“No, go on,” Del urged with mock casualness and interest. “You want me to write you some songs, I know. I’ll do it, I promise…this fall.”
“Well, yeah–that. That would be fantastic, I can’t wait…custom-written songs from Del Kahn. But, ah, what I wanted to ask is…if you might consider producing an album for me.”
Del couldn’t catch his eyes before they dropped into his coffee. Nor infuse much feigned enthusiasm into his voice. “Well I will, Pearl…I will, okay? I promise…but not just yet, okay? I need some time to get my mind…ah…you know, but we’ll talk to my business manager and my old producer this fall, alright? We’ll sit down and talk and see what we can come up with.”
“Oh, that’s great, that’s fine–I don’t mean to push you.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re good–I want to see you recorded and I think I could do a good job of it for you.” But…thought Del. But what? But I’m scared right now to go near the studio? But I’m too bitter to put my love on disk again right now? But I’m afraid to be perceived as sneaking back but hiding behind the body of another, an admitted cowardly loser? “We’ll do it,” he said blandly, looking up to smile an anemic promise. “This fall you’ll have those songs so you can try them on for size first.”
“That’s wonderful. I can’t thank you enough. Don’t rush–at your leisure.”
She’s a gem, thought Del. She isn’t using me; she’s a friend asking a favor of a friend. He could tell she really meant it about at his leisure. She wasn’t hunger without a soul, like others who had sought to affix themselves to him, leech-like, always swarming thick out there in the pond of life. That was why her singing had gripped him. It was human. She was real.
And beautiful. Del could never get out of his mind, when he was with her, the mental image of her singing in that brothel lounge down south, in lace black bra, cutting panties, garter belt and nylons, the twin hanging out of her in nylons and heels also, the upturned smooth second ass glowing softly in the mellow lights. Del’s penis was his own parasitic twin growing out of him, part sentient, with a separate hunger...moving out away from him, reaching, sometimes pulling him along after it, sometimes overruling his mind. His twin yearned for her twin.
Del knew that he had a possible chance, considering the favors she asked of him. But the idea of holding her dreams hostage and demanding a ransom sickened him. He couldn’t blackmail her. I may be low, he mused, but even I have my limits. Also, there was another factor to bear in mind…
“How are you and Mitch doing?”
Now it was Pearl’s turn to look edgy, avert her eyes. “Good.”
“Are you two serious or what?” Even if she were just a fuck to Mitch, Del would be reluctant. Out of respect. And fear, too.
“I don’t know,” Pearl said. On Mitch’s behalf. She knew how she felt.
“I don’t mean to pry. I mean…I’m just…you know. I don’t know Mitch too well, privately. When he isn’t at work. He seems like he’s always at work…”
“He uncoils, “ Pearl murmured. “But he’s very defensive about emoting. He’s always on guard. He’s afraid. Love makes him uncomfortable.”
“Your love?” Del probed.
“His own.” Pearl caught herself, flushed and laughed uneasily, reaching for her tea. “He may not even love me. I think he loves my body. My bodies,” she corrected.
“That’s an insecurity you’ve brought into the relationship, I’d be willing to wager,” Del said. “It would be there with anybody…Mitch, another person, me.”
“I’m aware of that,” Pearl said in a husky whisper.
“Give the guy a chance. He’s a little intense, a little fierce, but he has a good heart. He cares. He hates a lot, but that’s because he cares so much.”
Here I am aching to fuck her, Del thought, but I’m selling her another man. But that was because now Del knew, finally, for certain, how Pearl and Garnet felt about each other. He wouldn’t have expected it, really–not with Garnet’s hostile intensity, not with Pearl’s dark and bitter past. But now he knew. It was his duty as a friend to both of them to help push their hopes closer together.
Pearl hadn’t responded to Del’s last statement. He said, “Speaking of Mitch, I’ve gotta go talk to him about something.”
Pearl glanced at a clock. “Stay here. He’s coming over for his break in five minutes. I’ll make you another coffee.” She rose from her chair, awkward with the extra weight and limbs of her sister.
