Kiss Me, Judas

by Will Christopher Baer

  Why did you move him?

  She drops her cigarette in the toilet. I had to wash my hair.

  I sit on the edge of the tub. Pooh has a simple, placid face. The backs of his thighs and buttocks are purple with the puddle wealth of his blood. Tomorrow he will be an unclaimed corpse at the coroner’s office, soon to be cut apart by bored and restless medical students.

  And why did you do it?

  Oh. We had a fight about money, about you.

  Well, I say. I was going to kill him myself.

  Why did you want to? she says.

  I think he hurt someone, a friend of mine. He raped her.

  She nods and her eyes slide away from mine.

  I know, she says. He told me about it. He said it wasn’t really rape because he didn’t come.

  She sits down next to me and kisses my ear, my throat.

  What is her name?

  Eve, I say. She’s nineteen.

  I’m very sorry. I know what it’s like.

  Merry Christmas, I say.

  She isn’t wearing a bra and I can’t help running my hand up her shirt. I love the feel of silk. She pulls away from me and goes to the mirror. She wets her fingers and smoothes her hair. Her lipstick is smeared. She takes a tissue and wipes the rest of it away. The color has disappeared from her face. She looks sick.

  My toothbrush is in my purse, she says. Will you get it?

  I don’t like to dig through a woman’s purse. It doesn’t feel right. I think of the old woman in the hospital. She was dying and thought I was her son and I stole from her. And I think of my wife. She kept secrets in her purse. Jude’s is soft black leather and no bigger than my head. Still there seem to be a hundred things inside. I dump it out and find a plastic tube that holds a travel toothbrush and paste. I find a small black device, shaped like a stereo remote control. It’s a stun gun, very powerful and certainly illegal. I have no choice but to confiscate it. There is also a small silver key on a ring, the kind of key that fits a padlock. I glance at the lock on the icebox and I’m surprised. The icebox contains valuable merchandise and the key would be so much safer around her neck. I believe she trusts me. How touching. I put the key in my pocket and replace everything else from her purse.

  I give her the toothbrush and watch as she smears it with blue gel. She leans against the sink with her face bent forward. She brushes her teeth slowly, methodically. I look at Pooh.

  What should we do with him?

  She spits. Did you want to take a shower?

  A bath, really.

  She looks at her watch. It will have to be fast. Then we move him back into the tub and lock the door. The room is registered in his name. It might pass for suicide.

  The cast is on his left arm. The cut on his left thigh is at such an angle that it could have been self-inflicted. I uncurl the fingers of his right hand. There are no defensive wounds, no signs of a struggle at all. She said she killed him in the shower, and the curtain isn’t even pulled down. She would have had to spread his thighs apart and push the knife in at a difficult angle, then pull the blade up and away.

  Was he asleep when you did this?

  No, she says. But his eyes were closed.

  Jude rinses her toothbrush. I am still kneeling behind her. She turns and stands over me and I stare up at her. The black pants fit her like a glove. My mouth is two inches from the curve of her crotch.

  It was like this, I say. Wasn’t it? He was in the shower and you asked if you could join him. Oh, you dirty girl. The knife behind your back. You knelt in his bathwater and took his dick in your mouth and brought the knife up when he closed his eyes.

  His dick was in my hand, she says. If you must know. I wanted to cut the fucking thing off. But that would hardly pass as suicide.

  And the blood came down like rain. That’s why you had to wash your hair.

  It was terrible. And it was glorious, too.

  You’re much braver than me.

  She smiles, embarrassed. I take her hands and pull her down on me. We kneel before Pooh’s body and grin at each other like two kids with a secret.

  I fill the tub with hot water and begin to undress. Jude tells me to turn around so she can inspect my wound. The dressing Crumb gave it is filthy but holding fast. Her touch is cool and efficient.

  It looks okay, she says. I want to clean it, though.

  Are you a doctor?

  Not exactly. I had paramedical training in the army.

  Please tell me you have some painkillers.

