Pivot

by L C Barlow

  "Fantastic," I said to him, and I shot down the rest of my wine and began to pour myself more. "I've never seen anything so wonderful."

  "Oh," he said, and he bounded up, "the show is far from over." He darted around like an arrow, blowing out the candles one by one so that there was only the darkness and the music, the light from his cigarette, and the two pitchers of glowing blue gold.

  I could not see him in the dark, and I dared not move lest I spill the wine. So, I sat there, my eyes frozen and latched to the only lights by which they could ground themselves. One of these lights moved.

  The music paused, died, and silence stuffed itself into the air, and as it did so, the pitcher on the left side of the piano levitated up, drifted down, like a gem plucked from the center of a black flower about to be eaten, and then it turned, the liquid's shape shifted, and then I heard a splash and trickle as the liquid poured gently, suddenly illuminating the very keys and face of the piano. The liquid swept across, ate the darkness away, until a blue grin faced me with one eye.

  It was like a watching a picture draw itself in the night, or seeing an artist etch away the darkness with a swipe, or glimpsing God peel back the curtain to the beyond. I loved it. Then, the music began to play again. The keys moved, the silence was sucked into oblivion, and the blue began to shiver, bop, and jump.

  To my right, I saw the other pitcher lift, and it floated to me until it landed, ever so delicately, at my feet.

  I sensed a shift in the velvet beneath me. I could feel a warmth come from my left. I smelled the smoky sweet of Patrick.

  "Wow," he said. "I didn't know if this would be as amazing as it seemed. But it is."

  "Yes," I said, watching the thrilling mechanism, "it looks like someone left candles burning on the keys, and a wax has dripped down amongst them like paint."

  "It looks like one of those pictures that moves. Like the waterfalls lit from behind."

  "Yes. It's beautiful."

  "And now I know what you mean."

  I shifted to look at him, as though I could see him in the dark, but I could not, of course, and I felt an ache in my eyes, a craving.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When you said you were glad that I fucked that girl, just so you could hear her sing and me play.

  "I feel that now. If I hadn't been drugged up, if I hadn't hidden that rosary in the walls of that chimney, I would never have had the chance to ask you to help me. Where would we be then? Certainly not here, watching the blood of a soul seep into a piano and making it play." I felt him nudge me in the dark. "You never would have told me that story. I never would have told you mine."

  "So," I summarized, "You're glad you got drugged up and paranoid, and I'm glad you fucked a girl for no reason."

  "Aye," he said, and we both laughed. "But we can move on from that, now. I think that's what we're doing here anyway."

  "What is that song?" I asked. "It sounds like a ghost on a string."

  "Moonlight Sonata. Ever since Marshall mentioned it, I knew it was the one for this."

  "Good old Marshall." I felt a shifting beside me, and Patrick moved, lifted the pitcher, and swirled the liquid. I watched it like an illuminated tornado swirling before me.

  "It's so beautiful, I want to eat it," I said. Again I stared at the piano in awe, captured against my will by its beauty.

  "But it smells like shit."

  "Really?"

  "Smell it."

  Patrick lifted the decanter to me, and I took a whiff. Indeed, he was right. Though it was beautiful, the odor was what I expected toxic waste mixed with acid rain to smell like.

  "You have ruined your piano," I said.

  "Aye. But some things are worth ruining.

  "I have another carafe because I didn't know how much I'd need." He placed the decanter back in the grass.

  I hummed shortly in assent.

  Something warm brushed against my hand, and I moved it, thinking I might be in Patrick's way, but as I lifted my arm, I felt soft, malleable fingers press into my palm as though checking for a pulse, and then they slid up and over the crease in my wrist and glided against the tender part of my arm until they reached my elbow.

  I turned away from the piano, and peered into the void, where I could feel him. His skin, the night, the music, the blue, it was all delicious.

  He was near my cheeks. Inching closer, he pinned me with his warmth, made my lips part when I could feel his own very near. I could smell and feel him breathing there, gliding as close as possible with his face nearing mine like a skater nearing thin ice. But he dared not break the barrier between us. It was tantalizing. I felt bound and free and powerful.

