But did you know that the character of Theseus is generally played by the same actor who portrays Oberon, King of the Fairies? Both men are grand manipulators.
I scratched a phantom itch along the side of my neck and thought it small consolation that McDaniel had taken his name from a comedy.
No. I didn’t know that.
And what is your given name? he said to me.
Phineas Poe.
I thought so, he said. The wife-killer from Internal Affairs.
The blood does not actually boil. It’s a useful, if somewhat exaggerated expression. My skin was not even hot but I was sick of cool good-byes and reluctant eyes and while I would let this comment pass for the moment I was pretty fucking sick of this nursery-rhyme explanation for my wife’s death.
McDaniel held the gun on me and I bit at my tongue.
Griffin himself looked fairly sickened. He sucked air through his teeth and I wondered if he now was my friend or McDaniel’s toady.
McDaniel grinned at me. What is your intention? he said.
Excuse me?
You called me this morning, he said. Do you remember?
I don’t know, I said. I’m making this up as I go along.
As am I, he said. But why did you not bring Jimmy Sky?
Jimmy was naked and suicidal on somebody’s roof this morning, I said. He’s probably in the hospital by now. If he’s lucky.
McDaniel sniffed the fingers of his left hand.
Did you hear me, I said.
What does your hand smell like, he said.
What? I said.
I wonder if it smells like Goo, he said. I imagine she has a stinky package.
I sighed. He was definitely going to have to shoot me before I would discuss the smell of Eve’s panties. Griffin went over to his desk and began to fiddle with the controls of a police scanner. He reached for a set of headphones.
Moon was a friend of mine, I said.
McDaniel waved the gun. Detective Moon was officially dead yesterday, he said.
Tired. I was tired of his face, of his snotty accent.
You fucker, I said.
I created Jimmy Sky, he said. And just when I have a good role for him, he’s gone mad.
What role was that?
His eyes flickered yellow. Two cops have been found dead and mutilated in the past two days. Three, if you count Moon. I was planning to package Jimmy as the killer. Major Tom there was going to tidy up the legal side. But then you came along and confused things.
I confused things, I said. That’s hilarious.
When did you arrive in town? he said.
I nodded. Two days ago.
Perhaps you would like to be the killer.
I would love to help you, I said. But your killer is already turning green in a Dumpster behind a Burger King on West 17th. He was just a guy named Christian.
McDaniel either didn’t believe me or didn’t care. He raised the gun.
Whoa, I said.
On your knees, he said.
Griffin turned off the scanner. A naked gunman was shot and killed by police an hour ago, he said. Identified on the scene as Detective Walter Moon.
That can’t be, I said. That can’t be right. Moon is riding the crosstown bus with no shirt. He’s on the bus. In fact, I’m expecting him to walk in here any minute and start taking names.
McDaniel smiled a crooked smile and even Griffin looked as if he felt sorry for me, because I was so ignorant. And I chose that moment, for good or ill, to pick up a little straight-backed chair made of steel and chrome that looked very uncomfortable and throw it at McDaniel. He ducked under it easily and the chair bounced off the massive window behind him like it was made of rubber. The same window that I had seen fall from its frame and glide down to earth the other day like the hand of God. The chair landed almost at my feet and McDaniel grinned like a cat, his lips turning purple. He took a step forward and I knew he was going to shoot me.
Easy, said Griffin. Everybody take it easy. This carpet is Egyptian silk and cotton, okay. And it’s white. It cost two thousand dollars per square foot.
McDaniel snarled out of the side of his mouth and the veins in his forehead bulged nicely. He had a very long nose, I noticed. He looked like a pale, sickly dog-man. Half man and half dog and not quite civilized. He turned now and stared intently at Griffin, as if he might just shoot him for practice. He stared and stared and the air between them became elastic. I touched my forehead and found my skin cold, rubbery. The skin of a frog. I had a hangover, I think. This was withdrawal or something. I wanted a shot of the Pale and I was operating on fumes.
Griffin sat down abruptly, on the floor. He was trembling.
Don’t look at me, he said. Don’t look at me like that.
McDaniel stared at him.
I was beginning to wonder if I might just slip away when Goo walked into the room. She wasn’t Eve. I knew this without quite understanding it. Her face was different, colder. Her eyes were far away. She wore nothing but a black bra and underpants. There was a smear of blood across her stomach and she held the rest of her clothes away from her body as if they stank.
These aren’t mine, she said.
No, I said. Dumbly. They’re Dizzy’s.
She didn’t know me. She looked at me without comprehension. But she veered toward me and dropped the clothes at my feet and I saw that her hands were bloody. I reflexively kicked the clothes away from me, as if they were diseased.
McDaniel beamed at her like a proud papa and I knew he was thrilled by this little distraction, because he wouldn’t have to think for a few minutes.
But then, neither would I.
