Gypsy Blood

by Vernon, Steve

She squeezed tighter, but Carnival was inspired.

  Tell her, boy.

  “Take my life. Drain it. It’s full. You are empty. You have nothing. No children, no love, no happiness. I know. I’m a gypsy. I have seen your palm. You live in the grave, and no matter how far you travel that’s no life at all.”

  He thought about dying. He wasn’t afraid just inconvenienced. He wished for the time to make a will but what the hell. He had nothing worth bequeathing and no one to bequeath it to. His favorite chair was broken. He was lying about the gypsy girl. Truth was, he hadn’t been laid in months. And right now his prospects didn’t look so hot.

  He kept talking. The words lacerated his throat like running ribbons of razor wire.

  “As dead as you’re about to make me I have more future than you. That gypsy girl will tell her children about the night I tripped over her father’s pig trying to sneak into her camp and was chased by hounds and the children will laugh and I will be reborn in their laughter. Who have you made laugh, bitch? Who has smiled for you? Who will remember you and grin?”

  Maya hissed like an angered python. She slammed him hard against the wall, concussing the last gasp of breath from his lungs. The room swam. Bright spots of goodbye polka danced about his eyes.

  Fight, boy, fight!

  He felt her teeth kiss his neck. He felt the weight of her nonexistent breath haunting his skin. For just an instant he swore he felt a bite. And then she screamed and the room turned over as she threw him to the floor.

  He fell beside his broken card table. His arm felt broken. He didn’t have time for pain. He tried to rise. If he greeted death today, he’d do it on his two good feet. He was his Momma’s son. He was a gypsy.

  Maya let him stand. She stood there, staring at something far beyond his vision. He waited for her to finish him off, but she did nothing. Somewhere amidst all of the lies he had told he had hit upon the bone of truth.

  He wished he could see what she was seeing. She was staring at something so unimaginably vast he couldn’t begin to say what it was. She began to moan. The building shook. If the tattooist upstairs was tattooing an angel on a sailor’s back, he just gave her an extra breast.

  Maya kept moaning.

  Imagine the shrieking of Mary as the centurions nailed her true love to a couple of two by fours. Multiply that by one hundred and thirteen times the square root of the sun.

  Carnival covered his ears for fear of going deaf.

  Finally she stopped screaming. The corner of her left eye bled a single crimson tear. It fell to the floor with a hiss like a snowflake on a hot stove. Carnival counted heartbeats, wondering how long he had left to live.

  She leaned over and kissed him. Her kiss was cold and warm at the same time, like holding an ice cube in one hand while sticking your other into a pot of hot water. He thought she was getting set to bite him. Part of his mind thought - “Good. Get it over with.” The other part wasn’t thinking anything at all.

  Wake up boy. Open your eyes.

  “Do you know,” she asked with a lopsided grin, hung halfway between heartbreak and hooray. “I haven’t seen a sunrise since your grandfather’s grandfather first drew breath.”

  Her voice was strained - as if he’d been strangling her and not the other way around. It cracked like the door of an unopened secret.

  “And what are you going to do about that?” he asked.

  She smiled without showing teeth. Carnival was grateful for that small mercy.

  “I think I will stand,” she said. “Outside your door, to watch the sun rise one final time.”

  She walked to the door. Opened it, and was gone.

  Good. It’s over.

  “No it’s not, Poppa.”

  You’re not going to follow her, are you?

  “Why not? I want to see what happens. Another step into the unknown, right Poppa?”

  Why ask me? It’s all unknown. The future’s dark as a moonless night, dark and unchartable, no matter how many cards you flip.

  Carnival followed the vampire outside the door.

  Chapter 5

  Shiv, Like Shove

  What are you doing, boy?

  Carnival wasn’t certain. He was hooked, unable to turn away, a reluctant Pomeranian being dragged on a Pit Bull leash. Maybe that lifeline still had some tug in it. He sat down on his front step. Maya stood beside the lamppost. Beneath the sign that spoke of redemption and damnation.

  Ha! Some choice.

