“Don’t tell me sony,” she murmured against his chest. “Show me sony.” He closed his eyes to her brushing touch, blacking out the memories.
“I don’t like the man I was,” he tried to explain. “It’s him or me in the gray place. I won’t go back to being him. I don’t have to, and I won’t.
“All right, baby, all right. It doesn’t matter, it’ll be fine now. Lynda’s not angry.” She wasn’t listening to him, any more than he was tuned into her hands and mouth on him. He kept himself divorced from it, holding back the touching and feeling that could unleash the pain. It was a fair trade. If he let himself be reached, she would hurt him, would drive him with agony until he destroyed the source of me pain. No touch of pleasure, no touch of pain. Being numb was the key to it all. He found the balancing point again and felt a certain bitter satisfaction with it. He was safe from her now. She’d get nothing from him. He felt her squirm against him, heard the rustle of clothing as she arranged her body against his. He let her, unwonted. There were other things he could think about, things that were safe to remember.
“IF YOU COULD DO ANYTHING, be anything, what would you do?”
It had been an expansive afternoon, roaming the city with Cassie. He was beginning to get the hang of this new life, starting to realize the possibilities. It was a heady sensation.
She was in a tweed skirt; he wore a corduroy jacket with learner patches at the elbows. They had gone everywhere that eccentric scholars could go, with numerous side trips en route. They had merged unnoticed with a group touring underground Seattle, and had nearly managed to be left behind in the dank dark below the streets. She had shown him a bakery where a kindhearted assistant set out the discarded baked goods on a tin foil tray atop the dumpster to save the street people the trouble of digging for them. They had explored what was left of the old plant at Gas Works Park and sampled five kinds of coffee at Starbucks. Cassie had taken him to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Museum on Main, and introduced him to me ranger there as her associate. Eh“. Reynolds. The ranger had shown them films and opened the display cases for them, to let them handle the relics of that remote time. Wizard had promised to return soon, and spend more time talking about the Gold Rush era and how it had affected Seattle.
“Especially on rainy days.” Cassie had offered as soon as they were on the sidewalk again, and they had giggled together like wayward truants.
It had been a very mellow day. No schedules to keep and no assigned tasks. They had turned down every street that had appealed to them, in their conversations as well as in their wandering. He had learned that she loved roses and pansies, but thought orchids a cold flower. She knew that he liked green grapes more than wild blueberries, and commercial blueberries not at all. So now, as they strolled, he asked her the childish question, and waited for her answer. She disappointed him.
“I’d be Cassie, and do what we did today,” she replied blandly.
“Not me!” Wizard had been expansive, risking her displeasure. “I’d be a hero, a saint, or a mystic. When I was small, I always wanted to be a prophet. Sackcloth and thunder. I’d drive violence from Seattle and let peace reign.”
Cassie snorted. “And under your protection, no seagull would peck another, no children would quarrel over marbles, no drunk would bloody another drunk’s nose over a baseball pitcher’s reputation.”
“Not that kind of violence. You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t. You keep acting like I’m some sort of mystic myself, some seer who knows all. Well, I’m not. I’m just Cassie, and while I know more than some, I don’t know it all.
I’ve only just met you, though I’ve been noticing your presence in Seattle for weeks. I suppose you could say our paths have crossed before. But that doesn’t mean I know you from the soul out. So tell me. What kind of violence do you mean?“
“The sickest kind. I mean the kind where someone strong finds someone weaker and hurts him. And hurts him and hurts him and hurts him. Hurts past the point of damage, past retaliation, hurts him past the point of resistance, and beyond.
Like parents who beat infants, tike rapists who batter bodies and minds, like men who turn on other men too confused or different to defend themselves, and hurt them. -.“
“Which end were you on?” Cassie had muttered the question, looking at him with eyes both sympathetic and wary. His voice had thickened as he spoke, some emotion choking him, but the words tumbled from him, refusing to stop until he clamped his teeth and closed his eyes. Cassie slipped her arm under his, drew him aside to a bench and sat him down. He sat far-eyed, kneading his hands together, rubbing at the tiny scars that marred them.