Del nodded, but grew quite restless inside. Mitch had never come in on the two of them alone in her trailer before, and this new knowledge made him all that much more uncomfortable. Guilty, as though Mitch might read his twin’s mind. He considered escaping while he could and casually meeting Garnet nearby, but didn’t rise from the parlor love seat.
Del waited as if for a dentist appointment, and after ten minutes of this Mitch came. Sure enough, upon spotting Del his eyes seemed (in Del’s mind) to be seeing Del’s naked erection standing up from his zipper. His guilt must have been a garish tattoo on his face. Or maybe Mitch only looked funny because he had kissed Pearl on the lips in the kitchen before he realized Del was sitting in the adjacent living room. Del stood up and came to him.
“I’ve been looking around for you. Can we talk in private?”
“In here.” Garnet led Del into the little alcove of a bedroom; Pearl remained in the kitchenette.
The bed was in disarray. Del tried to ignore it as the two men stood facing each other. “I want you to cuff LaKarnafeaux, or at least one of his boys.”
Mitch stared, and then grinned. Mitch wasn’t one to grin. He held out his hand to be shaken, and Del shook it, grinning foolishly also, though embarrassed. Mitch said, “Why the sudden change? Today you and your wife told me to leave ‘em be.”
“I talked to them today. I hate them.”
“What about your wife?”
“I don’t know. Don’t worry, you’re just following orders. If she doesn’t like it she can crucify me.”
“I can hardly wait. I’ll get right on it, myself.”
“Don’t go crazy. Just one of them would be fine. Karny doesn’t do much of anything himself so I doubt you can cuff him, but anybody’s fine. Just be careful with Johnny Leng and keep clear of Sneezy Tightrope.” Del glanced at a framed picture on a bureau of Pearl as a child standing with her sister Helen and her parents. “Maybe I’m being petty, concerning myself with these little clowns. What are they compared to the syndy, or corrupt businessmen, or corrupt politicians, who rob and cheat and kill on a mass scale? They’re just a few bugs compared to that.”
“Well, enough bugs add up to a locust swarm, right? They all contribute. You can’t squash ‘em all but you squash what you can.”
“It’s what they represent to me,” Del muttered. “I can’t stomach them anymore.”
“I think we’ll both feel better for this,” Mitch smiled intensely.
Del nodded. Only Sophi concerned him. This was her carnival…but he was her chief investor, right? “They mock our impotence,” he observed. “Let’s show ‘em we can still get it up. And fuck ‘em where it hurts.”
Garnet grew serious again. A moment passed. Then he said, “Del…you haven’t ever, you know…slept with Pearl, have you?”
Del was surprised at Garnet’s frankness in his approach, and by his meek tone; sad, as if he expected a wounding answer. Del said, “No, Mitch, never. I’m not after her. I know how you care for her.”
Mitch was restless, looking away. Del had never seen him so vulnerable. He squirmed, his emotions like tiny worms magnified under Del’s microscope. “Sorry I asked that. I’m just paranoid. She was a prosty once–you know how it is.”
“Forget about that. She was lost…now she isn’t. And don’t feel bad about asking me, Mitch. My reputation isn’t so saintly either, I know. But you’re my friend–I couldn’t do that to you.”
But I could do that to my wife? Del thought, wondering just how far he
had gone, for Garnet to have to ask him that question.
There was a great selection of eye pins on display inside the cabinet; boys wore them on their jacket lapels and girls wore them as brooches. Mounted in metal, and sometimes trimmed with stones of a color matching the iris, were authentic human eyes, animal eyes, the eyes of aliens familiar and obscure. One ambery eye without iris or pupil was as large as a chicken’s egg. Wes Sundry was admiring an eye (animal? alien? mutant?) with a huge red iris and goat-like, sideways oblong pupil when he heard Fen beside him say, “Wes–scope out that redhead.”
Wes looked up, glanced about until his eyes settled on her. A tall young girl with some friends. She was trying on a white leather jacket with long fringe dangling from the arms. “Cute. Nothing special.”
Fen Colon drew closer to his friend. “You ignorant goober–look at her.”
“Yeah, so, red hair. Probably fake. Her eyes are squinty and she’s got a big nose. Look, her lips almost touch it. She’s got a bony horse face, and no milkers from the looks. All the dung you give me over the sushi I like and you get hot over that.”