  She goes to get her medical bag and I sit naked on the toilet beside Pooh. There’s a mirror on the opposite wall and I decide I look nearly as bad as he does. Jude comes back wearing surgical gloves. She gives me a shot of liquid Valium and I don’t look at the needle. I think of the last time she drugged me, and I think of Prometheus. He pissed the gods off and they chained him to a rock; a bird came and ate his liver and the liver grew back while he slept. The bird returned every day, to eat his liver again and again.

  I trust you, I say. I don’t know why.

  There is a sudden fist of warmth at the base of my spine.

  Jude smiles and wipes down the wound with a damp, sterile cloth. She smears on a clear jelly that stinks of iodine and then gives me a fresh dressing.

  I hate to tell you this, she says.

  Am I dying?

  She laughs. No, you aren’t dying. But I can’t let you take a bath. The wound shouldn’t get wet. These stitches are made of a soluble plastic. In ten days you can take a bath and let them dissolve.

  Jude, please. I haven’t had a bath in days. You must have noticed I’m getting ripe.

  I like the way you smell. She grins at me. You can take a shower if you’re very careful.

  Oh, no. A shower is no good. Anyway I would slip on the soap and crack my skull. I just want to smell like I’m not dying.

  She pulls me to my feet. If you were still in the hospital, you would be getting a sponge bath every day. From a pretty little nurse, if you were lucky.

  I’m anything but lucky.

  Jude spreads a few towels on the floor. She fills an ice bucket with liquid soap and warm water from the bath. I stand on the towels, naked and feeling a little foolish. I’m not crippled, I say.

  She ignores me. The only sound is humming lights, the drip of water. Jude takes a washcloth and soaks it in the ice bucket. She washes my feet first, and slowly works her way up my body. Every few minutes she stops to wring out the washcloth. In the mirror she is thin and beautiful and serious. She is a priestess, preparing a corpse for burial. I think I love her and I tell myself it’s the Valium. She washes my face, the blunt stubble on top of my head. When she’s finished I feel a thousand times better.

  Together we move Pooh to the bathtub. We both wear gloves. He’s heavy, and he’s not stiff yet. It’s like moving a drunk. The hot water makes the blood run from his leg and the bath turns a dull shade of brown. It still doesn’t look right. There’s not enough blood. After a minute I pull the plug. The bloody water drains away and Pooh lies there, bloated and pale as a fish. I turn the shower on and the water hammers down. It seems insulting but more realistic. Jude puts the knife in his hand.

  It’s his knife, she says.

  She wipes down every surface in the room. I carry her bags outside. The moon is orange and still visible. It shares the sky with a glaring sun. The sound of the shower is disturbing my Valium haze. I’m not sure why, but I leave the green icebox on the bed. It might be a show of good faith to let Jude carry it for a while.

  I smoke a cigarette and after a minute Jude comes out with the icebox. She is wearing the wine-colored boots and for a second I think she’s stepped in blood. The door swings shut and is locked. I want to look at the room again, to be sure we didn’t forget anything. But the keys are inside. Jude left them on the bed, with Pooh’s wallet. She has a dark look in her eyes.

  What are you staring at? she says.

  Nothing. I think it might be a nice day.

&nbs
p; She glances at the sky. The moon is orange, she says. It’s a bad sign.

  I smile. Why?

  The blood of a stranger will be spilled.

  It’s pollution, I say. It’s atmospheric weirdness. The sky is toxic and it doesn’t mean anything.

  I’m sorry, she says. I think I’m getting my period.

  I stare at her dumbly.

  This isn’t going to work, she says. The suicide angle.

  No, I say. It doesn’t matter now.

  Let’s go, she says. We have a train to catch.

  *

  I follow her across the street. She walks with one arm protecting her belly. The green icebox swings at her side and for a moment I see a small child walking on the beach with a pail full of sand.

  fifteen.

  The Blister was lying. Or I have decided he was. He wants me to kill Jude, and he fed me the heroin story to give me the trembles. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe him. Heroin is cheap and plentiful in South America. No one smuggles smack from the north. It would make as much sense to sneak a box of snow into Canada. It’s funny though. The balloon or glove or whatever it is could dissolve at any time and fill my bloodstream with heroin, killing me like an internal supernova. And the idea electrifies me. It calms me at the same time. I felt this way once before, stepping out onto a dark highway and staring into the lights of oncoming traffic.

