Paedomorphosis
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Nasty cold for late May, rain like March; Annie sat on one of the scrungy old sofas at the front of the coffeehouse, sipping at her cappuccino, milkpale bittersweet and savoring the warmth bleeding into her hands from the tall mug. The warmth really better than the coffee, which always made her shaky, queasy stomach if she wasn’t careful to eat something first. Beyond the plate glass, Athens gray enough for London or Dublin, wet Georgia spring hanging on, Washington Street asphalt shimmering wet and rough and iridescent stains from the cars passing by or parked out front. The rest of the band late as usual and no point getting pissed over it, baby dykes living in their own private time zone. Annie lit another cigarette and reminded herself that she really was cutting back, too expensive and no good for her voice, besides.
The door opened, then, and the cold rushing in, sudden rainsmell clean to mix with the caffeinated atmosphere of Bean Soup, air forever thick with the brown aroma of roasting beans and fresh brewing. Jingled cowbell shut again, Ginger and Mary and Cooper in one soggy clump, stupid happy grin on Mary’s face and Cooper sulking, wet-hen disgust and she set her guitar case down beside Annie.
“What’s with this fucking weather, man, that’s what I want to know? I think my socks have fucking mildewed.”
“Maybe if you changed them every now and then,” Ginger sniggered and Mary giggled; Cooper groaned, shook her head and “These two have been sucking at the weed all afternoon, Annie,” she said. “It’s a wonder I finally pried them away from the bong.” Mary and Ginger were both giggling now.
“Well, you know I got all day,” Annie said over the steaming rim of her mug, and that was true, three days now since she’d quit her job at the diner, quit before they fired her for refusing to remove the ring in her right eyebrow.
“Yeah, well, I’m about ready to kick both their stoner asses, myself,” and another hot glance back at the drummer and bass player, Ginger and Mary still blocking the doorway, sopping wet and laughing. “I’m gonna get some coffee. You see if you can do something with them.”
“Okay, ladies, you know it’s not nice to pester the butch,” and of course that only got them laughing that much harder, and Annie couldn’t help but smile. Feeling a little better already, something to take her mind off the low and steelblue clouds as cold and insubstantial as her mood.
“She’s such a clodosaurus,” Mary said, tears from giggling and stuck her tongue out at Cooper, in line at the bar and her back to them anyway. “Hey, can you spare one of those?” and Mary was already fishing a Camel from Annie’s half-empty pack.
“No, actually, but help yourself,” and Cooper on her way back now, weaving through the murmuring afternoon crowd of students and slackers, Cooper with her banana-yellow buzzcut and Joan Jett T-shirt two sizes too small to show off her scrawny muscles. Annie still amazed that their friendship had survived the breakup, and sometimes, like now, still missing Cooper so bad it hurt.
“Thank you. I will,” and then Mary bummed a light from Ginger.
Cooper sat down in a chair across from them, perched on the edge of cranberry Naugahyde and sipped at her mug of black, unsweetened Colombian, plain as it got, no decaf pussy drinks for Cooper.
“They still going at it down there?” and Cooper stomped at the floor like a horse counting, and Annie nodded, “Yeah, but I think they’re winding up.”
And “See,” Ginger said, mock-haughty sneer for Cooper, “it’s a good thing we were late. The sad widdle goffs ain’t even done yet,” and Cooper shrugged, “Unh huh,” and she blew on her coffee. “We gotta find another fucking place to practice.”
Honeycomb of identical rooms, gray cubicles beneath Bean Soup rented out for practice space, but down here the cozy scent of fresh-ground espresso replaced by the musty smell of the chalkwhite mushrooms they sometimes found growing in the corners, the mildew and dust laid down like seafloor sediment.
Concrete poured seventy or eighty years ago, that long since the sun into this space, never mind the single hundred-watt bulb dangling from the ceiling. Something painful bright but not light, stark illumination for the sickly little room so that they could see to tighten wing nuts and tune instruments, so Annie could read lyrics not yet memorized from her scribbly notes. Ten feet by ten, or that’s what they paid for every month, but Annie had her doubts, maybe a different geometry than her idea of ten square. But at least the steel fire door locked and the pipes that laced the low ceiling like the coffeehouse’s varicose intestines had never broken. Enough electrical outlets (when they’d added a couple of extension cords) for their monitors and Mary’s dinky mixing board.
