Her father didn’t care about any of that. She was a badly made receptacle for his holy remaking. Marrying Poppa was a relief compared to the way her father tried to mold her but it had also marked a turning for Momma. She turned her back on the ways of her parents, on the way of her father.
No. There would be no help from either up or below. She had to handle her own trouble. Still, the boy was tougher than even he could imagine. There was far more to him than showed outside the shell.
She looked down below her. There was the old man, hacking at the grave dirt with a trowel. Cursing his dead wife and begging for her forgiveness. She could have told him that begging forgiveness from the dead was a waste of time. Begging just didn’t work but why spoil his party? Let him have his fun. He didn’t need his body.
The thought preceded the deed by half an unbeating heartbeat. She stepped into Jim Miller’s body like he was a pair of borrowed shoes just her size. She walked away out of the graveyard and into the street.
Behind her, trailing like a hound dog after a butcher’s wagon in mid-July , the spirit of Olaf’s memory and guilt followed along. He smiled in the hot summer sun, thinking scalpel thoughts and tight razored dreams.
Chapter 20
Trifecta Tarot
There are very few quiet places in this city. Carnival had just left one of them. The PublicGardens was another. A few acres of trees and flowers bordered in by a large wrought iron fence. Everything beautiful in this city has to be caged. If you paid the city for the privilege you could buy a vendor’s license allowing access to one length of iron fence and about a yard of grass in between the fence and the sidewalk. Carnival knew this because he’d set up here one summer, reading palms.
I remember that year. You were always hungry. The growling of your stomach kept me up for days on end.
“It wasn’t that bad.”
You’re talking to yourself again.
“Lots of people talk to their self.”
I see one, over by that tree.
Carnival looked. There was a lean one-legged man, with the tight and eaten out face of an accomplished alcoholic. He was wearing a coat of thin black cloth, with newspaper clippings stapled across the coat, a headband of cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil.
Shiny side out, for maximum reflection.
“Just a nut, Poppa. There’s lots of them out here.”
I’ll bet he probably talks to himself too.
Carnival walked a little closer. He did miss it. The community. The familiar faces. Business was always good. The bankers, business folk, and tourists passed by daily. You could grow one hell of a tan out here.
Tanning give you skin cancer. You ought to wear some aluminum foil.
The politics on the fence were rough. Like one man gangs, everybody fought for their bit of turf. The city always sold a few more licenses than there was available space.
Wars are always made by civic decree. Haven’t you read your history books?
“Bad things always lie in the past.”
Yes. They lie and they lie in wait. Open your eyes, boy.
Carnival opened his eyes to stare at the street vendors. There were so many different kinds. Peddling paintings and needlework, twisted wire jewelry and face painting for the kids. A short trollish stump of a man sold hand carved walking sticks. A lady with hair the color of bleeding poppies, sold gaudily beaded handbags.
All roads lead to the market. Everyone must sell something. Even the Rom must peddle his wares.
Like lions on a skinny iron veldt, they sat patiently in their lawn chairs and stools or squatted on their haunches waiting for the customers that fate might bring them. Occasionally they called out a friendly “Hello” to anyone looking more than a little interested. A half hearted sales pitch, a smile they didn’t really mean to offer.
They’re hungry. I can hear their bellies growling from over here.
Carnival threw a little loose change in the guitar player’s case to buy some luck.
Look, there’s your friend.
The one-legged newspaper coat man limped towards Carnival, moving from tree to tree, skulking through some private battlefield.
Even he knows what he’s doing.
Carnival watched the one-legged man’s approach. He touched every tree that he passed. Perhaps for balance but trees held secrets. A few of the older timbers still clung to a bit of the wood-spirit. Further into the park stood a gibbet, masquerading as a weeping willow. The ghosts of dozens of past hangings gossiped with the evening breeze.
