Now look. You’ve broken your cup. You’ve spilled your water.
“He’s dead, Poppa. Dead and gone.”
Not gone. No one goes anywhere, not really. Newton knew that. There are other worlds than these. He’s moved on. You’ll see him again. Sooner than you like.
“What does that mean? Why do you keep saying that? I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Never killed anyone? So how did I get here?
Carnival fell into an uneasy sleep, wondering that very same question.
He drifted into sleep around four am. A dream took him hard. He was in a car and the door handles were welded shut and the steering wheel turned itself. The dials and gauges were burning red eye sockets, watching him; the wiper blades were bayonets sweeping grimly across the windshield. He rolled down a long highway with street signs that looked like shouting mouths, moving somewhere way past the speed limit.
You’ve broken your cup.
There was a body in the car, sitting beside him. It was Olaf. He was trying to talk to Carnival only his mouth wasn’t moving. The wound in his throat flapped like a pair of great black lips. Like bat wings. The lips make a sound like the flop of a punctured tire. There’s words hiding behind the flat rubber sounds but Carnival couldn’t make them out.
You’ve spilled your water.
And then Carnival was hanging from the limb of an ancient jack pine. The wind rattled through his body like there wasn’t an ounce of meat left on his bones but none of that bothered him. What bothered him most was that he didn’t know where Maya was. And even though this was just a dream, this last thought bothered him most of all.
Who holds the knife?
Carnival sat up suddenly, awakened by the sound of a giant mechanical bee buzzing in the walls. It sounded like the grandfather of all electric razors. Like a giant power cable, sizzling in the darkness, a fuse burning down and down.
He knew that sound.
It was the tattooist, upstairs. It was the sound of his electric needle, buzzing steadily like the burring of a patient electric drill. If the lights had been on they would have flickered.
Carnival grinned ruefully.
He still didn’t know where Maya was.
And that bothered him more than anything else.
Chapter 12
Dirty Dealings
Maya stood haloed in a sea of bright darkness.
It looked like a church but no church like any god ever dreamed of.
Walls of white madness rose high above her. Steams of incense and decay. Crucifixion haloes danced about in tattered straitjackets. Meat rotted upon the walls, hung on the two tined hooks of hope and prayer. A cathedral of screaming saints sung silent hallelujahs to the gods of pain and damnation.
Maya wasn’t sure if she was there or not. She thought she was in her coffin but life and a lot of other things can happen all at once. She waited. She listened. A voice slid from a clot of shadows. It sounded like the oozing of blood cut with slow grease.
“Did he fall for it?”
The voice startled her. It wasn’t easy to startle a vampire. She got over it quickly. She knew who it was.
“Better than I expected,” she said. “He even got his hands bloody. He used a knife. Can you believe that? I didn’t think he had it in him.”
The shadow oozed a slow wet chuckle like guts spilling over rain soaked granite.
“Oh there’s a lots of blood on that boy’s hands. Don’t you let his looks fool you.”
“He’s not that tough. I had to hold his lamb for him while he opened the plumbing.”
The shadow flared like knives of dark lightning. The walls breathed, loud and wet, like tubercular lungs. Anger rose in the air in a cloud of fulminating sulphur.
“You pushed him? Did he catch you at it?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Did he catch you at it? Holding the meat? Did you push him?”
Maya waved a hand dismissively through the air. “I nudged him a little, maybe. I was bored. Sunrise was coming. I nudged him and held the lamb with my heart’s eye while the gypsy used his knife. He didn’t catch me. He couldn’t catch me. How good do you think he is?”
“Better than you.”
“I’ve lived generations.”
“And I’ve seen eons. Doesn’t make you wiser. Doesn’t make you sharper. Just makes you hungry, and hungry makes you stupid.”
That did it. Maya hissed like a shotgun-blasted steam kettle. She flexed her back and grew twice her size. Sharp edges of glass and steel and razor blades sprouted from her joints and angles. A hint of wings danced in the shadows behind her.
