There’s a part of Hope that’s still here, intangibly, in the things she left behind: three yearbooks on a shelf, with the wooden duck her grandfather made. A New Teen’s Bible. A desk, a chair, a stack of video tapes, a small TV on the wardrobe. A closet that still holds the tutu she wore as a second-grader. A water bottle. A Dave poster. A bed made a bit too neatly.
The tangible part of her, of course, is at her wake. And Neil’s okay with that. It means he can sit there and touch himself as long as he wants.
“Gum?” asks Augusta, holding out the pack.
“Sure,” he says, “thanks,” and goes back to his book. They both chew, rocking with the motion of the bus.
“That was an opening gambit,” she hints, finally.
“And this is a noncommittal response,” he says, still not looking up.
“Well, then, how about an innocuous question?”
“Fine.” He looks at her, one eyebrow climbing. “I’ll start to show interest.”
“I’ll delay,” Augusta says sweetly, “mentioning my stuffed rat collection, for the moment.”
He’s smiling; the book’s closed. “Yeah, I’d go with that. Not mentioning the rats is really your strongest possible option here.”
Dead alley–Rob leaps to grasp at a fire escape and scrambles up. They’re snarling at his heels, and he has no idea what to do when he gets to the roof.
There’s someone up there, wearing a coverall with the sleeves ripped out and holding three thick coils of test line. Each is tied to a huge, cruel hook. Her hair is ragged and pink.
“I’m Dogcatcher,” she says, grinning. “Thanks for playing bait, Prentice. I owe you one.”
They top the roof behind him, and see her too. Their faces aren’t human, but they can show fear well enough.
After the midday lunch break (hard cheese and dry bread), Comet pauses to reorient. It’s getting more difficult as the day goes on.
“That way,” he says at last, trying to sound decisive. “I can tell.”
The rest of the posse squints where he’s pointing. “I don’t know,” says Chili John hesitantly. “It looks kinda… familiar, don’t it, boss?”
“You can’t trust your eyes out here.” snaps Comet. “It all looks alike, and that’s why you got to orient! Now let’s ride!”
With a bit of muttering, they trot out over the scrubland, keeping the sun always on their left.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
“One more push,” says the doctor encouragingly, and Everett leans on Miriam’s back as she scrunches and grunts. And then! He’s out at last; a wail, a dunk, a snip and he’s swaddled in her arms. Miriam smiles, exhausted, and her sweat magically turns to glow.
“Your third this month,” says the doctor. “You’re very prolific.”
“Oh, not compared to the real pros,” she says, modest. “You want to hold him, Daddy?”
“For a minute,” smiles Everett. “Hey, little guy!”
“We should get him sent out this week,” says Miriam, turning serious. “Harlan seemed interested…”
“Yeah.” Everett sighs. “Bills to pay.”
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
“Stiller does try to play a straight man,” says Cote.
“Yeah,” Ballard replies, “not really. He’s just taking the zany self-abuse character and putting it out front.”
The elevator car stops to admit another man, a stranger. There are acknowledgement nods all around.
“I mean, a dog biting him on the crotch?” Ballard continues. “Like five minutes of it, facial expressions and all?”
“That’s not straight,” Cote concedes.
The car stops again; there are nods; the stranger exits.
“Probably a bad place to come into that conversation,” says Cote, after a while.
“Yeah,” says Ballard. “Now that was a straight man.”
Hosaka steps from the shadows like a whisper. A whisper in a helmet, with two swords in each hand.
“I admit you were a worthy opponent for me once, Teach,” he says softly. “But my new technique is unstoppable. Lo, you no longer face Hosaka the ninja–but Hosaka the ninjamurai!”
“Unstoppable, eh?” Another man steps out, beard wild, cutlass shining. “Arr! But I too have changed; I’ve seen things to make such as ye weep!” Teach grins, and inhuman fangs gleam in the moonlight. “Will ye truly stand and fight… against a vampirate?”
After that, things get kind of silly.
When Chyler comes back with the marshmallows he’s already asleep where he sits–he hasn’t even moved enough to spill his hot chocolate.
She takes it from his hand. “Weak, boy,” she says. “It’s not even three yet.”
“Um not sleep.” He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, so she tackles him sideways and pins him to the ratty couch. Caleb looks up at her then: a little red-eyed, a little smiling, a little something else.
Their faces are very close. Chyler wants the credits to roll right now, to leave the two of them perfectly undecided, here in this beautiful hesitation.
There’s a lot of blood. The sun’s bright and hot and things are sticky under it; Morgan believes it’s making everything begin to contrast sharply, losing color, into very bright whites and spare blacks.
“You’re gonna be fine, Morgan,” Tad is saying, “stay with me, okay? Can you talk to me? ”
His voice is taking on a flat, bent quality; she associates it with concerts heard from too far away, or from around a corner. It draws her back to years-ago summer days and Cheap Trick, as they watched from a hill behind a fence, cheating, feeling dangerous and alive.
“You could just use the treadmill,” Royal says.
“Not even… remotely the same.” Monique shakes her head, still a little breathless. The skin of her forearms and under her eyes is flushed; the rest of her is pale.
“I think you know that there’s good running and bad running.” His words are careful.
“I know the difference.”
“Do you?”
“Good running is hurting yourself just enough so it’s worth it.” She straightens and plods into the bathroom.
“And bad running…”
“Bad running is hurting yourself as much as you want.”
Royal wants to say something, but she’s already shut the door.
Wednesday, August 4, 2004