The one-legged man got close enough for Carnival to see him. He was talking, letting the words spill out, like his mouth was an open wound. “Somebody’s dreamed too hard. The para-dimensional barrier slipped. Things are coming together. The world is ending,” He called to Carnival. “Tell your father.”
The mad made sense if you knew how to listen. Carnival smiled. The world looked fine to him.
“Not today,” he said to the beggar. “It’s too sunny for Armageddon.”
Don’t be too sure. A world is ending somewhere. I know. He knows. Maybe not our world, not today but the world he looks at? It’s over. He’s caught in a dream, yet even in a dream he knows what he’s up to. All of these people know what they’re up to. You’re the only one out here who doesn’t know what he’s doing.
“I’m looking for advice, Poppa.”
A duck laughed at Carnival from behind the garden’s iron cage. Carnival tried not to take it personally. He thought about what he needed to do. What Maya needed.
Blood. The vampire needs blood. Don’t you watch movies?
Even full of bullshit, Poppa spoke truth.
Let her feed. She’s a big girl. She’s been doing it for a while, I bet.
“I can’t do that, Poppa.”
A tourist looked up in alarm at the man standing there talking to himself. Carnival moved on, following the iron fence. The chalk artist scrawled three separate glyphs. Carnival wondered what they meant. Maybe Poppa was right. He could let Maya feed indiscriminately. Let nature take its course, allowing her the night to wander and kill. It seemed kind of irresponsible.
Finally he saw who he was looking for. The card reader.
“Hey,” he called to her.
“Hey,” she warily answered.
Her name was Tara, like in the endless movie. Fiddledeedee. Long straight dark hair. She looked a little native, wore turquoise and silver feather earrings to accentuate that look but Carnival recognized stage props when he saw them.
“Long time no see,” he offered.
Ha. A master of repartee. Dazzle her some more, I’m busy taking notes.
“You thinking of coming back here?”
Listen to her. She’s talking economics. She’s worried about your competition. Be flattered and glad she doesn’t know how bad at this game you really are.
Carnival felt his blood pressure creeping several notches higher. He forced a friendly practiced smile.
“Not me. I’ve got a place inside now. I like it fine,” He kept his tone neutral. It wouldn’t do to sound too successful yet it didn’t do to sound too needy. “I just need a look at the cards. Just a quick flip. Never mind the layout. I just need to turn one.”
He offered her ten dollars. She decided it was worth it. He squatted down on the camp stool opposite her folding table.
“You want me to turn the cards for you?” she asked.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Look at him. Mr. Self Reliance. Emerson would be so proud.
Carnival fanned the cards out, facedown. He thought about Maya. Thought about how he would feed her. Take care of her and show her his love.
Fegh! Love is for long haired hippies and players of tennis.
Carnival picked one card at random and flipped it over.
Death - a grim looking card, a skeleton in soot dark armor riding a pale red-eyed stallion. He’d always thought of that horse as cold. A king lay trampled beneath the horse’s hooves. Before the h
orse lay a trembling child, a swooning or dying woman, a yellow robed bishop, his cheeks already fever blotched. In tableau they stood beside a night dark sea. The sunrise is far away. Optimistically, the card spoke of change.
New age hopeful gas. Death is death. How much interpretation do you need?
Carnival scooped the cards back up. He reshuffled.
“It’s not nice to ask twice,” Tara taunted me.
“I just need to be sure.”
He fanned them again, and picked another card. Another Death.
That’s twice boy, don’t tempt your luck.
There were seventy eight cards in a Tarot deck. It’s not impossible to draw the same card twice, but the odds are stacked fairly high. Carnival reshuffled, thinking hard on his question. What do I need to do? A third time, he drew Death. Triple Death.
There you have it. Your cards, playing tricks on you for a change. Death, death, death - the trifecta of Tarot.
Only this time the card was red. Dark red, streaked a rusted black, the color of old dried blood. Carnival flipped the card back before Tara noticed it.