The shadow just smirked. You could feel the smugness rolling from within its turgid density like an eel of self satisfaction. A tiny puff of dust blew from the shadow’s depth. Dust, and dirt.
Maya folded her wings and swallowed her anger.
“My lord, I meant nothing.”
The shadow seemed content. It blew another puff of dust, just to rub it in.
“What you meant means nothing more than piss in the ocean. You’ll do as you’re told, so long as I hold your dirt.”
Maya cringed.
“Now be careful what you do around that gypsy. There’s more to him than cards and lines.”
She spat a clot of blood tinged phlegm, trying to muster a scrap of self respect.
“He’s meat,” she muttered. “Nothing more.”
“Keep it in mind. You do as I say, when I say. So long as I’ve got your dirt.”
The shadow dissolved like a slug beneath salt. The cathedral vanished. Maya stood in the darkness. In the cellar beneath the abandoned church. The cellar where she hid her coffin.
How she’d got here, she couldn’t say. She remembered climbing down the trapdoor, remembered being surprised to find it hidden beneath Carnival’s cot. She’d climbed down into the darkness and found herself here in the church cellar. Sometimes it worked that way. As old as Maya was, there were things about being a vampire that even she didn’t understand.
The cellar was ancient. Its walls shrouded with the intricate death traps of a thousand spiders. The walls were constructed of recycled railway ties. You could smell the creosote, and if you pressed your ear closely enough to the dark ties you could hear a train screaming a hundred years away.
Maya turned to her coffin. Her head hung like an eon of grief. Her hair frayed and tattered, like parchment worn by the sun. She picked a handful of it out, dry and brittle like cobwebs gone old and smothered in dust. That was the dirt at work. As long as it wasn’t hers she would continue growing older. Nothing could be done for now.
She opened the coffin. She stared at the portrait she’d spiked to the inside of the lid. A portrait of a small girl in Victorian garb, holding a cup.
You’ve broken your cup.
She climbed into the coffin’s welcoming darkness like a sailor clambering into a leaking lifeboat. She closed the lid gently behind her. Gazed up in the darkness that had swallowed her whole, staring with cold cat’s eyes at the portrait looming above her.
“Good night father.”
And then, in a whisper as soft as the ripple of dust dry skin she mouthed a final soft good night.
“Good night Carnival.”
She let the darkness take her and swam into a long deep forever sleep.
If she dreamed, she wasn’t telling.
Chapter 13
The Most Important Meal
Carnival woke up crucified beneath the weight of the morning sun. His solar alarm clock was a snapped window blind. The damn thing had been broken since he’d moved in. He liked it that way.
Get up, slug-a-bed.
“Shut up, Poppa.”
You sleep too much.
This morning he needed that open blind like a face full of scalding iodine. The sunlight was too bright, too illuminating. It made things too damn clear. It hurt his head. Was he catching it? Vampirism? Could you catch it, like a cold? Maya said you couldn’t but he wasn
’t so sure.
He stood up. The room started to spin. He felt light headed. Got up too fast, he guessed.
Poshrat. You can’t hold your wine.
“I wasn’t drinking last night, Poppa.”
Maybe you weren’t drinking but somebody sure slaked their thirst.
Carnival sat back down. He tried to breathe slow and easy. His breath felt like he’d climbed a dozen or so flights of stairs. He scratched his head and belly and places best left undiscussed. He massaged his hands across his face, stirring up a little circulation.
His neck itched worse than ever. Maybe he’d caught some sort of weird toxic rash in the dumpster. Maybe he was allergic to bloodsuckers.
You should wear your rubber boots when you play in garbage. Any whoremaster will tell you that.
Carnival tried standing up again, only slowly. He looked at the mirror on the wall. For a moment he thought he saw a mark on his neck. Then it was gone, vanished, like it had never been. At least he could see himself. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. He slid the camp cot over. The trapdoor was gone. Maya was gone.
She’s gone boy. Like a drunkard’s memory. You can’t hold a woman very long. That’s why God spelled their name with a capital wind for woman. Read your Bible. Eve sounds just like leave.
