Yes. There is silence. She cannot hear either music or lampreys.
Then the record gets to the good part. She does hear wailing now: the choir wailing in the hands of an angry God, the strings wailing in answer. The wind wails, too. A lamprey materializes in front of her, flexing its mouths with greed.
“I am not one of the men who attacked you,” Lady Blue says through her teeth. “I am not your enemy.” But she readies her carving knife all the same. She knows that speech is useless, and that it will lunge at her.
Instead, it lunges at Jason.
She is not ready for that. She swipes with the knife and misses. Jason is borne out of her arms, kissed by those hungry toothy mouths. She stands frozen. His body withers before her eyes. The lamprey lets go, dropping him to the floor. There is a bit of a shape to it now, a bit of Jason’s cheekbones and his mischievous little beard.
“My name is Jason,” says the lamprey, its three mouths shouting to be heard over the despair of the choir. “And I loved you, you bitch. You were my whole life. I’ll never forgive you. I’d kill you back if I could. I loved you. I hate you.”
Lady Blue grabs it and cuts all three of its throats. Its blood is not red but black and sluggish, like the silt at the bottom of a river. She slices four, five times to make sure, until its mouthy end hangs off the rest of it by a tiny sliver of skin.
She feels confused. This is not how the ritual ought to go. She did not make time for cleaning up two bodies, and she’ll never get that black blood out of the hardwood floor.
She tucks what is left of Jason carefully into that one little room, on its hanger with the others. She closes and locks the door, then cleans the key. She decides she will clean up after Jason completely before dealing with the lamprey. He deserves that much.
There is wailing outside the house now, very loud. At some moments it drowns out the Requiem. It shakes the windows, batters the eaves. She’s killed one of their own, and the lampreys are angry.
She ignores them. She has sealed up the house. There is nothing else she can do.
The best way to get blood out of bedsheets is quickly, with ice water and salt paste, before the stains have time to set. Lady Blue works diligently until her hands change colour with cold. When she has exhausted the first bucket of ice water and is heading to the kitchen for more, she passes the lamprey’s body again.
In its pool of sludge-blood, it’s twitching. Its throat reforms, and its mouths strain to make words again. “My name is Jason. My name is Jason, my name is Jason, and I loved you…”
This time Lady Blue cuts off its mouthy end completely. Then, to be safe, she cuts the rest of it into pieces and seals each one in a separate Tupperware container from the kitchen. Her carving knife wasn’t designed to slice through bone, but it is the best she has. It is long, ugly work. By the end of it, Lady Blue is filthy and twitching herself. The seawind has only grown stronger.
The Requiem is all the way to the “Sanctus.” She should be most of the way through the cleaning now, not making more of a mess. The choir taunts her, singing in mock-joyful chords drowned out by diabolical, chromatic strings. Whatever they are praying to, it is not the nice tame God that the man from the Department of Emergencies wears round his neck.
The lampreys will kill her eventually, Lady Blue knows. As soon as she ventures out of her sealed-up house. Jason and his open window will get to kill her back, after all. Very well. She will face them like a lady. Perhaps she will take a few with her.
Lady Blue stacks the Tupperware containers and puts them in the room with her husbands’ bodies. Jason’s soul is in there somewhere, after all. Then she trudges back to the ante-room, carving knife in hand, leaving a trail of black blood that someone else will have to clean.
Lady Blue flings open her front door.
The lampreys fly in. Dozens of them surround her. Lady Blue moves without much thought. She stabs with her carving knife, dodging their drooling mouths, and they fall and fall around her. She does not have time to really kill them. Only to keep hurting each one until it can’t move closer.
She has no sense of time passing apart from the music – fickle music, pleading and raging by turns. She is surprised to last even a minute or two, but the music goes on and on, and there she is, fighting. Bloody Tom’s friends couldn’t have lasted this long, and they had three times as many knives.
Lady Blue is not like the others.
It’s still a matter of time. For each one that drops, two more sail in on the wind. Finally she doesn’t spin fast enough and they blindside her. Six lamprey necks wind around the hand with the knife. Eight more at the other arm – she is suddenly immobilized. She can see nothing but mouths.
