“When was this first experience?” Charlene asked, grinning widely as she took the stairs two at a time.
West raised an eyebrow as he glanced at her, “Food first, questions later.”
They walked out into the street and Charlene immediately felt the heat rise in the skin of her arms and legs. She thought that perhaps this was the skin irritation West was referring to. It wasn’t painful, certainly no more unpleasant than the hot flashes she’d experienced with the onset of menopause. She had never taken antihistamine and she wasn’t sure how quickly they would work, but she guessed that the small pill probably wasn’t even taking the edge off anything she was feeling right now, so if this was the worst of it, she wasn’t going to worry too much about the “excruciating” skin irritation.
West looked up and down Madison Avenue and asked Charlene where she would like to eat.
“Well, there’s a little pizzeria on Park, which always looks quite charming, and I must have passed it a hundred times … You know, I haven’t had pizza in years.”
West laughed, “Pizza for breakfast?”
She frowned, “You did this to me! I’ve been eating like a sparrow since I was sixty-eight. I cleaned out my entire refrigerator yesterday. Even drank the bloody ketchup.”
West took her arm in his and started walking down Thirtieth Street towards Park Avenue, “Oh, I understand, don’t worry. It takes a lot of food to go from eighty-five to thirty in eighteen hours.”
She looked at him as they walked, “Thirty … is that how old you’d guess I look, or is that flattery?”
West shrugged, “Possibly younger. The natural tendency of the delvers is to bring their host to whatever physical state they are most comfortable with.”
“The what now?”
Charlene’s Question gave West pause, “The delvers?”
“Yes sir,” Charlene reiterated, “what are the delvers?”
West nodded, and continued walking, “Delvers … that is apparently the nom de jour for the Leeches, at least in the common anglicized parlance.” He glanced at Charlene, who nodded. He continued walking, “I’ve seen men and women in their eighties who didn’t change at all at first because they were comfortable with how they looked. The most violent and unexpected changes are often wrought in children or teenagers, because their self-image is usually so far removed from the expectations of the people in their lives. Nothing is set in stone though.”
West had lost his audience though. Charlene was distracted by how much of the surrounding city she was able to see. Her distance vision had been failing for several years now and the streets of New York had become a smudgy landscape of gray for the most part. As she looked about her now, Charlene could see every brick, every piece of sculpted stone ornamentation, every steel strut and lintel, and she was overwhelmed by the beauty of her city. This was New York as she hadn’t seen it since her sixties and it was so full of intricate splendor. They reached the corner of Thirtieth and Park and Charlene pulled West’s arm gently in the direction of the pizzeria.
For West, New York was something else altogether. He saw the majestically overreaching buildings as the culmination of a lifetime of wonder and discovery, a world he had waited for, a child’s vision he had believed in. When he occasionally used the hopper, he still found it disturbing how close New York had come to that child’s dream. Whisked out of his reverie, he felt Charlene’s arm tug him into the doorway of the little restaurant.
“Table for two?” The host patted the podium in front of him, repeating the words over and over. Calas Gabris was Greek, and three days after receiving his work permit, he had landed his first job in New York. Convincing the owner of ‘The Moon Hits Your Eye’ that he was Italian did not require the level of commitment that he brought to the table, but Calas didn’t half ass anything. In just two days, he had watched Roberto Benigni’s 1999 Oscar acceptance speech over two hundred times. That was preparation. That was dedication. Interviews and press junkets with the director too, he’d seen them all now, and he was ready. The first customer to grace his palm with a crisp folded twenty, he would grin widely, and tell them, “Ah, he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise,” or perhaps, “I feel like now, to dive in this ocean of generosity.” He knew, one of these lunch shifts, his moment would come.
The bell rang over the door, and he looked up from the pristine seating chart, “Ah, welcome, welcome. Here, I find a seat for you. You will have an incredible meal, incredible, just come … come with me.” His hand motions, the gait of his feet, both well-rehearsed impersonations of a Benigni interview from 2009. He ran his long fingers brushing through his impressive, thick black hair as he led them to a booth.
