doom until I find it, the anhydrous ammonia. I kneel next to the steel drum, unscrew the cap from Ducks specially-made thermos, hold my breath, open the spigot and poor, watching the vapors billow out. There’s a little bobber inside, when I see the little metal flag pop out I close the spigot, screw the cap back on, and get the hell out of Dodge. I peek out the door, give the grounds a quick reconnoiter: no ones around. Slip out, close door, do my best secret agent stroll to the back door of the Phaze 4 building, put the thermos in the fridge and clock in early, no one will mind. If I mentioned to anyone in management that a minimum thirty minutes of lunch per full work shift is required by law, they’d look at me like a puppy ponders at a ceiling fan. No one would ever complain about such anyway, most people who get hired here are grateful just to have a job.
I spend the next four hours trapped in the saw room, cutting wafer after wafer, expecting the old man to storm in with an entourage of brutish police officers. I imagine his vengeful wrath, the ensuing pummeling from well-bribed nightsticks. My shift ends, the last wafer cut and sent to the cleaning room, and my wrists are thankfully free of handcuffs. I casually retrieve my thermos, put it in my pack and go to the main building to clock out. My back aches from eight hours of hunching over obsolete machinery. I look at the time on the front of the punch-clock, 5:46 pm: the apex of afternoon rush hour. No way in hell am I riding the bus right now: The remnants of this morning’s multiple conflicts still careen through my stomach, threatening to sicken me with aftershocks. I’ve had a busy day. I should make Duck come and get me if he wants this stuff so bad. No, that could be a very bad idea. Better I just walk to the coffee shop a couple blocks down, get a strong chia latte and kill some time, wait for the bus traffic to thin. The ride home is never as bad. A quick jaunt though the dark heart of industrial America, turn a corner, and I’ve arrived.
The Kharma Café is a tiny bistro nestled in the bottom corner of an office complex. Its hella busy around lunchtime and 2 hours before or after as people sneak in a cappuccino on their break. Come here after business hours though and its all but deserted-everyone except me has someplace better to go. I walk in and head towards the counter. I like this place, dark, small, completely devoid of patrons. Horrid paintings cover the walls, the owner’s daughter makes them and hangs them up, hoping to be discovered. She’s the one tending the counter, popping gum, looking a bored that only comes through hours of practice. I tell her my order in slow clear tones, lay a five on the table. She barely acknowledges my existence, looks around slowly for something better to do, then takes my money from the counter. She doesn’t even attempt to make change. This relationship of mutual apathy and loathing has been carefully cultivated and is one of my most cherished human interactions.
Retreat to a corner table, pull out a dog-eared Bukowski novel, and prepare the next couple hours for sacrifice. I’ll stay until the place closes and the girl clears her throat in conspicuous annoyance, standing next to the door held open just for me. Already she’s coming over with my drink. that was quick. The process of adding powdered chia mix to milk and steaming it is usually so arduous and tiring for the poor cashier/barista/impressionistic-hack that I will not get my beverage for at least half an hour. I don’t look up at her as she approaches, just tap my finger on the table where my chia should go. She sits down in the chair across from me.(odd) There no delicious offering of savory tea for me, she is just sitting there. This break in established decorum is most unwelcome. I look up, intent on asking her what exactly is going on.
I look up and stop. Dead.
The counter-girl is rummaging for milk in the refrigerator below the coffee machine.
This girl sitting here, a slight superior smirk on her face: I recognize this girl.
“You remember me.”
Yes
I do.
I remember her.
I remember everything.
5. About Last Night.
Duck’s. Usual crowd. Business casual meets construction formal for earnest orgy. Portishead pours through the jukebox, sad and succubitic and at just the right volume. A note scrawled in black magic marker is stuck to the glass with yellowing scotch tape, obscuring the available song choices almost entirely.
TOUCH THIS MACHINE WITHOUT MGMT. PERMISSION:
DIE SCREAMING.
WE LIKE IT WHEN YOU SCREAM.
I sit in the usual booth with a subset of usual suspects. I tolerate their presence, basking in my own munificence for allowing them to sit at my prime real-estate table. I practice ignoring their various mouth-noises and think about nothing in particular, just sit back, observe the show.