“Thanks,” He said, dropping the ten bucks on the table.
She pushed the tenner back.
“Call it a favor,” she said.
He left the money with her. It wasn’t good luck, taking a card without crossing her palm.
You drew the Death card, three times running. Good luck isn’t coming into this any time soon.
Carnival walked away. Down the sidewalk, past the iron fence. A painter waved half heartedly. Whether he recognized Carnival or just thought he might be a customer didn’t matter. Carnival walked right on past. He knew what he had to do. First he had to get lunch, to feed the hungry beast howling in his belly. Then he had to get ready for Maya, for much the same reason. Later he would talk to Poppa, continuing the theme.
The one-legged lunatic beggar smiled at Carnival’s passing, his eyes glinting like shards of painted glass. It was barely eleven am yet the night seemed closer than death and sunrise so very far away.
Chapter 21
Who Was That Dog Faced Man?
Carnival’s first stop was a coin shop. He spent twenty of Olaf’s recycled dollars on the necessities for his research. Further down the road he grabbed a burger from a hotdog vendor. The burger meat was cold with the consistency of a pickled jellyfish.
It’s not that bad, for rat meat.
“It isn’t rat meat, Poppa.”
Are you sure? I don’t see any rats around here. Maybe we ate them all?
Carnival made a mental note to promote Jimmy Joe’s Bar and Grill from the worst place he’d ever eaten up to the second worst. He gnawed on the burger over the three blocks he traveled to the river. It was good exercise for his jaw.
It took a half hour to find the river, fighting the current of the sidewalk crowd.
He came to it. There is always a river in every city. Some are harder to find. Cities grow about them like fungus on dead wood. The buildings down here were a cluster of teetering leaning structures, black with age and accumulated mildew. Docks and warehouses jammed together like a lunatic Tetris game.
It’s no worse than your bedroom. I have seen it. All manner of refuse lying about there. Even a vampire.
Carnival was looking for one dock in particular. He found it on his third try. A long creaking dock and a long battered dory, marred and stained with the patina of maltreatment. Closer, and the hull was engraved with graffiti of a thousand ancient languages. Closer still, and Carnival saw the carvings move, like slow scuttling roaches.
There was a hand scrawled sign arching over the dock-way. SHUTTLE FERRY, the sign read, followed by something in bastardized Ancient Greek. The captain of the ferry looked up and scowled. Although it might have been a smile. He was a largish man in a heavy knit sweater with a tear in the neck from where he pulled it on over his shoulders. He wore a black battered fishing cap and a bushy white beard. He looked a little like a cross between Kenny Rogers and Solomon Grundy.
“Ahoy Skipper,” Carnival called out. “Permission to come aboard?”
The old captain turned and fixed a smoldering stare, his eyes burning like dying coals. He held one long gray hand palm outwards.
Look, more flattery. He’s heard of your reputation for reading undead palms.
Carnival couldn’t resist. He had to take a look. The lines on the old man’s palm ran like vigilant rivers, an eternity of loneliness, endurance, and long standing duty. They spoke of memory worn as old as the man’s fishing jacket, as old as time and tide and regret.
There is always a river. Be careful it doesn’t float you away.
“Hello Gypsy,” the old captain said in ancient Greek.
The wind rattled the ferry’s black tattered sails. Carnival smiled in his best friendly manner. “So how is business?”
A stupid question. The ferryman’s business is dead, always dead. How else could it be?
The old ferryman grinned like he’d heard Poppa’s joke. He shrugged and Carnival saw the bones folding and moving beneath the tattered wool sweater.
“It could be better. We need a real war. These games they play nowadays, these teacup epics of double digit casualties. Nothing like the old days. The world wars, the revolutions, Napoleon, Stalin. Washington elects amateurs. We need ourselves a god like Mars to take the helm.”
Mars? Is that old blood-monger still around? I haven’t seen him since Auschwitz.
The ferryman shook his head.