“I assure you we have, le migliori pizze in città, that is, how you would say, the best pizzas in the town.”
Hearing the host’s bold proclamation, West and Charlene both started laughing politely. This wasn’t the city in which to lay stake to such a claim lightly.
The host nodded, smiling and bowing to them, “Your waiter, he will be over in un minuto. You will enjoy, I assure you. Have a fantastic meal.”
West smirked, picking a menu out of its holder on the table. He glanced at Charlene, “Good choice, very authentic.”
Charlene noted that the pizzas were numbered, and put the menu aside, “We’re in New York, don’t you know everything is authentic here?” There was a dryness, a bite to her tone that West wasn’t sure he liked. He looked up from his menu, “I’m …” but Charlene stopped him, “Ah, ah, ah … shut up, shut up. I told you I was hungry, and I am. Ravenous, I’d say. I’ll probably eat the table if our damned waiter doesn’t hurry up.” Her voice rose towards the end of the sentence, clearly vying for attention. In response, a tall, somewhat frail looking boy sped across the restaurant, almost falling on Charlene as he reached the table.
“Hi, I’m Gavin, I’ll be serving you today. Can I start you off with some drinks?” Gavin was a third generation Irish New Yorker, and made no pretense of caring about the authenticity of any given diner’s experience.
Charlene shook her head and pointed a finger at him, “You can start me off with a number three, a number five, and a number ten, each of them sixteen inch, each of them thin crust, and if there’s an anchovy anywhere in sight, woe betide you.”
Gavin tapped his notepad with the tip of his pencil, “A number ten with no anchovies is just a Margherita.”
Charlene smiled viciously, “What number’s a Margherita Gavin?”
“Margherita is a one.” Gavin, couldn’t help his eyes; the roll had become so involuntary by the age of eighteen, that during arguments with his mother, or his sister, he almost never saw the ground.
Charlene shook her head, “You know young man, I didn’t come here for your lip.” Gavin’s eyes did another lap of the room, taking in the ceiling, the full horror and embarrassment of his tick only really sinking in when he came towards the finish line and met up with Charlene’s enraged glare. He swallowed hard, “So that’s a one, a three, a five with no anchovies…”
Charlene grabbed the menu and looked at the number five.
“Gavin, do you think perhaps we should start again?”
The whites of his eyes showing, Gavin nodded, performing a circular motion with his right shoulder and tapping the pad nervously.
West clapped his hands together, “Gavin, good man, just ask them to cook up one of everything. I’ll pay for them all, and you can run along outside and drum up some interest, how does that sound?”
“I’ll have to check with my manager.”
West nodded, passing both menus back to the boy. He leaned towards Charlene conspiratorially, pointing his bread knife at Gavin, “Management material written all over him that one, you mark my words.” The two of them sat, watching the silent drama play out between the boy and his manager, then Gavin scampered back to their table, blushing, bottom lip trembling, “Mr O’Keefe would like to extend his gratitude.”
West waved
at the man who stood by the bar. The manager returned the gesture with a hearty smile.
West placed his hand on Gavin’s, palming him a bill roll which he imagined would be sufficient to cover the meal, “And Gavin, I’ll take two pints of the pale ale, and …” he looked at Charlene expectantly.
“Oh,” She chuckled, “Just bring us one of everything, and we’ll see how we manage eh?”
West grinned widely. Touché.
“So West,” Charlene began, emphasizing his name caustically, “what am I?”
West leaned back into the leather padded seat, crossing his hands behind his head, “Is there something different about you?” He squinted, feigning confusion. When Charlene failed to respond to his attempted levity he started to answer her question,” There are a thousand names for what you are becoming.”