  "Patrick, you are such an electrifying mess."

  "That's the piano, Jack."

  I could feel the puff of those words like clouds against my lips, and, unable to bear the weight of the moment any longer, I pressed myself against him, felt him rock back and his lips bend and then open, and his warm, wet tongue dive against mine.

  He rocked forward again and pulled me against him, and the taste of his mouth was like smooth smoke and cinnamon. I knew at that moment that his cigarettes were black, his whiskey was strong, and that he had not shot up in weeks. I drank him in like I had the wine. I swirled him like I had the burning venom.

  I felt his clean hands against my waist, pushing and pulling, and then wrapping themselves around my back. I brushed my hands through his hair, over this hills and valleys of his face, and I thrust my tongue deep against his.

  We pulled apart slowly.

  "Don't ever leave me, Jack," he whispered against my neck.

  "What if you ask me to?"

  "Not even then."

  We embraced again, sinking into the blue, the harmony, the black, black night. And when we finally parted for good and watched the piano again with a new, thoughtful peace existing between us, he said tenderly, "Do you have enough soul now?"

  "Because of you, I might get into heaven."

  "And I just wanted a chance."

  He dipped his hand into the decanter beside us, and when he pulled his fingers out, they looked wetted with the blood of angels. I saw the hand, as if alive on its own, float up above where I could see, and then I felt him rub my head. His fingers started on the right, moved center, to the left, and then dipped back into the blue. He continued, from left to back, and then round again. Round and round he went, painting a circle in my hair.

  I knew what he was doing and stopped his hand.

  I dipped my own hand into the decanter, felt the cool splash against my fingers, and I brought my smoldering hand up to his hair. Rather than making a circle, though, I marked him with two triangles, both of them jutting out like hooks just above his brow. When I was done, I felt like I was staring into a mirror.

  "Who goes into a man's house to steal someone else's rosary? Who gives eight hundred to the homeless? Who gives fifty grand to her sister without a penny left for herself?" I heard Patrick's deep sing-song voice ask. "Jack does," he said.

  Yes, I thought. And who waits in the dark with a knife in hand, striving for the blood of men? Who kills the wife of a minister and her children? Who strangles adulterers with piano wire while her mentor watches? And then, who loses it all? Who fails? Jack does.

  "What do you want?" Patrick asked. "What do you think would make you more you?"

  I did not know what to say.

  Chapter 26

  GONE

  I knew what it meant when Cyrus asked me down into the basement, and my arms involuntarily shook.

  Just four weeks ago, I had had the pleasure of those brick walls, and Cyrus had cracked one of my kneecaps in two, among other various bodily catastrophes.

  I almost bolted, truly, but then a knowing resignation clamped my hand to its own, and I slipped down the spiral staircase behind him, into the rooms without windows, past the wine.

  Dangling from the ceiling were the old, rusty cuffs, and they reminded me of bats still sleeping.

&nb
sp; "Cuff yourself," Cyrus said, and I slipped my jacket off. I stepped to the cuffs and touched them, and it was as though a psychic energy lay within them - electricity needing a body to pop. I instantly dropped my hands and whirled around.

  "What is this for?" I asked urgently.

  Cyrus took the brown folding chair from the corner of the room, and he popped it open like a tent. He brought the chair to just a few feet away, and he sat in it. "I want to speak with you."

  "That requires this?"

  "It requires whatever I say it does." It was nonchalant, his acts, and they did not seem from a maniac. Rather, it was like the old Cyrus with the grey hawk eyes that peered at me as he crossed his legs and arms and leaned back like a man in a smoking room.

  I flicked my hands against the hanging cuffs and watched them swing. I sighed. They were too high for me to ask whether they should go in front or behind. They would have to go in front, and my wrists would be placed just above my forehead.