Thick layers of foam rubber glued to the walls, Salvation Army blankets stapled over that, and they still couldn’t start practice until Seven Deadlies had finished. No way of shutting out the goth band’s frantic nextdoor drone and “Those assholes must have the bitchmother off all subwoofers crammed in there,” Cooper had said more than once, an observation she must have thought bore repeating. Sound you could feel in your bowels, bass to rattle bones and teeth, that passed straight through concrete and the useless soundproofing.
Complaints from some of the other bands, but Annie thought it was a shitty, pointless thing to do, bitching about another band playing “too loud,” and besides, the complaints all summarily ignored. So TranSister always waited until Seven Deadlies were done for the afternoon before they started. Simpler solution and no toes stepped on, no fear of petty reprisals.
One long and narrow hall connecting all the cubicles, cheapest latex maroon coming off the walls in big scaley flakes, and TranSister’s space way down at the end. Passing most of Seven Deadlies on their way out (eight of them, despite the name), painful skinny boys and girls, uncertain androgynes with alabaster faces and kohlsmudged eyes. Pretty in their broken porcelain ways and usually only the most obligatory conversation, clash of subcultures and Cooper sometimes made faces behind their backs. But one of the girls waiting for them this time, tall, thin girl in fishnets and a ratty black T-shirt, Bauhaus and a print Annie knew came from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, tall girl with her cello zipped snug inside its body-bag cover.
“Hi,” she said, shy but confident smile, and Annie said hi back, struggling with the key and she could feel Cooper already getting impatient behind her.
“I’m Elise,” she said, was shaking Mary’s hand, and “Would you guys mind if I hang around and listen for a while?”
Immediate and discouraging grunt from Cooper and Mary said, quick, “I don’t know. It’s really pretty close in there already and all . . . ” and Elise countering, satin voice and smile to melt butter and “I don’t take up much room, honest. And I can leave this in our space,” pointing to her instrument. Before another word, “Sure,” from Annie, and to the others, “She can sit in the big chair, okay?”
“Yeah,” half a snarl from Cooper, “She can sit in the big chair. Right,” and pushing her way past Annie, unlocking the door and inside, Mary and Ginger pulled along sheepish in her wake.
Five times through the set, a couple of the newer songs more than that, only three nights until they opened for Lydia Lunch and Michele Malone at the 40-Watt Club and everyone was getting nervy. Finally too tired for any more and Annie too hoarse, Ginger’s Sailor Moon T-shirt soaked straight through so you could see she wasn’t wearing a bra. Cooper and Mary dripping sweat, dark stains on the concrete at their feet. Annie had left the door open, against the rules but hoping that some of the stormdamp air from above might leak down their way.
Cooper sat on the floor and lit a cigarette, smoke ring aimed at the light bulb, and she pointed a finger at Elise.
“Damn, girl, don’t you fucking sweat?” and getting nothing but that mockshy smile back, Elise who’d sat quietly through the entire practice, legs folded in a half-hearted lotus on the broken-down recliner, slightest shrug of her black shoulders.
“Well, I do,” said Mary, propping her Barbie-pink Gibson bass agains
t the wall, static whine before she switched off her kit. “I sweat like a goddamn pig,” and she made loud, oinking noises for emphasis.
“Well, whatever, but you can fuck this heat,” Cooper calling it a night, so time for a beer at The Engine Room; hazy, cramped bar next door to Bean Soup, pool tables and Mortal Combat, PBR by the pitcher half-price because Cooper once had a thing with one of the bartenders.
Annie sat on the arm of the recliner next to Elise, top twisted off her water bottle and she took a long swallow. Bottle that had once upon a time held water from “wild Canadian springs,” but recycled from the tap in her apartment time after time and now it tasted mostly like warm plastic and chlorine. Something to take the edge off the dryness in her throat, at least; she glanced down at Elise, had glanced at her a lot while TranSister had punched and yowled their way through carefully rehearsed riot grrrl anger. And every time, Elise had been watching her too, enough to make Annie blush and maybe she was starting to feel horny for the first time since she and Cooper had called it quits.