  Jude sits on a bench, one arm dangling protectively over the green icebox. She crosses her legs and asks me twice if I have any gum. Her voice has taken on a menstrual edge. I’m distracted and I tell her I’m going to the men’s room. She says she needs gum and magazines and tampons. She’s examining her nails. I think I’m going to scream, she says. Her face is blank. Maybe she didn’t say anything. The voice came from inside me. I can hear the blood in my ears and my fingers tingle and for a second I think I’m going to hit her.

  Don’t scream, I say.

  She doesn’t even look up. Is something wrong?

  I’m going to the men’s room.

  Fine, she says. Don’t be long.

  I pass a wall of telephones and I think of Eve. I should call her but I’m not in the mood. I would have to call the hospital and listen to static and soft jazz and a weather report as I was placed on hold. I would be transferred to her room and I would have to speak to her mother or sister or someone else before they let me speak to her. I would have to be a normal person, a friend. I would have to pretend I didn’t find her naked and bloody in her own bed.

  The men’s room is silent. One guy stands at a urinal, his eyes cast up at the ceiling. Another bends over a sink, one side of his face white with foam. The other side is shiny and pink and he is holding his thumb against a bleeding cut. There is hair on the floor around him, a straight razor in his hand. He’s disposing of a beard. Our eyes meet and I know he is on the run from someone. I shrug and close my eyes. He lifts the razor to his face. I push open the door to each stall but there’s no one else. I’m sure the Blister is here somewhere, watching me. I don’t care. But I would love to say hello and see that cocksure smile fade from his mouth. I would ask him why he’s so afraid of little Jude. I go into the last stall and force myself to vomit. It’s not hard, really. I close my eyes and think of Pooh. Dead bodies never fail. My nostrils burn but I feel better. There’s a streak of blood in the toilet but I hardly notice it. I flush it away and go to wash my hands.

  I stand beside the shaving man. He is bleeding in several places now and doesn’t seem to mind. The blade scrapes his face in long, urgent strokes. I hold my hands under a stream of cold water until they are numb. I stare into my own face. The eyes pale and gray, like dirty ice. The sockets are sunken and black. The shaving man has one brown eye, the other a fierce blue. His lips are thick and meaty and his nose is crooked. My own beard is getting thick, blond with traces of red. The shaving man is wearing a white shirt and a blue down vest. I am wearing the black T-shirt and jeans I put on two days ago, the filthy leather jacket. The man has finished shaving, his face bright and sore. His eyes find mine in the mirror.

  Are you looking at me, brother?

  I’m sorry. I’m looking at myself.

  He wipes his mouth. Don’t take me wrong. But you look like shit, brother.

  He is wearing a faded green baseball cap with the word Crash across the front. It looks like a lucky hat. He takes it off and a mass of dark hair falls to his shoulders. He reaches into a brown paper bag for scissors and a bottle of peroxide. My hands are starting to hurt from the cold and I turn off the water. I wipe my fingers dry against my chest. The man is cutting his hair in fistfuls.

  I like that ring, he says. That gold ring.

  He means my wedding ring. I never took it off after Lucy died and I don’t know why. I don’t think it will come off; it feels grafted there, melded to my flesh. But I’m wrong. It slides over my knuckle as if my hands are oiled. I have lost so much weight. I lift it to the light and turn it before my eyes. It is so smooth, almost unmarked. Gold is a soft metal; it should be cut and scarred by five years of marriage.

  I could use it, he says. For my new identity.

  Who are you?

  I don’t know, brother. How do you like the name Henry?

  You could do worse.

  That’s what I’m thinking. And Henry sounds like a guy that’s married.

  I give him the ring without pause. He slips it on his ring finger and smiles.

  It looks good, he says. I’ll give you fifty bucks.

  I don’t need any money.

  Come on. You must want something.