“Mars has moved on. Viet Nam depressed the hell out of him. I ferried him over back when you still walked on your own two legs.”
That far back? It’s been a while.
Thirteen years, Carnival thought.
“What can I do for you, Gypsy?”
He was talking to both of them, Carnival and Poppa.
“I need a favor,” Carnival said.
The old ferryman snarled, his face lengthening into that of a jackal. He whispered something in an ancient tongue that sounded of knives being drawn and throats opened in wide screams.
“I’m not in the business of giving favors, Gypsy,” he said in perfect Old Egyptian.
Amateur! Show him the silver. Nothing else will catch his eye.
Carnival showed him the silver. Seven silver dollars he’d purchased at the coin shop. Seven for luck and seven for all he could afford.
“Who said anything about give?” he asked, holding two of the coins up to his eyes like a pair of flat binoculars. “Silver, to cleanse the soul.”
The old ferryman leaned closer. His jackal face softened and rounded out into a greasy looking Burl Ives with eyes that burned like soft red coals.
“You must have a hard time settling on a passport photo,” Carnival said.
Smart, boy. Piss the death god off. See how far that gets you.
The old ferryman stirred the silver coins with his long boney fingers.
“Ah. In the old days it would have been a silver obulus.”
Carnival shrugged.
“Obuli are hard to come by, old Greek.”
The silver dollars flew upwards into the old ferryman’s outstretched hand, clinking softly. He rubbed them into the fabric of his sweater until they vanished.
“So what can an old Greek boatman do for you, Gypsy?”
“I want some inside information. Something you would know.”
He told the ferryman what he wanted to know. The old ferryman smiled.
“There is a profit in this for you, Gypsy?”
“There is always a profit in prophecy.”
Tell him about the wino’s fee. A bag of dirty bottles. That will impress him.
Carnival did his best to ignore Poppa and smile wisely, like he was getting away with the crime of the century. That was what was expected of him. The old demigod would have spurned his request if he realized he was being asked in the name of love.
The old ferryman pulled the hole in his sweater aside.
“Look here,” h
e said.
Carnival looked into the hole in the sweater. The silver-white threads wove and rewove like an oracle of faded white eels, offering a glimpse of far darker waters. There are spaces between spaces, and invisibles that should never be seen. The shadows whispered and the rambled threads wavered soft hieroglyphic truths.
Carnival leaned in. He felt a pull like the wet kiss of gravity drawing him downwards. His lungs slowed, the air seemed moist and comfortable.
Careful, boy. It’s not time to drown, yet.
Carnival pulled back. He refocused his eyes on the tear, avoiding the pull. All of the old gods, the old beasts, were endlessly hungry and would suck the unwary in. Carnival braced himself. He looked more carefully into the old Greek’s sweater. In the twisted yarns of madness and interminable eternity, Carnival saw a name swimming softly like the reflection of the moon in a midnight wishing well.
“Thank you, mighty Charon.”
He bowed because that also was expected of him but the old demigod had already turned to his business at hand, tallying the next ferry-load of dead men to pole across the lonely endless river. Carnival walked away, trying not to hurry.
Did you get what you came for?
Now Carnival grinned that same grin, because he had the information he needed.
“Place your bets, gentlemen. The fix is in.”
Chapter 22
Confession is Good for the Soul
Carnival picked up a carton of eggs and a six pack of dark ale, giving thanks to the gods of yeast and malt for the blissful numbing amnesia that the dark brew would bring. By the time he got home the sky had turned into the slow bruising color of early twilight. He threw the six pack into his refrigerator freezer and counted Mississippi’s, waiting for the beer to chill.
Only a fool hides inside a bottle, when there’s work to be done.
“I’m not hiding, Poppa. I’m waiting.”
Open your eyes.
Carnival kept on counting. He thought of the little room that Maya had found hidden beneath his cot. He thought about the invisible trapdoor that would materialize as night began to fall.
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