There is a line to get in almost every night now. Duck likes to keep as much of that line inside as possible, sectioning them off from the crowd, taunting them with their inability to get into a bar so inexplicably popular. His current set of counter measures also includes the careful choice of doorman. He stations the doorman (to date there have been no women) at the end of the line behind an official looking podium, and bequeaths unto them the most sacred of responsibilities: to scrutinize the ID’s of the conspicuous, the drab, the hopelessly ugly, and deny admission on a purely arbitrary and whimsical basis. The rewards of the job are vast, but the slightest failure is met with swift and brutal punishment. The turn over had been incredible, Duck didn’t really know what he wanted. Sometimes the doorman would be replaced four times in a single night. The guy who now fills the position has lasted five days straight: an undisputed record. Duck lavishes him with gifts of money, praise, and any substance he might desire. I must admit, the lad does show a remarkable talent for the job.
“This drivers license is a forgery, and you are obviously too young to be here, I’m afraid you have to leave.” He hands the banker/broker/whatever back his ID.
The man looks at him in uncomprehending shock. “I am 43 years old.”
“Your lies are transparent and unappreciated, we run a respectable establishment and do not condone the delinquency of minors. Please run along now, as other citizens with the legal right to be here are waiting.”
“Look man,” the guy flips through his wallet “this is a picture of me with my wife and son, this is my debit card, my gym membership, this is my insurance card for Christsake. You know I’m old enough to drink here. I was just here 5 days ago.”
“It is apparent to me now that you are severely unbalanced and pose a grave danger to yourself and those unfortunately around you. We here at Duck’s have neither the facilities nor the requisite training to attempt the healing of your diseased young mind. Please use the door behind you conveniently marked EXIT, turn left, walk down two blocks until you see a screaming man with a piece of cardboard duct-taped to his chest. Read the message on the cardboard carefully as it contains secret instructions especially for you. Give the man twenty five cents and try to accept Jesus into your heart.”
Some people in line are starting to snicker. The burly slab of bouncer that now accompanies the doorman because of repeated threats of various levels of violence slowly shakes his head in the general direction of the offending noise.
“you will leave immediately or I’ll be forced to call the truant officer or whoever it is who enjoys abusing wayward boys these days.”
The man stands there, his mouth a bit slack, apparently unsure what is required of him.
“The exit is behind you and slightly to the left, Don’t make me get my belt.”
Amazingly, I think the guy is going to try and stand his ground.
“If you do not vacate forthwith, you will be forcibly ejected. I have been authorized by the state board of education to administer corporal punishment. This is your last warning.”
The bouncer takes a small step foreword. The man mumbles obscenities under his breath, turns to leave. The doorman plays a quick game of tick-tack-toe with himself on a memo note, gives it to the next girl in line, puts his index finger to his lips in a conspiratorial ‘shhhh’, and nods her through. Duck looks on in absolute adoration. If I didn’t know better I would swear he was in love. Someone at the bar asks him to make an apple sour. He tells them to leave the premises and never come back.
“You’re good, you’re good, you’re bad, very bad, but I’ll let you in anyway. You there! Let me see a valid form of government issued identification immediately.”
The girl gingerly paws through her purse, knowing she’s probably fucked, but hands over her wallet anyway.
“Hmmm, it says here that you do not actually exist, and therefore cannot possibly enter the premises. Please return to whatever vortex spawns your demon kind.” He returns the wallet to her hand with an audible slap. I think she might be starting to cry as she walks out. This affect has not been uncommon.
“Next, yeah your fine. You too. Yes, I am talking to you. Go buy lots of overpriced drinks and wake up in the hairy arms of another man. Unless you enjoy waiting in line, which I can understand completely. We will now pause for station identification.” He stands ramrod straight, a look of utter bliss on his face, his left hand snapping to his brow in the approximation of a military salute. The bouncer strokes his chin with a beefy hand and looks meaningfully at the ceiling. Two minutes pass. The doorman abruptly eyes at the beautiful pair of secretaries next in line. “Thank you for shopping. We appreciate your business. Please have a drink at the bar. Ask for the Duck special” He waves them through. “You too may pass, but only if you return immediately with an offering of expensive liquor in a large glass. You have two minutes to comply. You! You too may proceed to the delights that await within. You, however, must tell me the capital of North Dakota.” The doorman cocks his head, waits. “You are trying to answer with the powers of your mind but in this instance I must insist on a vocal response.”
“Uh, Charleston?”