“What about it?” she asked Elise. “Wanna go get a beer with us?”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” and Ginger rolling her eyes, squeezed herself out from behind her drums and past the big chair. “Well, they got Cokes and stuff, too,” she said.
“Hey, we’ll catch up with you guys in a little bit, okay?” Annie said, braver than she’d felt in months, the rest of the band exchanging knowing looks, but at least they waited until they were all three in the hall to start snickering.
“Sorry about that,” when they were gone and feeling like maybe they’d taken her new boldness with them, so another drink from the bottle because she didn’t know what else to do.
“That’s okay. I understand,” and Elise’s voice cool and smooth and sly as broken glass.
“Thank god,” and Annie sighed, relief and now maybe her heart could slow the fuck down. “I was afraid maybe I was making an ass of myself.”
“Nope,” Elise said, up onto her knees now and her lips brushing Annie’s. “Not at all. Want to see something neat?”
The space where Seven Deadlies practiced like a weird Xerox, the same four walls, the same pipes snaking overhead, same mushroomy funk. But these walls painted shiny black and draped in midnight velvet (or at least velveteen), a wrought-iron candelabra in one corner and plaster saints in the other three. Dusty, threadbare Turkish rug to cover the entire floor, a hundred faded shades of red and orange and tan, the overall design obscured by speakers and keyboard stands; a wooden table made from two saw horses and an old door, crowded with computers and digital effects equipment.
“Shit, did one of you guys win the Lotto?” and Elise laughed, shut the door behind them. “Jacob, our vocalist, comes from money,” she said. “The old Southern type,” and “It comes in handy.”
Annie nodded, “With all this gear, no wonder you guys can make such a racket.”
“Mostly we’re working with MIDI programs right now,” Elise said, standing just behind Annie and for the first time Annie noticed the heady, sweet reek of vanilla off the girl, and something else, something wild that made her think of weekends at her parents’ river cabin when she was a kid.
“You know, Sound Forge and some other stuff. Lots of sampling,” Elise was saying, “on Jacob’s Mac.”
“I don’t know shit about computers,” Annie said, which was true, not just a line to get away from shop talk and Elise smiled, another kiss on Annie’s cheek. And that smell stronger than before, or maybe she was just noticing it now.
“Anyway, I wanted to show you something,” and Elise stepped past her, past the computers and she was folding back a section of the velvet (or velveteen) curtain. “Down here.”
Annie followed, six steps to the other side of the room and she could see the crack in the concrete wall, a foot wide, perhaps a little more where it met the floor, stooping for a better view and This is where it’s coming from, she thought. The waterlogged, mudflat smell of boathouses and turtles, and she wrinkled her nose at the dark inside the hole, the fetid air drifting from the crack.
“Man, what a mondo stinkorama,” trying to sound funny and Annie realized that she was sweating, cold sweat and goosebumps and no idea why. Something triggered by the stench from behind the wall, a memory she wasn’t quite remembering or something deeper, maybe, primal response to this association of darkness and the rotting, wet smell.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Elise said, taking Annie’s hand and she slipped through the hole, gone, like the concrete wall had swallowed her alive and nothing left in the world but one arm, detached, silver bracelet and ragged black nails, one hand still holding Annie’s tight.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked, “Don’t you want to see?” Elise’s voice muffled and that speaking-in-an-empty-room quality to it now, sounding much farther away than she should’ve, and “No,” Annie said, “Not really, now that you mention it.” But a tug from Elise and she almost pitched forward, one hand out so she didn’t smack her forehead on the wall. Sweatcool palm against cold cement and a sudden gust or draft from the crack, stale pocket dislodged by Elise, and Annie was beginning to feel a little nauseous.
“I’m serious,” she said, tugging back and Elise’s white face appeared in the crack, irked frown for Annie like something from an old nightmare, like the sleepwalker on her T-shirt.