  The two of them, vampire and possessed Gypsy, waited for the sun to rise.

  While they waited, a car slowed down beside her. The driver was a man. Carnival didn’t know what the driver wanted. He probably thought she was the basement woman who took in sailors. The man in the car leaned out and spoke. Carnival couldn’t hear his line, but he heard Maya laugh. Just once. Bitter and sweet and lonely like a very old child. It was the laugh that did it. Before he’d heard her laugh he could have watched her burn. She was just a monster, after all. Just a thing that tried to eat his soul but then she laughed and the Galahad hidden inside Carnival’s soul started talking.

  Get out there boy, was what the old knight said. Get out there now.

  And damn it, Carnival listened.

  Don’t do it boy. Let the bitch burn.

  Yet beneath Poppa’s voice Carnival heard another. Soft, like a hiss, like a knife being drawn. Telling him to move. Willing it. Carnival tried to fight the voice. He didn’t want to move but he couldn’t help himself.

  Let her burn. She made me shut up.

  “For that I should canonize her.”

  You don’t own a cannon. And it wouldn’t kill her anyway.

  And again that voice, soft and low. Move. Carnival fought it. All the way he fought it.

  “What do I do, Poppa? I don’t want to watch her die.”

  So look away.

  The man in the car kept talking. It bothered Carnival, to see the man talking so familiarly to Maya. What was this feeling, he wondered. Jealousy?

  Look away.

  “I can’t do that, Poppa.”

  Then look ahead.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  You’re the fortune teller. Look ahead at that man, and tell me what you see in store for him.

  Carnival looked.

  What do you see?

  What did he see? A quiet dumpster. Wheels, rolling, bump-bump-bump. The waiting ocean, looming ahead like something larger than he could ever dream.

  And a knife.

  Open your eyes, boy.

  “He’s going to die anyway,” Carnival said.

  Stand back, sonny and let your Poppa drive.

  It happened fast like eels moving beneath his skin. Carnival felt his Poppa pushing closer, taking over. It felt a little like relief, a little like a rape. Carnival walked towards the car. He tried not to think about what he was going to do.

  “Hey mister,” he said.

  Maya looked back. For just an instant Carnival saw that lifeline, long and invisible, clocking around to touch him again. Spinning him like a whirling river of Gypsy blood. The feeling was redundant. He’d made up his mind already. Hadn’t he?

  Are you going to do this boy? Are we going to do this thing?

  What Poppa, he wondered. What am I going to do? Nothing more than you did. Don’t judge me.

  “Mister,” his mouth repeated. The man in the car looked up at him.

  Then do it quick. He’s a gaijo. Nothing but an outsider. Take his money, take his life, but don’t get caught. They’ll hang you in the square and beat you with sticks while you dangle.

  Carnival felt the veins in his throat throb like an over pressurized fire hose. His hand kept squeezing and unsqueezing, the bones moving of their own accord. He felt Poppa, moving him, guiding him, like a puppet master yanking a string.

  “Hey mister.”

  Carnival made his voice as persuasive as he could. He didn’t want to scare the man off. He didn’t want to think about what he was about to do.
>
  He walked closer. The man didn’t move. Not a bit. Maybe he thought Carnival was her pimp. Maybe he figured Carnival would offer him a deal. Offer him air miles or food stamps. Or maybe he just wanted to see what came next. Carnival slid his knife out of his pocket as he walked, keeping it hidden, tucked close behind his hip.

  Do you know what you’re doing, boy? Do you know?

  Carnival wasn’t sure. He felt the knife in his hands. In Rom a knife is called a shiv. Like the gangsters used to say. Like Shiva, goddess and slayer of demons. Shiv, like shove. Carnival cracked the knife open. You can do that with one hand with a good knife. Again, he wondered what he was doing.

  No, Carnival thought. I can’t do this.

  I can.

  The world moved. A red light passed across Carnival’s eyes. He felt something moving his arm, the knife a cold whistle of steel, a splash of hot crimson.

  The knife went in sudden, like a soft shock.

  No, Carnival thought.