  Jude is stalking around our luggage like a panther that hasn’t had dinner. I duck out of the rest room with Henry’s lucky hat pulled low over my eyes. I go to the newsstand and grab a stack of magazines: Vogue and Rolling Stone, Penthouse, Sports Illustrated and Mother Jones. I get sugarless bubble gum and a carton of cigarettes and a box of nontoxic superabsorbent tampons.

  I return to Jude bearing these gifts. She eyes my new hat but doesn’t say a word. I tear open the gum and she takes two sticks, crushing them in her mouth. In a parallel universe, I might kiss her.

  What’s the problem?

  The train is delayed. They won’t say how long.

  It’s Christmas Eve. Be patient.

  Where did you get that ridiculous hat?

  Listen, fuck you. Take a pill or something. Go wash your face.

  She turns and walks away, her bootheels flashing like hammers. I like the way she walks. She takes long arrogant strides, her ass and hips swinging. She holds her head high, her shoulders back like a dancer. Everyone gets out of her way, I notice. I sit down beside the green icebox, smiling. It’s been a long time since I argued pointlessly with a woman and I forgot how much fun it could be.

  *

  I look around. There’s still no sign of the Blister and I decide not to worry about him. I flip through a magazine and smoke half a cigarette before a little girl gives me a long dirty look and points at the NO SMOKING sign. I look up and see Jude near the ticket window. She’s talking to a woman with short black hair. Their faces are just inches apart and they could be fighting. They could be leaning to kiss. Jude glances my way and she knows I’m watching her. She looks furious. Her face is cold and white, her hands clenched. She whispers something to the woman and they separate. The woman with black hair looks familiar. She wears high heels, white stockings. But she walks away and I never see her face. Jude comes toward me with an expression that says don’t say a fucking word. She sits down beside me.

  Jude, I say.

  Don’t say a fucking word.

  Who was that woman?

  She was no one. She was someone I used to work with.

  Not a friend, then.

  No, she says. Definitely not.

  Funny, I say. She looked very familiar.

  Henry steps out of the bathroom, his hair bleached and wet and cut like a fright wig. His eyes linger on Jude before he turns away.

  Minutes crawl past us on
all fours. The Valium is wearing off and I feel a rush of clarity. I want to be sweet to Jude, to make her laugh. I show her a funny picture of a man taking a bath with a pig. She barely smiles. She takes a single tampon from the box and goes to the bathroom. She comes back silent, skulking. She tells me she hates to bleed. I take her hand and kiss it.

  Sorry, she says. I’ll feel better when we’re on the train.

  Have you ever done this before?

  What? she says.

  Have you ever cozied up with one of your victims?

  I’ve never wanted to.

  She puts her head in my lap and I flinch, then reach to stroke her hair. I think I’m embarrassed by her sudden affection, her trust. I’m fifteen and I don’t want anyone to know she’s my girlfriend.

  Jude falls asleep. I hold my breath for a minute, afraid to move and wake her. I take off my jacket and fold it square. I slip it under her head and go to a pay phone. I watch Jude sleep and then look away as I dial the hospital. I turn Henry’s baseball cap around backward and force a sheepish grin onto my face. I am immediately put on hold. I snap my fingers and continue to grin. Thank you, I say. I listen to elevator music for three minutes. I watch the second hand on my watch. A nurse comes on and asks if I’m a family member. I’m Frank, I say. I’m Eve’s older brother. I am put on hold again.

  Eve’s voice is thin and tough. I don’t have a brother, she says.

  It’s me.

  Phineas. Where are you?

  Are you okay?

  I’m fine. They kept me overnight but I’m okay.

  I’m sorry.

  Will you come see me?

  I can’t. I wish I could.

  Crumb is here, she says. He’s taking care of me.

  I smile and wonder what manner of equipment Crumb is stealing from Eve’s room.

  What about Georgia?

  I don’t know, she says. She’s missing. She never came to the hospital with me and I don’t know where she is. I’m going to kill her.

  She’s okay, I say. She was on a lot of drugs and she probably freaked out when the cops came. She’s crashing on somebody’s floor.