“Such miserable guesswork is a discredit to your species. You are henceforth banished until you complete a geography course at a community college of your choosing. Admittance will only then be granted with written proof of a passing grade. Don’t think I won’t remember your face.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not even a State Capital. The previous offer is hereby rescinded. Be gone with thee,
your presence makes me queasy in a naughty place.”
The bouncer uncrosses his arms and rubs his fist menacingly, intentions of physical violence obvious. The potty mouth has wisely decided to exit.
“You though, I like you, you’re not like the others in the trailer park. You may enter. Enjoy the fish.”
Someone walks up tentatively to the doorman, a tall glass in his hand.
“Here is the expensive liquor as you requested, sir.”
“Bless you my child,” He takes the glass, holding it up to the light, appraising its contents. “Your entrance into this holy place was not in vein, despite what it says in your file. You get a gold star and five bonus points, use them wisely.”
He takes a drink, grimaces grotesquely.
“Sheeeeit, I think my left testicle just dropped.”
He drinks the rest of it down in 3 big gulps with no apparent affect, picks up the blank memo note pad, ponders it, turns it sideways, nods gravely.
“Well gentle-folk, it appears that we’ve reached our capacity for the moment. You are welcome to stay on hold or call back at any time. Remember that in the case of an emergency the thing falling from the ceiling will most likely kill you. Thank you Charleston, Goodnight!
He executes an intricate handshake with the bouncer that ends in a formal Buddhist bow and leaves the mountain of flesh by the door to keep the mob at bay. He slowly and pimp-limps through the crowd to the bar and Duck’s exuberant clapping.
I’ve been a bit of a fan-boy ever since he first started working here. Some people are born to greatness, he was born to be a doorman at Duck’s. In truth his effectiveness in the position is beginning to become counterproductive. Some people show up just to wait in line, knowing they won’t be admitted-they just want to watch his antics. When he does finally tire of abusing the natives he goes to the bar and gets immediately sloppy drunk. The nectar of words that then flows from his lips soon reaches unknown heights of strange. Duck hangs on every utterance, countering with his own version of witty repartee, making sure that his star employee wants for nothing. If some poor fool makes the mistake of trying to order a drink while Duck is in the depths of reverie, they are lucky to merely get banished from the bar. Duck has been known to throw bottles of liquor at the heads of paying customers for no apparent reason whatsoever. Then there are the times that he really flips out. Amazingly, no lawsuits have yet been filed, knock on formica.
Usually I’d delight in spending the evening in vicarious observation of their endless banter, but something from the door keeps drawing my attention. A brief flickering of clothing, skin, somehow strangely out of place, an indecipherable discontinuity, suddenly gone again. I keep glancing back to the line of people still packed alongside the south wall, suspecting that I could be suffering flashbacks from the acid I’ve never taken. There it is again: there, a head between two patient chino wearing middle managers, just like she’s been there forever. Has she? Her large vacant eyes quickly scan the crowd. Her face is completely forgettable, her features perfectly passive: a mask of a thousand people I could pass by everyday. But there is something else. Something. Else.
What the hell? I’m reading something from her. This can only happen if I’m close enough to someone to smell them, feel the warmth of their flesh. Only then do I begin to pick anything up, and even then it’s only sometimes.
This girl radiates.
I feel it from here. This is not right. My body tries to panic in an instinctual reaction to another’s life invading my own, but there is nothing to panic about. There is nothing. No hints of life or love or pain or want.
The only thing I get from her is absence.
The only thing I get from her feels like she has no soul.
Then like a switch, gone, poof, like she was never there. Did I blink? The people she had just stood between seem unaffected. I think I can see glimpses of her as she slowly weaves through the crowd of waiting people, no one seems to notice her. Weird. There, another one. there are two of them. A little further back in line is a man, his face just as bland and forgettable, his presence exuding the same sense of emptiness. His clothes seem deliberately, conveniently neutral. He slips in front of a middle aged woman as she looks around the bar, he starts to scrutinize the patrons. Suddenly his face becomes animated. The difference is subtle, shocking. He looks over his shoulder at the woman just as she turns and sees him.
He smiles.
She smiles back, like he’s always been there in front of her, like they share the same befuddlement as to what the big fuss over this place is about.
She smiles just like he expected her to.
He turns his head again toward the crowd, the features of emotion bleeding from his face like they were a sudden and fleeting affliction. Large empty eyes methodically search the room. He is looking for something. They are looking for something. What could they possibly need to find in a bar stuffed full of drunk people trying to get laid?