Charlene rolled her bottom lip backwards and forwards between her teeth, and tutted, “I’m not going to accept any more vagueness or avoidance Mr Yestler. I’m willing to concede that so far, I’m not disappointed with the result of your little experiment, but that good will only stretches so far. I want to know what’s going on.”
West shrugged, “I’m not being vague, not deliberately at least. There is a myriad of specific terms used throughout the different cultures of the world, each describing a learned behavior, a physical trait, a specific eccentricity of muscle memory. Some of these terms were arrived at over centuries of observation, while others were more or less representative of the desperate scrabble of a frightened people attempting to put a name to their nightmares.” He smiled politely and leaned away from the table as Gavin returned with a tray full of drinks and two bowls, one containing olives, the other spilling over with bread. Gavin set the tray down on the table and wandered off before West or Charlene had a chance to comment.
West picked up his pale ale and sipped the white froth, then returned the glass to the table, holding it between his hands. Charlene opted for a clear glass, which turned out to be lemonade. She sipped through a straw, wagging a finger in the air in front of West as she swallowed. Gulping, and a little out of breath, she launched in with a quiet but angry whisper, “I mean it mister, if you don’t start making sense of all this for me, I’m going to walk out of this place and forget I ever met you.”
“Charlene, there is too much, even if we sat and ate two of everything on the menu, and talked into the wee hours of the morning, we wouldn’t scratch the surface of describing what it is you are becoming. Not really. You want a simple all-encompassing word, or phrase, then you are Leechborn, Leechkith, a Child of the Delvers, Dannum’s seed, a daughter of the blood of the river Dannum, Blood Thief, Ever-Hunger, Blood-Brood, spawn of Antrusca. Those are but a handful of the terms used in the Anglicized modern vernacular to describe generally, any individual who has become host to the leeches. If I dip my toes in the waters of specificity, describing one such as yourself … that is, one who was not born of Allim, then you would be termed a progeny of the void, Chosen of the Second-Kingdom, Freeblood, Hated of Pretchis, Ahken’s folly, Blood-Bastard, Seeded Second-Realmer.”
Charlene blew bubbles into her lemonade, then returned the glass to the table and moved on to a beer. She was starting to appreciate what he had meant. She’d managed to retain almost nothing of what West had said, but a couple of words had stood out in her mind. She nodded, kissing the side of the cool glass, feeling the condensation on her lip, then she tipped her head back and drank the glass dry, gasping as she came up for air.
“What is Dannum?”
West smiled, “Dannum was the first king of Allim, my home country.”
“And Pretchis? Who’s that?”
West’s smile faltered, “Pretchis was the reigning king when my country fell to ruin.”
Charlene noticed that Gavin was returning to the table, accompanied by two other waiters, each of the three lanky teenagers carrying their own tray with several pizzas a piece. They pulled a table closer to the seated couple, laying the pizzas out in a circle.
Gavin leaned casually against the table, “Can I bring you anything else? Black pepper? Parmesan?”
West nodded, “Sure, sure, and Gavin, remember what I said. Throw the doors open, invite people in, and just keep the food coming.”
It didn’t take long for the restaurant to fill up around them, and Charlene quickly found herself absorbed in the bizarre tapestry of conversation that unfolded around her. She was bewildered, suddenly aware that she was able to concentrate on the things that West had mentioned, replaying them in her head, yet at the same time she could discern the separate conversational strands of thirty other people. She picked up a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza, and she ate them slowly, closing her eyes, simply allowing her brain to wade through the whirls and eddies in the vibrant sea of dialogs, both internal and external.
When she opened her eyes, and reached for another slice, she noticed that West was just sitting, watching her, not paying any attention to the room around them.
“Do you want me to go on?”
Charlene shook her head, holding out her hand as she swallowed a mouthful of peppers and cheese. She wiped her mouth with a napkin, and took a swig from another glass of beer, “Why did you leave me?”