  You’ve got to push hard to cut a throat. Get the blade in deep past all that neck muscle. Catch the big plumbing on the edge of your knife then yank the blade out hard and snappish, like you were snapping butcher cord.

  The man’s throat opened like a cheap bag of wine.

  “Drink,” Carnival said to Maya, his voice descending into a soft whisper.

  Maya drank. Sucking the driver’s soul and draining his blood. What was he doing?

  What you thought you wanted to do, boy. The only thing a man ever does. What he thinks he needs to do.

  “Poppa?”

  If you don’t like the things I make you do, you should let me go.

  “I can’t do that.”

  You won’t do that.

  “I won’t do that.”

  Then we are married by fate, man, boy and vampire.

  Poppa was right. It was too late for questions. The thing had been done. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it but it was definitely done like dinner or at least Maya thought so. She enjoyed her meal, every last drop.

  You’re in it now, boy. You’re swimming in the blood pool now for sure.

  The veins in Carnival’s neck pounded. He looked back once to his house. There was a light on in the upstairs window. Just for a blink of time he thought he saw a glint of light reflected in the upstairs window like someone was watching through a pair of heavy binoculars.

  And then the light and whoever might have been watching was gone.

  He looked back at Maya and she looked straight through him.

  Love, some small hollow voice inside Carnival’s skull whispered.

  And that was how fast it happened. He stood there and watched her drink. He’d fallen all the way and there was no turning back. In love with a laugh and a thirsty red dream and not knowing what the hell he was going to do next.

  Who holds the knife?

  Carnival looked down at his hand.

  “Don’t you dare judge me,” Carnival whispered but nobody listened.

  Chapter 6

  Strange Designs

  The tattooist watched from the darkness of his upstairs window.

  All was going according to plan.

  His teeth knit into the image of a smile.

  It hid the pain as he worked the needle.

  He watched. He smiled. He worked.

  The plan was good.

  He didn’t know whose plan it was. He didn’t even know what the plan consisted of. He just knew he was following it.

  And it was good.

  He kept working the needle into his skin. He was good at that. He had a light touch. Dancing the needle like it was a song, pounding the dirt tainted ink into the flesh of his chest, fifty taps a minute.

  The pictures on his walls, snakes and panthers, skulls and pierced hearts, it was music to them. They liked the sound of the dance. Like gaudy hieroglyphics, twisting themselves, braiding themselves, forming themselves into a long continuous dancing line.

  He kept working that needle. It was an intricate design. Custom made. He’d paid for it himself. He’d paid for it in pain and blood. Paid for every color, every detail. Paid in pain, infection, and blood.

  Paid for it with his soul.

  The needle kept dancing.

  It was a dance without music.

  Ask the junkie. Ask the dime bag trickster. The needle keeps her own kind of rhythm.

  The patterns on his walls continued to writhe; dragons and griffins and chimera, monkeys hopping across bloodstained rainbows, clots of blood hanging like grape upon madly twisting vines.

  A lion, rampant, the heart of a blind beggar clutched in its outstretched claws.

  A great jack pine shooting up out of a twig pierced heart.

  A monk kneeling before a crucified Christ and catching his blood in an outstretched chalice.

  A woman dancing along a long wet razor blade.

  The figures crawled and capered in animate glee.

  He worked his needle on his bare chest, worked the paint and dirt into his skin, worked and grew the long dreamed of design as if his hand were a separate being.

  Someone smiled in the darkness. A low and wet kind of smile like blood stained wrapping paper crinkling and uncrinkling.

  The tattooist kept working through the long and lonely songless night.

  Chapter 7

  Carrying Carrion

  A body is a heavy thing to drag. You’d think it’d be easy, especially with all of that blood drained and gone but there’s a lot more than meat that goes into the making of a man. There’s guilt and dreams and memories. The weight of years of experience passed through a bit of flesh and bone, like heavy echoes.

  Stop your whining, boy. It’s just dead meat. How bad is that?

  Very bad, Carnival thought. It’s very bad.

  You looked into his future. He was going to die anyway. He’s just dead meat.