…oh
They are looking for someone.
Legs propel me of their own volition up and into the crowd. I walk around a table just in time to see her stroll out of the line of waiting people, crossing the hallowed space that separates them from the teaming mass of bodies deemed worthy enough to actually consume alcohol here. Just as calm and cool as you please she slips into the crowd: the perfect party crasher. The bouncer didn’t see it, he was busy scrutinizing the buoyant and all but exposed breasts of a girl farther back in the line. Duck didn’t see it because he was actually making a drink for someone. No one waiting in line saw it, they were all somehow consumed with their various dramas. No one drinking noticed it, they were all busy…drinking. Nobody in the whole bar was paying attention to that small little section of floor at the exact moment she calmly walked over it and disappeared into the crowd. What are the chances? I think of statistics, probabilities. She did it in plain sight of everyone. What are the odds that she could pick the exact moment that 150 or so people were not looking and infiltrate a bar developing a vehement aversion to uninvited guests. Any one of the people here would turn her in without hesitation for so flagrantly violating the first rule of the bar. The odds are complex, too many variables, permutations. It couldn’t have been just luck. She somehow knew the exact moment. Nobody has paid her the slightest shred of attention except me and the man with vacant eyes still waiting in line. His face is empty and expressionless as he watches her progress through the crowd. What is he? Backup? What is she? What is she doing?
I’ve lost her.
I push through the crowd, using his placid gaze to roughly triangulate her position. I try to get in front of her, manage to come up a little short and off to the side. I watch her slipping through the crowd, her eyes locked on some guy at the end of the bar. She stops in mid stride, like a switch labeled ‘walk’ was suddenly thrown. She stands there, motionless. A man beside her puts his glass down on the table, turning back around to continue his seduction of an obvious transvestite. Without even looking she reaches her hand out, takes the drink,and starts to walk again, glass comfortably held in front of her. She doesn’t drink, but it does help her look like she belongs here. Did she know through some understanding of body language that the guy was going to set his drink down? She couldn’t have been watching him very closely, her eyes never strayed from the man at the end of the bar. Like her entrance into the bar, she just seemed to know what was going to happen and was there to take advantage. Goose bumps raise on my arms as I watch her walk. Her hips slant back and start to sway, her stride begins to undulate, becoming sensuous. Her face contorts slightly, softens, little by little, as she gets closer to her objective. Lips push out, become luscious, her eyes become slightly slanted and sultry. Before my eyes she is changing into somebody. I stumble around people, their curses, as I shadow her. Just as she reaches the man she has been walking towards there is an almost audible click, and sex pours out of her, hits me like the shockwave of an explosion. My cock becomes rock hard, my mouth waters, she touches his shoulder.
“Hey there stranger.” Her voice drawls with a slight southern accent.
He turns towards her, tries to conceal an immediate attraction. “…Hey there yourself.”
“I haven’t seen you in forever, how the hell you been?” her mannerisms are confident, confortable, alluring. She has his complete attention. In the space of 10 seconds he has become completely ensnared.
“I’ve been great, things at work are really picking up…How are you.” His face betrays slight confusion. He’s sure he knows her, but doesn’t quite remember how.
“Life is beautiful, And getting even better now that I’ve run into you again.” She bats her eyes slightly, grazes up against him, perfect fluid gestures.
“Yeah, definitely…I can’t believe it, but I seem to have forgotten your name.”
She punches him lightly on the arm, “Well don’t you know how to make a girl feel unwanted.”
“I’m sorry, if you tell me one more time I am certain that I won’t forget it again.”
“That’s all right Sugah, I’m bad with names too. I’m sure you can remember my name though, why don’t you try, don’t worry, I won’t get mad if you’re wrong.”
He furrows his brow, thinks. “…Sarah?”
she squeals with delight, sticks her tits into his chest, leans up on her tiptoes, kisses his nose.
“I knew you would remember me!” She sets her drink down, looks around. “Hey, do you like this bar?’
“Its fine I guess, why?”
“I know this other place right down the road, its more intimate, better for us to get reacquainted…” She lightly strokes his forearm.
“Well lets go!” he can’t hide his excitement: he’s so going to get laid. He slams his drink on the bar, turns around, offers her his arm.