There was nothing left under the bed but a few randomly grazing dust buffalo. Was she a dream? He didn’t know. He was a gypsy. He didn’t believe in dreams. He just read them. He sat for a moment, trying to remember what he’d dreamed the night before. A tree, a rope, a gallows. All of these spoke of climbing. Futility, trying to get somewhere higher up. Communing with the dead and the freedom of the sky. Wind blowing through bones, old songs, truths whispered in the dark.
Open your eyes, boy.
What was Olaf trying to tell him? That he was pissed off that Carnival had killed him? That dead men tell no tales? The secret of Dick Clark’s endless immortality?
To hell with it. Just a crock of fear, was all it was. Carnival had killed a man and his spirit was haunting him. Whether it was conscience stirring up Carnival’s subconscious, or whether it was time to call the Ghostbusters, didn’t make a whit of difference.
You are haunted. You are hung over with guilt. You have been here before.
Poppa was right. The best cure for guilt he knew was breakfast. Best breakfast was always found at The Devilled Egg bar and grill. He splashed some water and soap in the general direction of his face and hands. Shaved and shook a little, nicking himself just below the chin.
He dabbed at the wound with a slice of toilet paper. While he was waiting for the blood to clot he picked up the phone and called Chollo. The phone rang three times before somebody picked it up.
“Hullo?”
A voice. Groggy, like a hibernating bear. Deep and gravely, kind of like what you’d expect the love child of Kris Kristofferson and Nick Nolte to sound like on a really bad day.
“This is your wake up call,” Carnival said. “It’s time to get your hairy Spanish ass out of bed.”
“Hey Carnie. Commesta mi homes,” Chollo was the only person who got away with calling him Carnie.
“You want to meet for breakfast?”
”Is the day so young? Ay me, sad hours seems so long.”
“You studying for another play?”
“There’s an audition coming up. I want to be ready.”
Ha! All of the plastic surgeons in the universe couldn’t get this one stage-ready.
“Shakespeare?”
That was Chollo’s big secret. He was a budding amateur thespian. Next to gunplay, acting was Chollo’s greatest passion. He had a casting call at least once a week. The only trouble was the bulk of the jobs he was offered were for roles like “Third Heavy” or “Short Thug” and he wanted leading man.
Everyone’s got to have a dream.
“Romeo and Juliet. I’m trying out for Romeo.”
It was good to know Chollo was running true to form. Chollo as Romeo was about as believable as John Rhys Davies playing Helen of Troy. It would take a boatload of special effects and all of the hallucinogenic popcorn an audience could eat.
You’re not kidding, boy. I’ve seen better head on a flat beer.
“You figure you’re up for the role?” Carnival asked.
“Probably not. I got things on my mind.”
Carnival didn’t ask what things. Chollo would tell him when he wanted to.
“So would the starving actor care for a breakfast?”
“Are you buying?”
Fegh! A Gypsy never picks up the bill.
Carnival looked at his wallet. He made a quick mental calculation.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll meet you on the corner of Desmond and Lloyd.”
Carnival hung up the phone. He pulled his clothes on and kick started his feet towards the door. Things would look clearer through a cup of coffee and eggs.
Wouldn’t they?
Chapter 14
Obi Wan Gypsy
Carnival watched for Chollo on the corner of Desmond and Lloyd. He stood in the shadow of an elm tree. You don’t see many elm trees nowadays. Most of them have been blighted out by Dutch Elm disease. This particular tree must have been one of the tougher elms. It was just bushy enough to keep Carnival hidden from sight.
“You trying to be mysterious or just taking a leak?”
The voice from behind shouldn’t have startled him. Chollo did it every time, no matter how sneakily Carnival tried to catch the man’s approach. Carnival wondered if the little Spaniard traveled by rooftop.
That would be something to see. A short, squat, hairy Spiderman.
Shut up, Poppa.
“Just communing with nature,” Carnival said. “Getting back to the primitive. One with my bad self.”