Meanwhile. Griffin still sat on the floor, his face blank as a scarecrow’s. He was having a private little meltdown, an identity crisis. He had chosen the worst possible moment to crack apart and to be honest, I was tempted to sit down beside him but now Goo was drifting around the room in a slow, disintegrating figure eight, her bloody wrists held out away from her body. She had wriggled out of the handcuffs, somehow. I wasn’t terribly surprised, when I thought about what she had been doing for a living the past few months. But I knew how tightly I had cuffed her. She held her hands out like a child, like she was shocked by the blood. But that wasn’t it. Her hands were fucked up, I saw. I stepped in front of her and took her by the wrists, gently.
Jesus, I said.
She had broken both her thumbs and ripped away a handful of skin to get free of the handcuffs. Her eyes were glassy. Eve was not okay. I had thought she would be okay in the elevator, but she wasn’t. Goo had come along and ruined her pretty hands and now she needed medical attention. She needed a shot of Thorazine.
I looked at McDaniel. I’m taking her to a hospital, I said.
No, he said. You’re not.
I want to go home, she said. Home.
McDaniel aimed the gun at her. Torture us, he said. Entertain us and I will take you home.
No, I said. Fuck that.
Goo hesitated and I saw nothing familiar in her eyes. She had become a stranger again and now she pulled away from me. She lifted her arms over her head with the horrible elegance of a prisoner who has been told to dance for her supper or be killed. I will never know what she was going to do but I like to think that she was going to hypnotize him and eat his tongue and pretty much rescue us all from this game but I never found out because McDaniel relaxed at that moment, watching her, and I chose to end things differently. I bent and picked up the chair again and this time swung it like a tennis racket and caught him in the face with one of the legs and although the gun went off harmlessly as he went down, he was down and that was all I wanted and his face was like a burst tomato.
Fucked, howled Griffin. The carpet is fucked.
The gun was on the floor and I scooped it up. It felt good in my hand. I kicked McDaniel in the ribs, hard. He seemed to be unconscious and I kicked him again.
How much did the carpet really cost? I said.
Two hun
dred a foot, said Griffin. But two thousand sounds better.
Nervous laugh.
I was still on edge. Legs like water and I was hearing things. There is a noise that people make when they can’t breathe, a noise that isn’t a noise at all but is the opposite of noise because without oxygen there is no sound and now I heard, or imagined such a noise and turned around to see that Eve was on her back. The bullet from McDaniel’s gun had gone through her throat.
This was the result of my choice. I picked up a chair and five seconds later Eve was dying at my feet. Planetary alignment was irrelevant. I knelt beside her and pressed my hands to her wound but it was hopeless. Eyes hot and staring. The dark, bloody mess of her throat. Her pulse was a flicker and I held my hands there until it stopped. Blood in her black hair and I rocked back and forth beside her. I was humming. Eve was dead. Her eyes were closed and I wonder if she would have recognized me if the bullet had strayed six inches to the left and buried itself in a wall. Black cotton bra and underpants. Fine white skin flecked with blood and broken thumbs. I rocked back and forth. She had fallen awkwardly and lay twisted, her left leg was crumpled under her body and I saw for the first time how many bruises she had. She was a rainbow and I fell away from her.
I sat against the wall for a while. Five minutes maybe. Griffin stood up and began to pace around.
This is serious, he said. This is serious shit, Ray.
I ignored him. I covered Eve’s body with my coat and turned my attention to McDaniel. He was still out and I hoped he was dying. I sat on his chest. I felt his pulse and it was strong, it was thumping like a drum and he would be awake soon.
This is bad, said Griffin. I don’t know if I can fix this.
Here’s your big chance, I said.
Griffin rubbed his bald head, frantic. My chance for what, Ray?
Fuck, I said. Will you not call me that anymore?
Yeah, he said. I’m sorry. This is just a little intense. I slipped out of character, back there.
When?
When he said that shit about your wife.
I spat. That’s fucking great. And who are you now?
Griffin stared at me. My name is Griffin.
Yeah, I said. Do you want his tongue?
The room seemed to swell and shrink around us of its own accord, like a great beast breathing. The two of us were in its belly. The air was thin and Eve was outside somewhere. She was gone.
Do you want this man’s tongue? I said again.
My god, he said. No, I don’t. I want to wake up with both legs tomorrow.
Right, then.
I stuck the gun down my pants because I would need both hands. I retrieved my knife from McDaniel’s breast pocket. The blade was sleek, bright, warm. It was comforting. I reached for his mouth, pushed his lips apart and ran my fingers over the sharp ridge of his teeth. I massaged his jaw briefly and his mouth opened. Took a breath and poked two fingers into the dark hole, fishing for his tongue. This was foul beyond belief. I don’t know how dentists do it. The mouths of strangers are forbidding, grotesque. I touched his tongue and knew I couldn’t do it. I looked at Eve’s body and told myself I had to do something to him, something bad. I remember her scrawled logic notes that had spawned my diary and bit at my tongue softly. It was warm and familiar. My own tongue was not grotesque. It was not the source of horror that the blind kid had described on the bus.