“…Lets.” She wraps herself around his arm. It has taken her all but two minutes to pick this guy up. He’ll go wherever she wants, which is almost certainly the purpose of the exercise.
I’m standing in front of them, my eyes locked onto her, awash in the sex-vibe she emanates.
She looks at me.
An expression I can only interpret as shock passes over her face, temporarily loosening the mask she created for seduction. She quickly recomposes herself, walks up to me, ahead of the confused looking man. She comes right up in front of me. The lusty vibe flickering like she somehow can’t keep it up. She looks in my eyes, her own seen to contort, as if they are trying to take up a thousand shapes at once.
She stops. Right in front of me. I can smell her. She smells like rain.
“Leave Me Alone.” She growls, pushing me hard in the chest.
Her touch. Cavernous. For that brief moment she seemed to absorb every part of me. Every hint of feeling. Gone. Replaced. With nothing. But sex. Nothing else. No specifics that decode into a history, a life. Nothing but sheer animal lust. I stumble, fall back against a table, contorting in a sexual pain I never thought possible.
I feel her walk past me. I hear the man’s voice come from behind.
“Who the hell was that?”
“I don’t know, just some loser. He was bothering me earlier. No worries, Lets go, eh?”
I get up off the edge of the table, ignoring the looks from the patrons around me. Nothing exists except the want for sex. Primal. Every part of me. I watch her guide the man out the door. Her cohort exits the line and follows close behind. They are gone. The need remains, expands. I’m hyperventilating. This yearning, infecting me. Too potent, blind and violent instinct, It does not feel remotely human. It grows, needs, ripping everything it touches. Fear beyond that for which the name of fear is given. I know that I am losing myself. I walk slowly to the bar, sweat soaking through my shirt, my erection a bar of iron pushing against my jeans. I catch Duck’s eye, motion him over.
“Give me a drink.”
6. Comes the Dawn
Shock. The latticed haze of recollection congeals around her, quenches on the flavor of her emptiness. Every instance of question, every riddle of recent history, solved. My mind touches the pain of lust she left me with, recoils, urging my flesh to flee. My body does not remember how.
She was the impetus.
Dark eyes bore into me, without motion. Her smile is the flicking tongue of a reptile.
‘What do you want?’ words move my mouth without volition.
The smile fades. Replaced in increments with an analog of confusion. These four words confuse her.
“…I do not.” Her face vibrates, attempts some posture, fails. She looks away, breathes, returns her gaze to me. Eyes almost urgent, searching. Gone. A barest hint of feeling, diving under oceanic depths of nothingness. The smile remains, meaningful as the ripples left from the flicking of a tail-fin.
‘You do not… what?’
“want.”
What? Is she playing word games with me?
‘Why are you here?’
“Because you are here.” Her lips move just enough to form her speech, never disturbing the edges of her smile.
I see the counter-girl stand up with a gallon of milk, she look at my table, slants her head to the side, confused that a girl, a not unattractive girl, is sitting with me. Concentrate. This is potentially a bad situation.
‘How did you find me?’
“…You are here.” Again, the briefest confusion, like she doesn’t know what she is to say.
This is getting nowhere. Be specific. Ask a simple closed-ended question. My mouth opens, is overruled by the roaring of hot air forcing itself into milk and tea mix. A welcome pause. I compose my line of questioning.
My ears ring slightly in the aftermath of viscous drink preparation.
‘What is your name?’
“You call me Sarah.” Such odd phrasing. Like she doesn’t have a full grasp of the language, but I’ve heard her talk like a born-n-bread southern bell.
‘That is the name that guy you picked up last night called you.’
“Yes.”
‘Is that your real name?’
“It is the name you call me.”
Great.
‘Well ok then, Sarah…Are you here to pick me up like you did that guy last night?’
“No.”
‘Then you’re here just to have this little talk with me?’
“We are talking now.”
‘And what, exactly, are we talking about?’
“You ask questions, I answer them.”
I let out a frustrated sigh, rub my face with my hands. This is like pulling teeth. The counter-girl approaches with my chia, sets down the paper cup on the table. The woman sitting next to me animates, flips her hair to the side, grins, nods at the wall.
“I really like those paintings, where did you get them?”
“I painted them.”
“For real? Wow, you’re quite talented, they remind me of Dali’s earlier pieces.”