“One my ass.” Chollo said with a grin.
Chollo Tecumseh Jones - the son of a Puerto Rican hot pillow mama and an English merchant mariner who was clubbed to death on the wrong side of a dockworker’s dispute, three months after fathering the ugliest love child in the world.
And did he raise his father from the dead? No. Did he cage him in the meat of his chest? No. This one is a good boy, not like a certain ungrateful palm reader I know of.
Chollo was a hard ticket from day one. Five feet nothing, built with the solidness of a freshly painted fire hydrant. He’d been arrested at age twelve for beating a man to death with a length of sand filled garden hose.
“Where do you want to eat?” Chollo asked.
“How about The Devilled Egg? Best breakfast in one and a half blocks.”
“They got beer?”
“It’s breakfast, Chollo. Most important meal of the day.”
Fegh. You listen to too many doctors.
“You’re right. Let’s go Jimmy Joe’s. They’ve got liquor.”
Carnival knew better then to argue. They walked across the street and down two others until they came to Jimmy Joe’s Tavern and Grill. At least they had eggs.
They walked in, blinking from the abrupt transition from daylight into tavern darkness.
“Let’s get a booth,” Carnival suggested.
“You romantic devil.”
They sat down. The waitress brought Carnival coffee without asking. Strong and black, the way he liked it. He gave her his best grin as a reward. She didn’t seem all that impressed.
There seems to be a lot of that going around these days.
Carnival thought about Maya, as he drank his coffee. He drank it every morning as part of a good breakfast. Consistency was as important as balance.
“Take your order?” The waitress asked, speaking in a short clipped fashion, like she’d practiced her enunciation off of old Dragnet episodes.
“Take the coffee back,” Chollo ordered. “Bring me a water glass of rye. Canadian Club, if you’ve got it.”
The waitress didn’t blink. There were a couple of early morning drinkers in here already. Some of them looked
like they’d spent the night.
“I’ll have the breakfast special,” Carnival said, grabbing Chollo’s coffee before she took it away. “And keep the coffee coming.”
“So what you been up to?” Chollo asked.
Carnival debated about mentioning Maya and decided against it. Chollo didn’t readily mix with that part of Carnival’s life.
“Keeping busy.”
Ha. Holding hands for money and playing cards. That’s some kind of busy.
Carnival ignored Poppa’s joke. He’d heard too many fortune telling jokes. He’d never understood the attraction. He didn’t stand in banks, making currency puns to the tellers. Why do people feel the need to laugh at what scares them?
Chollo wasn’t stupid. He picked up on Carnival’s repressed aggravation.
“Sorry,” Carnival apologized. “I haven’t been myself these days.”
“So you said.” The waitress plunked a water glass full of rye on the table in front of Chollo.
“Thanks,” Chollo said, popping his left eye out of his socket and dropping the glass eyeball into the glass. Carnival had seen him use that stunt a thousand times. The hell of it was that sometimes he swore it was Chollo’s left eye, and sometimes the right. He was waiting for the moment Chollo would drop both eyeballs into a glass.
It’s magic, boy. You should try it sometime. Better than flipping cards and lying over palms.
“Now bring me a dirtier glass and the bottle while you’re at it,” Chollo commanded.
The waitress gave Chollo a dead man’s hard cold stare. Chollo raised her with a long and hard one eyed glower. She folded. A half minute later she was back with the rye and a second tall empty water glass. Chollo filled the glass with the smooth ease of a practicing alcoholic. This was strange behavior even for Chollo. He could drink more than any man Carnival had ever met but never this early in the day.
It’s love, I bet. The short hairy thug has a bad love story to tell. Ask him.
Carnival tried to ignore his Poppa. Chollo drained the one glass, and refilled. The bartender watched from behind the bar, expecting trouble. Carnival didn’t know if he was Jimmy or Joe. He wasn’t even sure he was a bartender. He wasn’t polishing the glasses. Weren’t bartenders supposed to stand behind the bar and polish glasses?
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