The music builds to its final, tragic chorus.
These things are pitiless just like Lady Blue. Like looking in a hideous mirror. Lady Blue has only ever done what she had to, but the lampreys will not see it that way. They will eat the excuses and drink the darkness underneath, the thing even Lady Blue cannot name. Then they will pour it out on the town like it’s all she ever was. Maybe it is. For the first time in her life, Lady Blue is terrified.
Mouths latch on to her filthy skin everywhere, not just three but a mass of them. She kicks wildly and accomplishes nothing.
Then there is a scream.
First one lamprey turns back into wind, then another and another, until the horde around her is nothing but a screaming flight, fleeing into the night sky and gone. Lady Blue falls to the floor in a puddle of black sludge.
She puts a hand to her neck, stunned. She is not withered. She does not even feel much pain. She does not seem to be injured apart from one small, round laceration, the kind that only needs a drugstore bandage.
She does not feel triumphant, like a thing that scares gods. She feels hideous and tired.
The music is more or less over. “Libera me, Dómine, de morte aetérna, in die illa treménda” the alto spits in a bitter monotone, as if she already knows there is no redemption. There are a few, soft chords, and the recording ends.
Well. The floor is absolutely unsalvageable. She’ll have to buy an industrial-grade steam cleaner and refinish the hardwood. Tomorrow.
She washes the carving knife in dismal silence. Then she throws her blood-soaked dress in the kitchen garbage and takes a scalding shower, scrubbing for what feels like hours until she no longer feels lamprey sludge in her pores.
She emerges into the wide, tiled bathroom, haggard but dripping clean. She wipes the fog off the mirror, leans against the sink, and looks sideways at herself. She feels very old, but she is still perfectly smooth, perfectly curved.
She meets her own eyes.
“My name is Lady Blue,” she says to the mirror, unsure if it’s even true. “I do not know what else I am. And I wish that someone – just one person, just once – could look at my soul and not flee.”
On Thursday night, Lady Blue does not appear at Old Benny’s Pub. But on Saturday night, there she is, splendid in something new and midnight blue. She does not feel much like speaking to men, or speaking to anything. But one must keep up appearances.
No one has seen any lampreys since Wednesday night. Red and the other girls say that the monsters must have seen the cross round Abner’s neck and fled.
He’s still here. The admiring girls seem to make him nervous. Sweat drips down his from his buzz-cut temples. He makes an excuse and disentangles himself from the girls, walking to stare out the window at the night street.
He must know that the girls are mistaken. Lady Blue wonders what else he knows. What else he’s hiding.
He isn’t a poorly built man. Strong, not with gym-rat muscles like Jason’s, but in an understated way that suggests long treks through the woods. Clean, apart from the sweat. White nails. Not even a hint of stubble. Still, Lady Blue is not in the mood to admire men for long. She takes care not to come too close.
“You,” she murmurs.
He looks up, startled. “Oh, I recognize you. I hope e
verything was all right the other night, with the…the window, and all.”
Lady Blue takes a sip of Electric Lemonade, cool as you please.
“You don’t really know what happened, do you?” she says, low enough so the other girls won’t hear.
Abner sighs. “No, ma’am. I’d appreciate if you didn’t spread the word around, but I don’t. That’s why I’m still here. I can’t give the Department of Emergencies the all-clear when I don’t know why those things are gone, or whether they want to come back.”
“Wise choice. But your secret’s safe with me.”
Abner takes a sip of his rum and Coke, looking back out the window. “I can’t say for sure without proof. But I like to think the good Lord did come through. The cross is just a symbol when you get down to it, and those things ain’t vampires anyway. But we prayed, we hoped, we stepped in to try to help, and He sent something to pull us through. That’s how He works, isn’t it? Probably sent help in the last place anyone’d think to look. I reckon I can find it.”
Lady Blue can’t help but smile. It’s so cute when they have hope. It ought to be sad, but it draws her in every time, like a moth to a candle. Even – or especially – in the midst of her grief.
