Glimmering (51 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Hand
But he did not want to remember that. What he wanted to remember was the blond girl. Her image was inescapable: it might have been stitched upon his eyelids. Her twilit eyes, her hot thrusting mouth; but more than those things her simple sheer
being.
The fact that she had been there beside him once, that he had touched her, that she had been real—
being.
The fact that she had been there beside him once, that he had touched her, that she had been real—
Do you remember nothing?
she had asked him in a dream of flowers. Now, with the December wind pressing upon him like a cloak of ice, he remembered nothing else. He was only a vessel, broken and halfheartedly repaired, holding her within him like a flame. He hugged his arms against his chest, forced himself to look at the unpromising landscape before him. The smell of shit and decay was overpowering; he’d have to get away from the water or he’d be sick. He adjusted his backpack and stared at a derelict building that blocked his view of anything but itself. The walls had fallen away from its upper stories, so that he could see inside. Like gazing into a mutated ants’ nest. Heaps of rubble, beams and joists twisted like coat hangers, insulation and drywall hanging from the metal like old clothes. The wind sent crumbled mortar and gypsum dust and ash spinning down, so that Trip stepped back, covering his eyes.
she had asked him in a dream of flowers. Now, with the December wind pressing upon him like a cloak of ice, he remembered nothing else. He was only a vessel, broken and halfheartedly repaired, holding her within him like a flame. He hugged his arms against his chest, forced himself to look at the unpromising landscape before him. The smell of shit and decay was overpowering; he’d have to get away from the water or he’d be sick. He adjusted his backpack and stared at a derelict building that blocked his view of anything but itself. The walls had fallen away from its upper stories, so that he could see inside. Like gazing into a mutated ants’ nest. Heaps of rubble, beams and joists twisted like coat hangers, insulation and drywall hanging from the metal like old clothes. The wind sent crumbled mortar and gypsum dust and ash spinning down, so that Trip stepped back, covering his eyes.
Throughout the whole god-awful structure, people were living.
He saw a white-haired woman in black pants, no shirt, no bra, step across a gap in the wall, sheets of plywood spliced together with chicken wire and electrical cord. She was shouting to someone he couldn’t see, her white breasts moving as she stood on tiptoe. He couldn’t make out her words, but then she looked down and her face twisted.
“Hey! Fucking asshole, get the fuck, what the fuck you looking at, you goddamn fucking
—”
—”
He took off, stumbling along the ruptured spine of what had once been a road. After a few minutes he stopped, not because he felt safe but because his knee hurt too much. When he looked down he saw a rip in the white duck trousers Martin had given him, a leafy smear of dirt and blood.
“Shit,” he said. They were the only pants he had. “Motherfucking
shit
.”
shit
.”
He’d never cursed like that before. It felt good. He looked up and shouted at the woman in the building, though he couldn’t see her anymore, couldn’t even see the building.
“You fucking piece of cunt shit!”
When he turned to walk away he saw a figure strolling just a few yards ahead of him, a young man wearing cowboy boots and a long patchwork overcoat. His face was heavily tattooed with spirals. The streaky purple light from the sky gave his flesh a ghoulish cast.
“Yo, Happy New Year!” The man grinned, gave Trip a thumbs-up, and continued in his direction. Trip tightened his grip on his knapsack. The man stopped, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I’m looking for Avenue B. Know where that is?”
Trip stared at him, panicked, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t reveal he was totally lost, totally without a single fucking clue.
“Actually,” the man went on, “I’m looking for a place called Marquee Moon. It’s supposed to be around here somewhere—” He glanced at a lightless alley that ran between two empty buildings, then back at Trip. “Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
The guy kept on nodding, a speedy mindless mannerism. He was tall, broad-shouldered, not too much older than Trip, twenty-five or -six. A golden placebit glowed above one eyebrow. His hair was dark and close-cropped, his face despite the tattoos and corpselike coloring amiable, even goofy. Trip had first thought the man’s long overcoat to be shabby and much-repaired, the kind of thing you saw homeless people wearing. In fact it was stitched from hundreds of pieces of fabric—brilliant silks and brocades and jacquards, elaborately embroidered—with here and there mirrored cloth, and prisms, glass beads like eyes, jangly arrays of computer circuitry and feathers. It was, Trip realized, a very expensive coat, and the man’s boots were very expensive boots. Alligator and totally illegal.
“Yeah, well it’s supposed to be around here,” the man went on genially. He had a pronounced drawl. “A bunch of those places’re supposed to be around here, in the same building even, Magyar and Hit and the Chancery.”