“Dali is my idol!” all pretense is gone from the counter-girl’s manor, “You know, all my paintings are for sale…”
The woman looks up at her, laughs “If I had a dime to my name, you’d have yourself a patron. But I do know someone who would definitely be interested in your work. Would you mind if I brought him by, take a look-see?”
“Oh hell no, that would be great! Hey, do you want anything to drink? It’s on the house.”
“That’s ok sweetie, I’ll just share with my friend here.”
The girl looks dubiously at me, shrugs, turns to leave, “Well just holler if you end up wanting anything.”
“Will do, thanks, and keep painting, you have a great future.”
“Yeah, definitely, art is my life.” She returns to the counter, humming underneath her breath, happier than I’ve ever seen her. I look back at Sarah, her face now emotionless as plastic.
‘Why did you talk to her like that?’
“It is what she wanted me to say.”
Simple as that.
“What do I want you to say.”
Her face seems to flutter, stops, flutters again. “…I do not know.”
‘Why am I different?’
“You are different.”
Jesus fucking Christ on a stick. I take the plastic cup off of my tea, more frustrated now than afraid. I take a sip. Heaven.
‘So, Sarah, you want a drink of my chia?’
“If it is offered I will drink.”
‘Sure, Sarah, have some.’ I push the cup towards her. Why the hell am I doing this?
‘You don’t have any cooties do you?’
“My body is free of communicable disease.” She takes the cup, cradling it in both hands, raises the edge to her lips, and takes the barest of sips. Her eyes close. She swirls the tea around her mouth, swallows.
“This is good.” Her eyes open. She pushes the cup back to me.
‘Have some more.’ I am fascinated that she can express an honest enjoyment.
“I know the flavor of it.”
…ok then.
‘Well…Sarah, it is obvious that you’ve come to this little café because I am here, correct?’
“Yes.”
‘So, your purpose for coming here involves me, correct?’
“Yes.”
‘Sarah, what, exactly is your purpose for being here?’
“I am to bring you with me.”
I let out a pent up sigh. There. Finally
‘Ok, where are you supposed to bring me?’
“To a man who wishes to speak with you.”
‘Why would I go with you?’
“Because that is what you do.”
‘What does this guy want to talk to me about.’
“That is not for me to know.”
‘Look, Sarah, cut the cryptic bullshit. I saw what you did last night. I saw how you corralled that guy and got him to leave with you. Now you’re here for me. Its beyond creepy. What happened to that guy, anyway?’
“That is not for me to tell you.”
‘Either you tell me exactly what happened to that dude, or you can count on me not going anywhere with you.’
“That is not for me to tell you.”
‘Did you take him off and kill him?’
“He lives.”
‘Are you holding him for ransom?’
“No,”
‘Then what, goddamn it, what did you do to him.’
“That is not “ ‘I know I know “That is not for me to tell you”. Honey, listen to me very carefully, there is no way in hell I am going anywhere with you.’
She smiles. Tentative. Almost childlike, bashfull. Not at all what I was expecting from her. She lays her palm face up on the table.
“Give me your hand.”
‘Oh fuck no.’
“Please, I will not hurt you.”
‘I still remember the last time you touched me. It fucked with my soul.’
“Your reaction was…unintended. This will be different. Please.” She nods to her hand.
Against all good judgment, against the voice screaming in my head to stop, I watch myself slowly reach my hand out and place it in hers.
Purity.
Gentle hints
of sex.
Like kitten paws playing with my fingertips.
Intricate, beautifully simple.
All I feel is want for her.
No panic, no pain, no reaction.
No torrent of her life forcing itself into mine.
Just simple, wonderful attraction.
‘What is this?’
Her other hand is on top of mine lightly stroking my skin. I almost lose myself in it, but not quite. She is emanating just the right amount, the perfect algorithm.
“I am to offer myself to you.”
What? I want to jerk my hand away, but can’t bring myself to break the contact.
‘You were told to do this?’
She lightly traces the veins on the back of my hand.
“I agreed to do this.”
Goosebumps travel in waves up my body.
‘What happens now?’
“You are to come with me.”
‘To the man who wants to talk with me?’
“Yes.”
‘And then?’
“Then we have the rest of tonight.”
She wraps her fingers into mine, stands up. I get up to follow her.
She reaches back to the table with her other hand, puts the plastic top back on the cup, picks it up, hands it to me.
“Don’t forget your tea.” She squeezes my hand reassuringly.
‘…Thanks.’
We walk out the door.