I needed to hurt McDaniel.
The gun in my pants was pretty ordinary, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special with black rubber grip. It held five shots but I wouldn’t need them all. I had noticed earlier that McDaniel was wearing very expensive Italian boots that came up to barely kiss the ankles and fastened on the sides with a chrome buckle. The boots were composed of a soft, glossy black leather and the soles were heavy lug rubber. They would look fine with a tuxedo. They would not slow you down if you wanted to climb a tree. The footwear of dreams. My own boots, meanwhile, had been killing my feet lately and his looked to be about my size. I removed them, fumbled with the buckles like a novice shoe salesman and left McDaniel in his stocking feet. I tried the boots on and they were perfect. I wanted to walk around in them and admire them but was afraid he would wake up soon and I needed to finish this before I freaked out and ran away without doing anything.
McDaniel lay on his back in the center of Griffin’s nice white carpet.
Half of his body was obscured by shadows. Of course it was. I took a few steps back and without hesitating or stopping to think, raised the pistol and aimed at McDaniel’s left foot and Griffin may have shouted at me, I don’t know. I never heard him. I pulled the trigger and McDaniel’s foot pretty much exploded. The bones in the foot are complex and fine and his would never be put back together. He would probably be up and around on a prosthetic in a year or so, but he would certainly need a cane and I imagined that if the game survived he would get one that doubled as a sword.
My head was ringing, my head was full of crashing waves.
I stared down at McDaniel and he appeared to regain consciousness for a moment. His eyes found mine before rolling back into his head and I doubted that he would ever forget me. I took a shallow breath and laughed, a brief glittering laugh. That first shot had been easy.
I lifted the gun again and calmly destroyed his other foot.
Griffin was sitting on the floor against the wall, his hands covering his ears. I glanced at the big unforgiving window where I had seen the three of us before and perhaps it was because of the clouds or the angle but there was nothing, no one reflected in the glass now. There was only a curved gray sky, and for a brief horrible moment it seemed to have no top or bottom and it looked very much like the inside of my head. I was sick, I was filled with vertigo and loss. I thought of the wall behind Eve’s couch, the dead bird on her floor. I wondered if I could walk through that wall of glass, if there was another reality there that might sustain me. I was slipping. I turned and vomited into Griffin’s wastepaper basket, which was of course made of black wire and did not hold liquids very well. The white carpet was truly fucked, now. It was time to go. I crouched beside Griffin and touched his face. I needed him to act like a lawyer and I guess he was finally thinking the same thing.
He took the gun from me and said, go. Get out of here.
I cast one last look at Eve, at Goo. I wanted to touch her, to say something meaningful but that was Hollywood. Her face and chest were hidden in my dirty coat and her naked legs stuck out at odd angles. She had the discolored plastic limbs of a life-sized doll.
My feet were heavy and unfamiliar in my enemy’s shoes. Dragged myself back through the waiting room and this time I didn’t look at the brain landscape. I found my strength and ran back down the yellow hallway and pushed the Down button. I practiced breathing. Thirty seconds passed, ninety. The doors opened and I stepped inside. The handcuffs dangled from the brass rail, unopened.
Blood on the metal, smeared and nearly dry. Fragments of torn skin like pink threads.
The elevator took me down to the lobby and I barely glanced at the mirrors on the way down. I hurried to the emergency exit door and picked up my copy of Ulysses. The fire alarm tripped when I opened the door and no one was waiting for me.
I stood in an alley surrounded by white stone and it was like the sky had simply fallen. There were sirens in the distance and I walked away from the exit at what I hoped was a normal pace. I came out of the alley and was facing a street.
Pedestrians, traffic. I looked at my hands, at the tips of my fingers. They were untrembling but still numb from pulling the trigger.
The sidewalk was new, freshly hardened concrete. There were no cracks in it at all, no impurities or scars. It was a little eerie and after a while I crossed over to the other side. I walked and walked and when I grew weary, I drifted to a bus stop. The thought of another bus ride fairly horrified me, but on a cellular level it seemed that I couldn’t resist. I got on the first bus that came along.
The liquid sigh of the doors shutting b
ehind me. The driver, gruff and unsmiling.
I paid and made my way along to a seat that looked safe.
Red, torn vinyl.
I scanned the faces of the other passengers but none of them was Jimmy Sky and none of them was the blind kid with the maddening tongue and my loved ones were all cartoon characters in the end. I pulled out the blue notebook and found that I had lost my pen.
Open windows and blank faces. Strangers all.
Dear Jude.
There is nothing but the greedy suck and churn of the engine beneath my feet and I feel serene. There is no motion sickness. I borrow a black ballpoint from a little old woman who smiles and coughs and tells me to keep it. I close my eyes and wait for Stephen Dedalus to come sit down beside me. I have saved no one but myself and now I watch for the other universe to unravel in my skull, for the sky to become my own skin and fill with stars.
Will Christopher Baer, Penny Dreadful
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