“I’m sony,” he said finally. “I don’t know…”
“Me, neither,” she cut in. “But listen. Number one. You arc taking on too large an opponent. Do you think you’re Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland? No. At most you’re Saint Wizard, feeding the pigeons. Number two. You’re too close to it to fight it. Not yet. I won’t ask you how or why you’re so close to it, but I’ll remind you of this. When the enemy’s on top of you, you can’t win by bombing his position.”
He wished she had asked him then. Back then, he might have been able to tell her about it, while she was still the stranger Cassie, before she became so important to him. In days to come he swallowed his secrets in large, choking lumps, lest she discover his flaws. He struggled to learn it all, to be the best at it as he had been the best at his tasks before. His failures he kept to himself. He coped, living hand to mouth at times, trying to believe her when she told him the city would open to him as soon as he opened himself to it. At first she fed him often, and he was sheltered many a night in her various domiciles. But he began to fee) overexposed, fearful that he might be revealing more of himself than he wished her to know.
And he began to have days when he ached with a dull hunger to be even closer to her. Never mind that it would destroy all she had made of him. Never mind that it would drive her completely from his life. The depth of me sudden need that would come upon him was terrifying. Lust he could have dealt with- But this was the forbidden hunger, the desire to be less alone. He found his strength before it was too late; he knew he had to separate his life from hers.
His wits and the skills she showed him helped him create his own niche. If she missed his daily presence, she never rebuked him for it. He suspected she was relieved by his independence, and he worked for her respect- For an instant he wondered where she was this night.
His eyes rolled open of their own accord- Lynda lay atop him, her hair straggling across his face. Sleeping. Stoned or drunk, she had finally given up her attempts to arouse him. It gave him a perverse satisfaction to have defied her. Her body was heavy and lumpy, her perfume oppressive. He reached up to wipe her hair away from his nose and mouth. He shifted to heave her chin off his collarbone. She stiffened suddenly and wriggled to get her wrist up to her nose.
“Oh my god!” She peeled her body off his, letting the cold in to fill the places she had made warm. “Look at the time!” She shook her dress back down over her hips, tugged the hem straight. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t lay and worry about tonight. You were just tired, that’s all. I read about it in this book, says it’s normal, can happen to any guy when he’s tired, and being stoned might have made it worse. Promise me you‘’ aren’t going to get all depressed about it. I really don’t mind.
Really. Are you okay?“
He nodded, feeling the total hypocrite. He watched her scoop her pantyhose from the floor and ball them up to stuff them in her purse. She didn’t seem all that disappointed. Was her lust a game she played with herself as well; the wild and wanton woman who must always be eager?
“I’ve got to get up at six! If I don’t go now, I’ll be too beat to shower and wash my hair before bed. That’s another thing I bet you’ll like about my place: hot showers and clean bedding.
Look, I got the early shift tomorrow.“ She wipped a brush through her hair, sleeking it back from her face. ”But as soon as I’m off, I’ll come to pick you up. Just take the stuff you really want. Leave the rest of this shit here. One trip should do it. You want I should borrow my sister’s car?“
“No,” he replied absently. She sat down on the makeshift table to drag on her boots. He couldn’t even remember when she had taken them off.
“Right. Look, I’ll bring a suitcase for your clothes, put the rest in grocery bags, and we’ll take the bus. Oh, the cat. I can’t have pets in my place.”
“I don’t have any pets.” Black Thomas belonged to himself.
He’d been a resident of the building before Wizard moved in, and would be after he was gone. For an instant he worried about Ninja and the pigeons. A foolish worry; they’d all have to take care of themselves from now on.
“Good.” Lynda had rekindled the pipe and was taking a farewell hit from it. She waved it at him, but he shook his head. She shrugged, then regarded him more closely. Her boots thumped as she crossed the room to suddenly crouch down beside him. “Look. You look so worried about it. Don’t be.