  I cuffed myself as Cyrus had requested, and I leaned my head against my arms and heaved another breath. This day would be painful, I knew. But eventually, eventually it would end. I knew that as well.

  Cyrus hopped up and strolled to me, checked the tightness of the cuffs from just a few inches away, tightened them both one notch. He spun around. "Let's talk about Sloan."

  "What about him?"

  "You murdered his wife... among other things"

  I nodded my head against my hands. "Just as you asked me to."

  "Did you enjoy it?" he asked, and he whirled back around, facing me, and he reclined again in the chair. He crossed his legs and took out a cigar from his inner jacket pocket.

  He was dressed all in black - black slacks, a fitted black jacket, and a grey shirt so dark that it would seem black, had the suit not provided a blacker comparison. The material was well-made and had a sheen to it. It was almost glossy. Beneath those clothes, though, I knew his shoulder still bled. Sloan's wife had made sure of that.

  "I did not," I replied truthfully.

  "Why?"

  I twisted my head up and looked at the dank light bulb. "I suppose because she was a woman."

  "Ah," he said, and he put the cigar in his mouth. He lit the end and puffed on it until smoky clouds billowed between us and I could smell cotton candy and bitterness. "But you're a woman, Jacqueline." For the first time, in forever, my full name was used.

  "Is that what I am?"

  This made Cyrus smile, but I wasn't sure why. He licked his lips and plucked something from them, and he threw it to the floor. "I've never treated you like you were one, have I?"

  "No," I said, and I almost told him 'thank you for it,' but then I did not. I added, "But maybe the way I am didn't allow for it."

  "What do you mean?"

  " Maybe, if I had acted like one, you would have treated me like a woman."

  "I wouldn't have."

  "Well, I appreciate that."

  There was silence between us, and his sparkling eyes searched over me. I shifted my feet, trying to allow blood flow to continue its regular course to my hands, but it was difficult. My arms were already uncomfortable and tingling.

  "I don't understand," he said, "why it would still bother you when I have taught you better."

  "With men," I moved my forehead back and forth against my arms, thinking, "it's different. There's the possibility of something more there, when you kill them. Emasculation, I suppose. With women, there's not. Yes, I guess that's a problem."

  "Kind of like kicking a dog when it's already down. That's killing a woman."

  "If that's the way you want to put it."

  He twisted in his seat and took another draw on his cigar. His head was cocked to the side, and his silver hair glinted in the light like strands of silk.

  "I used to feel that way, too," he said to me.

  "What happened?"

  He twirled his hand out, like he held a glass of wine, and he stared in the distance until he returned his gaze to me. "I realized that they're all women." He took a puff on his cigar.

  I paused, thinking on this.

  "I don't feel like I am anything," I said.

  "You feel just human," he replied.

  "Not even that."

  That made him smile. "I would expect not, what with your abilities now. A little bit further from the fabric of humankind you have been torn. One step closer to becoming like me." Another puff on his cigar, another ghost of a cloud placed into the air and slowly headed my way. "On the other hand, you can give life now. How is that not like a woman?" He smiled. And then, "Why did you hide it from me?"

  "It's not what you're about, Cyrus. I knew you would kill me for it."

  "Not kill you, Jack. Use you."

  I waited for him to continue.

  "Are you converted?" he asked. I laughed softly.

  "You've got to be joking."

  "Have I? You've been returning Christian families to the living. I think that says something."

  "I was not raised a Christian," I replied. "I will never be a Christian, Cyrus. There's nothing to worry about."

  "There are other things to convert people to."

  I nodded my head and moved as best I could with my arms pinned above in order to physically negotiate the meaning of his words.

  "I don't know what the fuck is wrong," I said. "I don't think you realize..."

  "I don't realize what?"

  "That I am dark enough!" I yelled. "I strangle people, and I kill them! I ruin lives! How does that not work for you? Despair is either there, or it's not! There are no striations, no variations, and I make it appear! I clothe people in it! How is it not good enough?"

  "Because you now have the capacity to turn it around," he said.