Fen glared at his friend.” I don’t know why I keep you with me. You have no refinement, man. You’re a backwards mucoid waste product.”
“The sushi we had back in town was better than her! I don’t see it.”
“Red hair. Look, it isn’t fake. Her eyebrows, her look…”
“That doesn’t mean dung and you know it. If a one-eyed four hundred pound mutant had red hair would you get hot over her, too?”
“Ignorant, man. You’re really sad. You don’t know class when you see it.”
“She’s looking at you,” Wes smirked.
Fen jerked his head. Over the top of the rack of heavy jackets, the redhead and a friend with curly blonde hair were looking directly at him, close and muttering to each other. When they saw him looking back they giggled and the redhead whipped around, showing him her back. Her fit of bashfulness made Fen grin. “You see that?” he cooed to Wes.
“These little fishes are looking at all the guys, man…just like we look at all of them.”
Fen’s grin turned upside-down as he faced his friend again. “You’re just jealous because they know better than to look at a goober like you.”
“Jealous of what? The blonde is a lot nicer.”
“Good. One for me and one for you. We’ll lose the little one.”
“Or share her,” Wes grinned. He pushed a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth in preparation. “What about you-know-who?”
Fen glanced at the van and camper which, with the projecting tent-like canopy, formed a sort of camp. Some Dozers, some lawn chairs. No sign of LaKarnafeaux (described to them by Moband as looking like a fat, aging bikie), and lights were on in the camper. Only two men sat out to tend to business; one in a top hat and fringed vest and the other balding and small, in a flowered shirt, who was eyeing Fen and Wes suspiciously as if he thought they might steal something.
“I don’t know,” Fen murmured, lowering his head and pretending to study eye pins. “We may not be able to get to the fat man himself. Maybe we’ll take down one of his boys, but they have to have enough vortex on them to make it worthy. What we really need to do is get inside the van.”
They had seen two boys buy some weed right out in the open of the camp, but hadn’t witnessed a vortex transaction. Was it customary to be invited inside the camper or, more likely, the van? The purpose of this reconnaissance mission had been to find out. One good thing was that they hadn’t seen any of the enemy Martians stalking about, sticking close to vortex as they usually did, the way hyenas would circle a dying antelope.
“You make me laugh, spitter,” Wes chuckled huskily. “You tell me (imitating Fen’s stern manner), ‘No girls, no games, no fooling around’–and now you smell red bush and you forget everything.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, no-brain. Come on, before we lose them.” Fen nudged past him.
“That blonde is cute,” Wes reiterated.
Fen worked his way closer to the three girls, pretending to examine a rack of t-shirts. At an explosion of giggling he glanced over. Tiny Cookie was lost in a huge, clear rubbery jacket. Fen and Fawn met each other’s gaze. Fawn looked sharply away, then back. “Hi,” Fen said.
“Hello.”
“Oh God,” Cookie muttered, spinning away.
“You better help your friend find a jacket that fits.”
“I know,” Fawn smiled, a little flushed.
“Ladies,” Wes nodded, stepping up, chewing. Cookie giggled into her hand.
“Hello,” Fawn said, and Heather in echo.
“Having trouble deciding?” Fen nodded at the rack.
“Oh, I can’t afford one–my mother wouldn’t give me the money.”
“Try some on and I’ll tell you what I think. Never mind whether you can afford it for a few minutes.” Fen and Wes came around from behind the t-shirt rack. “Go ahead, play model. You look like one, anyway.”
“Thanks.” Fawn’s face filled with blood; she hid her compressed smile under her nose as she lowered her head and inserted her arms in the sleeves of another white leather jacket. Her feathered red hair hung and swayed. Fen drank her in. The carnival lights played on her milky skin like the iridescent colors in an opal.
“Fawn and Heather are in a modeling class in school,” said Cookie.
“I believe it,” said Fen.
“Me too,” said Wes, though only encompassing Heather in his broad, apple-cheeked chewing grin.
“That’s a nice jacket you’ve got on,” Fawn managed, looking up.
“Thanks.”
“Were you in the army?”