  Yes, but a lot of dead meat. Every ounce of the man sucked into the concrete, like it was in a hurry to get itself under the dirt, pulling Carnival down there with it. Carnival dragged from the front. Maya followed behind, hands buried in her pockets. It was hard work. Carnival tried his best to make it look easy but it wasn’t.

  What am I doing, he wondered.

  You are dragging dead meat. It’s an honorable trade. Ask any butcher. Ask any gravedigger. It’s more honest than flipping cards and mouthing comfortable lies.

  Carnival wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t so sure about anything.

  I’ve killed a man, he thought. I didn’t want to kill him. It just happened.

  Tell him that. His ears are still open.

  Shut up, Poppa. I can feel his blood sticking to my hands. It feels like a cold burn. Hot, wet, sticky. It feels like guilt.

  Guilt is for gaijo. Guilt is for frames and cheap jewelry. Guilt is not for Gypsies. Blood is nothing but bad paint. It sticks and it stinks, like baby shit. Wash it off. Pilate had the right idea but the wrong kind of water.

  He’s dead, Poppa. I killed him.

  I saw. I had my eyes open. Not like you.

  What do you mean, Poppa?

  There’s dead and there’s dead. Open your eyes, boy.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Maya shouted.

  Carnival looked up but gravity took over. He tumbled backwards, his world a sudden shout of galvanized metal and trash. The garbage can he’d tripped over clattered into the wall of the alley.

  “Are you trying to wake the dead?” Maya asked. “Pay attention. This isn’t easy.”

  Carnival tried to stand, putting his hand in something on the alley pavement that didn’t feel like mud. What the hell was he doing? Talking to dead fathers and dragging dead bodies, not to mention a murder.

  He stood up.

  “Did I kill him?” he asked.

  She looked at him with a stewpot of mixed emotions - pity, disgust, impatience, maybe a little amusement. “I killed him. Weren’t you watching?”

  Listen to her boy. Your eyes have forgotten how to look cle
arly.

  Carnival picked up the dead man’s arms and started to drag.

  Sure. Drag the dead man. It’s easier than thinking. Duty is easier than responsibility. Ask any soldier.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means exactly what I said,” Maya snapped.

  Just doing my duty. Following orders. Not my responsibility. I know these words. They were tattooed in the furnaces of Auschwitz, in the blood of a hundred thousand dead Gypsies.”

  “Shut up, Poppa. You were never in Auschwitz.”

  Ha. And where were you when I was carrying bodies from the gas houses to the flames?

  “Will you shut up,” Maya demanded.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up. This wasn’t my idea.”

  “You stuck the knife in him.”

  “I was pushed.”

  Ha. Do you know that’s just what old Ben Scratch said right after he belly-flopped into the lowest level of Hades shadiest bargain basement. He didn’t want to leave the penthouse, either.

  That was what the Rom called the devil. Ben, or Bengh. God, or what we thought was God, was called Duvvel, or Devel. The Gypsy loved to be contrary. We’d call black white, if anybody cared to argue with us.

  “You could help, Poppa.”

  Maya stared like she was getting set to blow a gasket. Let her, Carnival thought. He was carrying her leftover dinner.

  And how could I help? I’m a ghost, aren’t I?

  You’re more than that, Poppa.

  Don’t keep a woman waiting. It’s bad luck. Drag, boy, drag.

  Maya looked at him with eyes as clear and gray as the November sea. Carnival wanted to kiss each of her eyelids, softly, just once. She shrugged. She had a nice shrug. Her shoulders were smooth and elegant. He wanted to kiss those too.

  What was he doing? This wasn’t his idea.

  Whose idea was it, then, if it wasn’t yours? You killed a gaijo. You killed a man over a woman. Do you think you’re unique? Deal with it boy, and move on.

  Carnival swatted at a greedy moonlighting blow fly.

  “I don’t know. There was this voice. This hiss in my ears.”

  Maybe your brains are leaking.

  “Shut up, Poppa.”

  Do you know how crazy you sound? Talking about voices hissing in your ears? Standing over a dead body and arguing with a vampire?