Abner looks at her, perplexed. Unconsciously, he fingers his cross. “There’s something different about you,” he says. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. But there’s a type of young woman who comes to this sort of place alone, and you’re not that type. No, forgive me, ma’am, that’s an inexcusable way to say it. Just that it’s been two drinks, and I’m trying to figure out why you’re here at all.”
“I’d like to know that myself,” says Lady Blue.
He looks at her ringless hands. “Gettin’ away from the husband?”
“Widowed,” she says, quite calmly.
He blushes. “Oh. I’m sorry, ma’am, I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry.”
Lady Blue smiles again. “As penance, why don’t you buy me a drink?”
And he does. They’re all the same. She sits in her spot, second from the far window with the drapes half down, and Abner brings her a second Electric Lemonade in a frosted highball glass, just the way she likes.
THE FRIENDLY NEWFOUNDLANDER
Joel Thomas Hynes
How can you know, ever really. You cant. Know. Where it’s gonna end up. Where you’re gonna find yourself. The way time works. The way you work through time. One minute your gear is all stuffed down into garbage bags and slung out onto the street and it seems the next you’re all crossing the border together, the modern family, checking out the sunset along the boardwalk, road trip to the desert, taking “sound baths” and crashing in the same motel. Not the same room mind, that’s a bit far-fetched, but, you know, a couple of doors up the walk and here’s Dad’s room. And just down by the pool here’s Mom and the boy. All’s well and everyone gets on. All of a sudden. Dad saying goodnight and hanging out with a cigarillo and plucking at the guitar when everyone else is off to the bunk. And there’s this girl too. Not a girl. But this blonde. She was there at the office chatting with the manager when I walked in. That’s me by the way. I’d be Dad. I was being kinda loose just now, conversational, just setting up the scenario in the third person, you know. Being casual. But that can get confusing, I suppose. So, to clarify. I’m not the boy. I’m the Dad. It was my clothes and books and shit slung onto the street near on seven or eight years ago when me and the boy’s mama called it quits. And it was a bad one, that breakup. But it wasnt, too. It wasnt messy like the way some breakups are messy. There was no going back, that’s one thing for sure. There was no falling into bed for old times sakes cause the old times, in terms of the bedroom, werent really the sort of times you’d want to fall back into. Funny how you gets hooked up with a gal, and that very fundamental aspect is not working but yet you hangs around for all them years. Like you’re waiting to turn some corner, thinking you’ll suddenly find yourself in the midst of this steamy sex life. When it was never there in the first place. Not like rekindling things or finding that old spark or nothing, cause at least there’s the hope in that situation, the knowledge that things used to be a certain way. But with me and her, they never really were. Maybe there was some sort of psychological thing, sure – I’ll give it to you this way just so you dont stray that way cause I still needs to be loved even if we’re no fun in bed. There’s always that game. But the raw sex thing, the caution-to-the-wind, fuck-me-this-way, harder, just-like-that, now, harder, let’s-try-this, blah. None of that. None of that. But we are where we are now anyhow. And that seems to be working just fine for all hands. Copasetic, as they says. You dont look back and label it a failure, you know, if you’ve managed to evolve into this decent and healthy unit that doesnt stress out the boy. Once you irons out all the blame and the emotional blackmailing settles down and everybody moves on to some other bedroom, well that’s when things starts to work the way they should, that’s when you gets to be the modern family, you know. Modern family. Dad got a house downtown and Mama’s over on the South Side. And now we’re all out in the desert in California.
Anyhow, this blonde. This blond American gal. In the next room. Sharing a wall with me. I’m out on the patio scratching out a few lines in my notebook, tryna hang onto this dullard melody that keeps floating around in my head, having a smoke and looking out at the desert night, you know. Living. And here’s this blonde comes out on her patio and starts chatting me up and within minutes she’s commandeered a chair at my table and smoking my cigarettes and spilling her guts about this fella that used to torment her. Says she’s gone through that PTSD treatment and everything. They’d be having a racket and he’d be driving, pounding the wheel, saying how he was gonna kill the two of them right this minute, foot to the floor. She bawling, begging him to stop, to pull over and let her out. Me? I just sat there, you know, tuning up the guitar, nodding along, cocking my head this way and that every once in a while. Having an eye down the walkway for the boy. Never know but he might come scrabbling up looking for an extra half hour before bed. His mama’s dead to the world, no doubt.