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t anticipated that question, and now that he was confronted with it, West wondered why she hadn’t asked sooner. It still felt awkward to say it, even though he knew he had been absolutely right in his actions. He looked at the table, at the damp rings that had been left by those glasses which were in play, “Charlene, you were a child. I mean no disrespect to the girl that you were, but you know. I mean to say, you’ve lived enough to know that any relationship that we could have had would …” He looked up from the table and realized that Charlene’s body was rocking with silent laugher.
“I’m eighty-five years old, you ninny. I understand well enough. I meant yesterday … What was so important that you had to leave me yesterday.”
West pinched the skin of his forehead between his thumb and fingers, frustrated with his own arrogance. Of course she understood. “There’s a man named David Beach. He’s a governmental peon, and he has become entangled in the investigation into the assassination of President Tiernan.”
Charlene glanced around the room, trying to put faces to some of the conversations she could hear. She rolled her hand in the air, indicating to West that he should keep talking, but she had become more interested in what Shauna was telling her mother. Who was Shauna? By the front window, under the impotent neon sign, Charlene saw lips that synchronized with the conversation, a strawberry blond, freckled teenager, pouring her heart out to a mother who was almost perversely callous, and nonchalant. While West rattled on about this Washington peon, Shauna cried, trying with everything in her to explain to her mother, that what she was experiencing was normal, that it didn’t mean she was a freak, that it wasn’t a phase, wasn’t a choice, wasn’t wrong. Charlene turned her head back, watched West’s lips, and heard Shauna’s voice, this teenager, on the brink of an apocalyptic change in her relationship with her mother. When his lips stopped moving, Charlene’s mind went about untangling the cascading cacophony of West’s words. Beach couldn’t have committed the assassination, couldn’t have been involved, he was low hanging fruit. There had been something else, something that had almost pulled her interest back from Shauna’s emotional renaissance. FBI men, a van, cleaning service …
Charlene pushed back from the table, mouth wide, her voice a rapid whisper, “You killed them?”
David was relieved when the taxi pulled into his neighborhood. He paid, tipping generously, then climbed out of the car and immediately collapsed onto the sidewalk, clutching his leg. The driver’s window slid down with a mechanical whir, “You okay?”
“It’s nothing … just pins and needles.” David lied, waving the driver off. He waited for the car to pull out of sight before he attempted to get up. It took several minutes of limping and hopping before he rounded the corner o
nto the home stretch. Hannah’s car was gone. Panicked, he shuffled into an uncomfortable, lopsided jog, hands out in front of him as he tried to steady himself. Once he reached the house, he threw his weight against the front door, fumbling to get the keys into the lock. He collapsed through the door and lumped his weight unsteadily against an insubstantial side table next to the door. Squinting through pain, he balled up his fist against the hard surface of the table, and realized that his hand was clutching a note written in Hannah’s angry chicken scratch.
‘David, you total dick. Spiff with Bleakers. WTF is wrong with you. Late for Darowiscki again. Dick.’
If the tone hadn’t been sufficient, David would have known Hannah’s state of mind merely by the fact that she’d actually gone through the paper several times with her pen. He shouted for Stephanie, just in case, then when no reply came, he hobbled up the staircase, one stair at a time, each one as painful as the last. He sat on the edge of his bed, grunting and spitting as he pulled off the khaki shorts and t-shirt, kicking the flip flops across the room in the process. There was blood on the shorts. Blood on the green ringer too. Not good, but he knew that he needed to move. He went to the bathroom, chugged back a couple of Motrin, and Acetaminophen, splashing water into his mouth, red water dripping from his hand onto the white porcelain. He stifled a sob, and returned to the bedroom, throwing a couple of pairs of pants, a couple of tops, some underwear and socks into a duffel bag, before setting about the terrifying chore of dressing himself again. Once dressed, he pulled down two suitcases from on top of his wardrobe, tipped the contents of the duffel into one, and emptied half of the contents of his wardrobe, almost filling both.
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 11