“I thought dykes were supposed to be all tough and fearless and shit,” she said.
Annie shook her head, swallowed before she spoke. “Big ol’ misconception. Right up there with the ones about us all wanting dicks and pickup trucks.”
Elise was crawling out of the crack, dragging more of that smell out behind her, dustgray smears on her black shirt, dust on her Doc Marten’s and a strand of cobweb stuck in her hair.
“Sorry,” she said, but smiling now like maybe she really wasn’t sorry at all. “I guess I just don’t think about people being bothered by stuff like that. My dad’s a paleontologist and I spent a lot of time as a kid crawling around in old caves and sinkholes.”
“Oh,” Annie said and sat down on the rug, grateful for something between her and the concrete. “Where are you from, anyway?”
The loose flap of cloth falling back in place, once again concealing the crack, and “Massachusetts,” Elise replied, “but no place you’ve probably ever heard of.”
“Yeah, like Athens is the white-hot center of the solar system,” and a dry laugh from Annie, then, sound to make herself feel better and she fluttered her eyelashes, affected an air-headed falsetto, “ ‘Athens? Athens, Georgia? Isn’t that where R.E.M.’s from?’ ”
“And the B-52s,” Elise added, sitting next to Annie. “Don’t forget the B-52s,” and “Yes,” Annie agreed. “And the stinkin’ B-52s.” Both of them laughing and Annie’s abrupt uneasiness fading almost as fast as it had come, only the slimmest silver jangle left in her head and Elise bent close, kissed her and this time their tongues brushed, fleeting, teasing brush between mouths before she pulled away.
“Play some of your stuff for me,” Annie said and when Elise looked doubtfully towards her cello, “No, no, no. A tape or something,” and she motioned towards the black cabinets and consoles, row upon numbered row of dials and gauges. “With all these cool toys, surely you guys have put something down on tape by now,” and Elise nodding, still doubtful but yes, anyway; she stood, began digging about on the door cum table, loud and brittle clatter of empty cassette cases and a moment later slipped a DAT cartridge into one of the machines.
“Jacob would probably have a seizure if he knew I was fucking around with this stuff,” she said.
And nothing at first, at least nothing Annie could hear, and then the whisperchirp of crickets and fainter, a measured dripping, water into water. Elise returned to her spot on the floor next to Annie, an amber prescription bottle in her hand and “You do get stoned, don’t you?”
The crickets getting louder by degrees, droning insect chorus, and Annie thought she could hea
r strings buried somewhere in the mix, subliminal suggestion of strings, but the dripping still clear, distinct plop and more distinct space between each drop’s fall.
“Mostly pot,” Annie said and Elise had popped the cap off the bottle, shook two powder-blue pills into her open palm. “This is better,” she said. And Annie already feeling like a pussy for not following her into the hole in the wall, accepting the pills, dry swallowing both before she had a chance to think better of it.
“What are they?”
Elise shrugged, “Mostly codeine, I think. One of our keyboardists gets them from her mother.” Then three of the tablets for herself before she screwed the cap back on the bottle, tossed it back onto the table.
“Okay, now listen to this part,” and Annie’s attention returning to the tape: the crickets fading away and there were new sounds to take their place, a slow, shrill trilling, and then another, similar but maybe half an octave higher; a synth drum track almost as subtle as the strings.
“Are those frogs?” Annie asked, confused, wishing she had her water bottle because one of the mystery pills had stuck halfway down, and Elise shook her head, “No,” she said. “Toads.”
Later, but no sense left for her to know how much later, wrapped up tight in the twin silken embrace of Elise and the pills, time become as indefinite as the strange music that had swelled until it was so much bigger than the room. Understanding, now, how this music could not be held within shabby concrete walls. Feral symphony and Annie listening, helpless not to listen, while it took her down and apart and Elise made love to her on the shimmering carpet like all the colors of autumn lying beneath still and murky waters. Held weightless between surface tension and siltdappled leaves; the certain knowledge of dangerous, hungry things watching them from above and below, but sanctuary in this girl’s arms.
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