“Yeah,” exaggerated Fen slightly. A military vocational school. But they’d taught him how to shoot, stab, blow things up–right?
“How about you?” Heather asked Wes blandly.
“Nope,” said Wes, spitting out a blob of black saliva. “I’m my own army.” Heather smiled, started to knead like dough under Wes’s faithful charm.
“You look great,” Fen said, taking a step back to eye Fawn from foot to head. She wore an oversized blue t-shirt, black sweat pants as tight as leotards on her long slim legs (but with no rear flap), and Heather was holding her faded denim jacket with its assortment of pins, brooches and buttons.
“Thanks.”
“But then you’d look great in any of them.” He wished he could spare the money to buy her one. That would be a slick move. Maybe it would be worth it, but he’d have to wait a little longer and see. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Fawn.”
“Wow–Fawn. What’s that, like a baby horse?”
“No, that’s a foal. I have a friend named Foal. Fawn is a baby deer.”
“That’s pretty. Really. I’m Fen.” He held out his hand.
Blushing again, eyes averted, smile still trying to hide, Fawn extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Hey,” Wes said, “why don’t we all go somewhere and get something to eat? Our treat–right, Fen?”
“Certainly.”
“Me too?” Cookie raised her eyebrows, pouting.
“Certainly.”
Heather looked to Fawn and shrugged. Fawn fought a smirk, turned back to Fen and said, “Alright.” She peeled off the white leather jacket and slipped back into her denim one.
“Hold on a minute. Stay here.” Fen returned to the cabinet where he and Wes had been browsing before. Fen called to the top-hatted man to assist him. Mortimer Ficklebottom pushed himself out of his chair with a lazy groan.
A moment later Fen returned, and handed Fawn a little paper bag. “For you to add to your collection, there.” He pointed to her chest.
“Oh–thanks.” Fawn dug into the bag. Cookie giggled. Fen felt his face flush hot. It was the red-irised eye pin which had also caught Wes’s fancy. “Oooh,” said Fawn, also red-faced again. “Thanks, it’s beautiful!” Her pleasure was genuine; her delicate narrow eyes sparkled. She was b
eautiful.
“Can I pin it on for you? A medal of honor.”
“For what?” She passed it back to him.
“For being so gorgeous. Where do you want it?”
Fawn whipped her head into profile, gazed up at the darkening sky. “I can’t believe this!”
“Believe what?” Fen grinned.
“Pin it where you want,” she said, hooking Heather’s arm.
Fen stepped to her, positioned the scarab-like piece of jewelry at a bare spot close to Fawn’s collar, just above her left breast. “Will the heart area do?” he smiled.
Fawn made a high squeaky sound and buried her face in Heather’s neck, stomped her foot. Heather grimaced and shoved her away.
“What’s wrong?” Fen smiled more broadly, eating it up.
“Nothing,” Fawn said, and bit her lower lip. “Go ahead.”
Fen pinned the strange red eye to Fawn’s jacket. He appraised her. “Perfect. What do you think?”
“Thank you–I love it!”
“My pleasure. Are we all set to go?”
Affirmatives. They moved on. The balding man with the flowered shirt in the lawn chair watched after them, frowning, not sipping his mead.
Mortimer noticed this. “What’s wrong?” he asked Sneezy Tightrope.
Holographic nudes hung on the walls of the van, a large vidscreen played a chip featuring nothing but blue waves on the white sand of a private beach in Diamondcrest, over and over, the same waves and same swooping birds repeated every hour if you could catch the pattern. The smell of seaweed had insinuated itself into the very substance of the van’s interior like grains of sand into its cracks, corners and pores. Eddy Walpole came to sit on a fur-covered fold-out sleeper sofa beside Hector Tomas.
“Sorry, man, I just called our contact and his hand phone’s turned off. He was supposed to be here with your package hours ago.”
Hector blinked at his host numbly for a moment. “You have no idea where he is now or another way to reach him?”
“Well, I can try a few places. I’m sure he’s still coming, he’s a reliable source. He’s probably on his way now, is what it is, most likely. Probably just forgot to put his phone on, or bumped it, you know. Why not go grab a burger and come back in an hour or two?”
Everybody Scream! Page 15