Trip shifted his knapsack to the other shoulder. Enough seconds had passed, he knew he should either say something or leave, fast, before this guy drew a knife on him or decided to prolong the conversation.
“You’re not from here, are you?” The man’s gaze fixed on him. His hand moved, and Trip backed away, elbowing him roughly. “Hey, ouch! Jeez, calm down, buddy!”
His hand continued its arc until it touched Trip’s knapsack, lightly. “I was just gonna say, you probably haven’t been here very long. So you probably don’t know where the fuck
you
are
,
either.”
you
are
,
either.”
He gave him a rueful smile, revealing multicolored teeth like tiles.
Trip stiffened. The guy reminded him of Leonard Thrope. “Fuck you,” he muttered. He spun and started into the alley, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
“Hey!
Hey
—”
Hey
—”
As footsteps rattled up behind him, he made a fist, and turned. Fighting was something else he’d never done, but he jabbed at the air breathlessly, his back colliding with a wall.
“Whoa! Hey, man—” The guy in the overcoat sidestepped, easily avoiding Trip’s lame throw, and raised one hand palm out in a placating gesture. “Calm the Christ down, will you! I was just gonna
say,
this is
not
really a part of town you want to go wandering around in by yourself, especially on New Year’s Eve.”
say,
this is
not
really a part of town you want to go wandering around in by yourself, especially on New Year’s Eve.”
As he spoke he moved carefully around Trip, holding his gaze as though talking him down from a ledge. “You look a little spooked, but I ain’t gonna jump you. Hell, if I was, I would’ve done it already.” He laughed, his mouthful of colored teeth gleaming. “Man, you’re the first person I seen in a while looks more like a tourist’n me—”
He plucked at Trip’s knapsack. “You gotta do better’n
that,
man! C’mon,” he urged, glancing to either end of the alley, “I can’t leave you here, and
I
ain’t staying.”
that,
man! C’mon,” he urged, glancing to either end of the alley, “I can’t leave you here, and
I
ain’t staying.”
The man shoved his hands in his coat pockets, balanced himself on a cement block, and cocked his head. When Trip said nothing, he shrugged. “Hey, suit yourself, man.” He jumped off the cinder block and strode toward the far end of the alley. Trip watched him, and, when the man stepped back out of the alley, followed at a safe distance.
Out on the street the man was waiting, perched on the curb. There were junked cars everywhere, and on the other side of the road shuttered storefronts of corrugated iron, yawning doorways, walls pasted over with stripped-off posters. Two bald children hitting something with a stick. A rangy dog nosed at foul bright green water pooling in the sidewalk. He remembered a statistic he had heard once before the glimmering, something about there being a hundred million homeless people in the world, and untold thousands in New York City alone.
But if anything, the city seemed emptier now than it had a few months before, when he’d been here with the blond girl. What had happened to everyone. Had they died? Been taken off to one of the life-enhancement centers that Jerry claimed were really prisons? He glanced at the man, whose clothes and incongruously amiable confidence disturbed Trip as much as the ravaged streets did, then looked the other way. A few blocks off he could see people crossing streets, the comforting yellow blur of a speeding cab.
“I think it’s that way.” The man tilted his head. “Yeah. There used to be this club down there.”
He flashed Trip a Technicolor grin. “Princess Volupine used to play there, and Alex Chilton. Ever see them?”
Trip shook his head.
“Well, I’m going.” The man started walking. “See you.”
Trip stayed where he was. The man glanced over his shoulder, lifted his hand, and waved. Trip marked where he went. About three blocks to the south, the man slowed, then crossed the street and continued for another block, turned, and disappeared down a passage overshadowed by a very ornate old building. Trip waited several minutes, to make certain the guy wasn’t going to pop back out again, and headed the same way he’d gone.
To either side buildings reared, their windows uniformly dark. A power line bearing a traffic signal sagged across the middle of the intersection. A man stood in the shelter of a cracked plastic awning, smoking a cigarette and chanting as to himself.
“. . .
cat ice hash acid ice cat . . .
”
cat ice hash acid ice cat . . .
”
Trip walked by quickly, keeping his head down. He passed a few people. Two young women wearing black, faces hidden behind cheap white masks. An older woman, also in black, whose eyes glowed plasmer silver. A man in cracked leathers, his face hidden behind a Mexican wrestler’s mask, cantered past on a white horse. A girl walking an enormous dog: all with enough purpose to their movements that Trip felt reassured. There was order, somewhere. There was food, somewhere, for humans and horses, too. Life was going on.