So we didn’t make it tonight. It doesn’t change anything between us. You told me you were tired and cold and a little too stoned. I should have listened to you and not pushed it. I mean, hey, if a woman can say no when she’s too tired, why can’t a guy? So it’s not a big deal, okay? Not like a failure or anything Okay?“
He nodded wearily, wishing she were gone. All he wanted Was sleep. She rose then to snatch up me window blanket from the floor and snap it out over him. “Okay, then. Now don’t worry. Sleep tight, baby. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” he echoed. Irrevocable commitment. She muffed the candle as she went and disappeared into the next room, closing the connecting door as softly as a burglar leaving the scene of a crime. He listened. There was the sliding of the window, then the thunk of her boots hitting the pavement. The city silence flowed back in as soon as she was gone. The traffic noises and far muffled voices of a sleeping city filled his ears.
The street lamp light seeped in around the cardboard and bathed his room in a dark gray wash. Gray light of the city burning up the night with cold, duty fire. It was hard to see me stars over Seattle at night. Too much light pollution and more every year. He wondered if the air pollution and the light pollution would ever meet in the middle. He imagined a city never night nor day, only a uniform grayness in the sky overhead. He envisioned gray people slipping through its streets, their voices swathed in fog, their clothing damp with gray mist. Gray as OK ceiling.
He stared up at it and suddenly fell horrible. Guilty. He had cheated and deceived Lynda by not performing tonight. But he hadn’t wanted to. Still, what must she be feeling now? Did she guess he did not find her desirable? But he did; it was only when she got close that he was repelled by her. She was an attractive woman, generous and willing. Only a crazy man would turn away from her. So what was wrong with him? He didn’t know. He just knew that he hadn’t wanted to be that close to her. So. Would it have hurt him to have given in to her needs, let her keep intact the image she had of herself?
But what about his own feelings, his desire to keep his body private from her? Weren’t they just as valid as hers? And if he had served her, like a cow brought to a random bull; what then would he be feeling? Would he be lying here, gazing at the ceiling and wishing he had not so shamefully deceived her?
His mind chased the questions and guilts in a hamster wheel of bad feelings. “No right answers,” he tried to console himself, and coughed. This was life back in the real world. The walls of it were closing in on him already. But this time tomorrow, he would be running through his own maze, back on the track with the rat race.
The ceiling was coming down on him. He blinked, willing the illusion away. No more playing games with my mind, he warned himself sternly. No magic, no Truth, no Knowing. No scary things in the closets waiting to get me. Kid stuff. Like being small and being afraid to close the bedroom curtains at night because you might accidentally look out the darkened window and see something. Never look in the bathroom mirror when you’re getting a drink of water in the middle of the night; you might see what is standing behind you. But he was an adult now, and back in the real world. He wasn’t going to play that kind of mental hide-and-seek anymore. He stared up at the gray ceiling, daring it to come closer.
It did.
It did not, he insisted to himself. He was just sleepy. That was true, he was tired, but now he found he could not close his eyes. For if he looked away from the ceiling, perhaps it would dare to come closer- Even with his eyes opened, he could see the grayness of his ceiling descending on him. Impossible. Summoning every ounce of courage he possessed, he extended his arm and hand straight up and touched… nothing.
“See,” he told himself aloud. “It’s an illusion.” He let his arm fall back to his side. He was warm and incredibly sleepy.
He closed his eyes and started to let consciousness slide away.
A pigeon fell to the floor with a soft thud. And another.
Wizard sat up. His face pushed up into dense gray smoke that choked him mercilessly. He fell back onto the mattress., into a cooler strata of air. His mind raced. The pipe! Where had Lynda left it?
He rolled onto his belly and gazed around wildly. There seemed to be no flames yet, but he was sure that when they came, it would be as a single flash, engulfing the room in an instant. He had only moments to get out.
His cracked window might offer fresh air, but no chance of escape. The fire escape was under the other window, in the next room. From his window it was a sheer four-story drop.