And the wheels, the wheels are spinning in my head, as usual. That’s the way these days. Everybody off with their heads up their holes, faces buried in little gadgets, having these exchanges with folks halfways across the world, friends with people they never looked in the eye before. Everybody’s at it too. So when finally some stranger starts chatting you up, the wheels gets spinning – is she nuts? One of them girls on the hunt for some fella to save her? Is she some sort of whore? What does she want for Christ sakes? That’s how bad it is, see, you walk around feeling half not even there for so long, saying hello to people who barely grunts their way past you, gawking into their little devices, that soon as there’s real human contact you dont know fuck all what to do with it. And wouldnt it be nice if it was just some gal recognizing the situation for what it is – decent-lookin fella crashing next door, cold desert night, king-size bed, why not make the most of it, a little adventure, one of them anonymous hookups, no-strings-attached piece of ass. Yeah. No strings attached. But then you gotta think to yourself, you know, what’s wrong with me that I cant have a random chat with a good looking woman without it being about fucking? Why you gotta make everything dirty like that, Dad? Why you gotta make everything about cock and balls, tits and pussy? You know you’re only looking for sort some of boost, right? Looking for some sort of validation. So desperate for connection you cant even see the human in front of you.
She’s nice too, this blonde, her personality, you know, funny and stuff, has a laugh at herself. Working in cosmetics or beauty products, some sort of shit like that. Money in it, no doubt. Comes out to the desert to get out of LA, knows the owner of the motel, stays in the same room all the time, gets a discount. Loves doing these sound baths. Got an idea for a documentary. Always wanted to write a book. Had a fling with an older woman, a teacher. Years ago, this lizzy bit. From the east coast, from over around Maine, says her name is fuckin Mindy,
if you can believe that – big-titted blond American girl named Mindy. That’s the thing about California though – no one’s from here. Never hardly meet a soul born and bred, but they’re all from some place else all the time. All migrating to the Promised Land, you know, like that Joad crowd.
Mindy wants to know then, what’s the deal anyways, she asks, with that young boy and the lady? How come you’re all in separate rooms and shit? Some sort of argument? Disagreement? So, then it’s my turn to spill my guts about where I am and how I got here and I dont hold back one bit neither. Time I’m through I’m pretty much splayed wide open and she’s yawning and chattering and shivering under her blanket. Something you dont expect, you know, how cold it gets in the desert at night. I mean, that’s what you’re told alright, that it’s gonna get cold. But you always thinks, yeah cold to that crowd, cold to some crowd who are used to drinking fuckin cactus juice and eating fuckin rattlesnake omelettes every morning. But no, this is quite the contrast, once the sun goes down the temperature just keeps on dropping till you swear you never left home. Fuckin Newfoundland in February. Go fuck itself. Dont give me that outdoors shit neither. Dont go preaching to me about sliding and skating and fuckin ski trips. Grey bitter sludgy drizzle and muck for four months straight. Tryna scrounge up the bucks to change your winter tires while you’re waiting around for summer to kick in and it never fuckin does. Why in the fuck anyone’d choose to rear up a child there is beyond me. Tell ya what, if that boy wasnt around I wouldnt even go back, or I’d be long gone. Ahhh…that’s shit talk though. What kinda world would it be without that little fella in it? How long ago would I have been dead if not for him coming into the world? Dead, jail, on the streets. Somewhere. At least I’m on some sort of path these days, at least there’s some sort of drive to have a halfways decent life, if only so’s I can offer him the kinda life he deserves. And sure if I fell short on that his mama wouldnt be long fucking off with him either. Nothing’s surer. And that’s fair as fair too, I dont contest it. Fair enough, I dont want my young feller hanging with no deadbeat, even if it was me. And if it was her that was some sort of waste case, well I wouldnt be long snatching him up out of the way then neither.
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