Which meant it could be going on at the Pyramid, where he had last seen the blond girl. He shoved salt-corded hair from his eyes and nodded determinedly, glanced at the skyline to see if there was anything like the apex of a golden triangle. No; but he’d find it. If he had to, he’d just take a cab, squander whatever cash Martin Dionysos had given him, and that would be that.
Because if he could get to the Pyramid, he could speak to Nellie Candry, beg her to help him find the girl so he could do what he should have done before, what he should have done in the first place. He would arrange to see her again, talk to her, spend time getting to know her. He’d contact John Drinkwater and figure out a way to take her home with him to Moody’s Island. He didn’t care about touring anymore, didn’t care about the band, or money, or singing, or God. All he wanted was to find the girl. All he wanted was to take her to the Fisher of Men First Harbor Church and marry her, the way he should have in the very beginning.
It didn’t take him long to realize that he was lost,
way
lost: meaning, he couldn’t find the man he had set out to follow, he didn’t see anything that said Marquee Moon, and he certainly didn’t see the Pyramid. He passed a small park, a woman selling water from a blue plastic jug. Behind its wrought-iron fence, the old brownstone building proved to be a branch of the New York Public Library. Wind stirred drifts of dead leaves and papers that had piled up in its corners. Broken scaffolding hung from an upper story, and the remains of a banner. A large cracked wooden sign, much defaced, proclaimed that due to funding cuts this branch was closed, effective June 1, 1997, and that the bulk of its collection had been transferred to the Ottendorfer Branch at Second Avenue.
way
lost: meaning, he couldn’t find the man he had set out to follow, he didn’t see anything that said Marquee Moon, and he certainly didn’t see the Pyramid. He passed a small park, a woman selling water from a blue plastic jug. Behind its wrought-iron fence, the old brownstone building proved to be a branch of the New York Public Library. Wind stirred drifts of dead leaves and papers that had piled up in its corners. Broken scaffolding hung from an upper story, and the remains of a banner. A large cracked wooden sign, much defaced, proclaimed that due to funding cuts this branch was closed, effective June 1, 1997, and that the bulk of its collection had been transferred to the Ottendorfer Branch at Second Avenue.
Still, the library didn’t look closed. A small group of people stood on the grand front steps, talking excitedly. They seemed to be about Trip’s age, wearing long patchwork coats—it must be a fashion—over the kind of slashed finery and jangling carpenter’s belts he associated with front-row seating at his shows; or conversely, dressed in very conservative, dumpy-looking men’s suits with plain white shirts and somber ties. No masks, no protective implants or headgear; shaved heads for boys and girls alike, or else long ostentatiously uncombed knotted hair streaked with garish colors. Plastic tubes around their necks that could hold water, or booze, God knows what. Club kids, Lucius used to call them, derisively; and now Trip thought of what the man had said earlier—Marquee Moon, the Chancery. Club names. He stared up at the library steps until a girl with torn red leggings and tunic looked down and smiled at him lazily. He started to smile back, had an anxious instant when he thought,
She knows who I am!
Imagining the devouring rush of fans, hands pulling at him—
She knows who I am!
Imagining the devouring rush of fans, hands pulling at him—
But no, she was just smiling, already she had turned back to the others. He saw that the pattern on her tunic was repeated on her flesh. The cloth had been torn so that one braless breast was completely exposed. Trip looked away and hurried on.
He crossed the street and entered the park. The wind tore at his anorak, bringing with it the garbage-dump scent of the river. The sky had deepened from violet to indigo. Rents of glittering silver and crimson showed in it, as though some unimaginable brilliance lay beyond. He remembered the planetarium show he had seen with the blond girl, her voice in the false night. The stars so firmly fixed in the sky, how immovable they had seemed, how lovely and bright and true. There were no stars now. There had been no stars for years. He stared up into a sky that seemed to turn slowly, clockwise, like a weather image of a hurricane, its central eye a deeper darkness that revealed nothing. He squinted, trying to remember another kind of sky; but not.
And he could not remember the stars; when he tried to picture them all that came to mind was the girl’s white face and burning eyes, and behind her a shining banner.
WHEN THE WHEEL OF TIME SHALL HAVE
COME TO THE SEVENTH MILLENNIUM,
THERE WILL BEGIN THE GAMES OF DEATH.
From the street came a roar, an answering chorus of shouts. Trip whirled to glimpse a car hurtling past, and then a second. From the shadow of a building children darted. They took off running, purposeful as birds in flight, shot down an alley, and disappeared.
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