  "So do you," I replied. "So does everybody."

  "No." He shook his head violently, smoke pouring from his nostrils back and forth in the air. "You can turn it around after the fact. There's something new in you," he pointed to me, "and I despise it."

  I went to say something, but paused mid-breath, torrents of emotions coursing through me, and I knew my face must be turning red in anger.

  In contrast to me, Cyrus only sat there, as cool as silver in ice, and he looked bitter.

  "But it's not only that," he continued. "I can sense it in you, just standing here. I can sense something inside you... your ability to bring them back, perhaps... or your desire to. I do not like... it is disgusting." He waved the cigar out in front, leaned forward, and squinted his eyes, as though trying to pin it down. But then he quickly exhaled and dropped his arms. "A good. An innocence. I don't know. The bright man knew it was right for you, but it's sickening. I want it gone."

  I gasped in exasperation. "Even if you..." and the thought I was about to say weighed me so heavily that some of the strength in my legs left me, and I leaned even more against my arms. "...there's only so much you can do about it. Maybe to get rid of it all, you're going to have to get rid of all of me."

  I looked up at him, and his eyes appeared to have blackened. They were no longer icy blue.

  "No," he said, and he sighed heavily. "No, that's not what this is. You were meant to be with me, you were meant to provide this ability for me. There's much worth keeping, Jack. I just need to..." And he shook his head.

  "To what?" I asked, but he did not respond, except by dropping his cigar to the ground and standing. He came to me slowly and looked deeply into my eyes.

  "Excise."

  "What?" I asked, but he did not reply. Rather, he began undoing the buttons of my shirt one by one, until the front of me was bare.

  He took out a knife and ran its sharp edge barely against the skin from my chest to my gut. I leaned back, trying best to evade the sharp point, but I could not escape it.

  "Where did he place it?" Cyrus asked, and then he moved the knife to right above my belly-button. "Here?" he asked.

  I gave him no answer, just closed my eyes, waiting for the exquisite pain to pierce me and the shock to
empty me of all thought. But... nothing.

  I lifted my eyelids, and he was no longer there.

  I stood alone amidst the basement walls, still chained, and I swiveled around, expecting some dark form to slip through the cracks of the bricks and attack, but nothing came. I looked up, stared at where the chains met the ceiling and knew that with hours of work I could free them, but I did not have hours. Whatever was coming would come, and there was nothing I could do.

  I could hear my breathing, ragged, and I didn't like it. It reminded me of the sound of my victims after they had given up.

  But then I heard footsteps. They were slow and then quickening, and they belonged to more than just one set of feet.

  I expected Cyrus to appear from down the hall from the left, which was the wine room, perhaps with a frightening set of surgical instruments that would make me cry in their very presence, but instead a different form appeared. It was Roland's.

  "Oh fuck," I said. And when he pierced the entrance, I looked straight into his brown eyes and said, "You need to get the fuck out of here."

  "That's what I'm doing, Jack," he whispered, and he nodded to me as if he was about to catch a cab and would meet me for dinner later. Then he turned and faced Cyrus who had stepped into the room from behind him.

  Cyrus glanced at me, and he waved his hand in my direction. "The cycle finally ends," Cyrus said. Roland curtly nodded.

  I screamed again and again at Cyrus, but it was as if I wasn't even in the room, the way they stared at each other, and after my words bounced around the empty basement, it was as if they had never been spoken. I wished I could scream loud enough for the entire world to hear and scream back, but I could only sink into myself, quietly, and grit my teeth. Again, I jerked at the cuffs and swiveled.

  There was another sound that met my ears, and this, too, was the patter of footsteps approaching.

  I peered up to see Alex enter the room, and then I looked to Roland, and I knew. It was utter blasphemy.

  "Alex, you don't have a right to touch him," I said, and again there was no acknowledgement from any of them. It was like they were behind a glass in an apartment miles away, and I was watching the scene through a telescope. Alex's blonde head turned back and forth like a pendulum between Cyrus and Roland.