The Grand Ballast (12 page)

“
Uh-huh. It’s already
gone.”

“
No.” Kilroy shook his head
and gently stroked Bode’s cheek. “Not at all.” He seemed less
manic, less…powerful than usual. It made Bode nervous, for some
reason.

Bode nudged Kilroy’s
shoulder with his nose. “You know that thing your brain does—if you
see a dog through a fence, you don’t see the whole dog, but your
brain takes clues from what it
can
see and fills in the rest?” He said the words to
the soft skin between Kilroy’s collarbone and shoulder. “That’s
what I want this new show to be. Glimpses of violence, of the worst
things we do to one another. Glimpses of kindness and—and—boredom
and desire and everything. And the viewer fills in the
rest.”

“
Hmm.”

What did
hmm
mean? “I worry a
little, though,” Bode admitted, looking up.

“
About what?”

“
Life experience. I
haven’t—I mean, what if I haven’t been through enough pain to make
people feel the ugly parts? I’ve had, like, the easiest
life.”

Kilroy pushed Bode’s hair back from his
forehead. “Would you say you’re obsessed with dance?”

“
Probably. I don’t really
think about anything else.”

Kilroy’s lips parted slightly. His breath
was warm against Bode’s cheek. “You can be passionate without being
obsessed. Being passionate about something or someone is inspiring,
joyful, perhaps. Obsession is something much darker, but it teaches
you every noteworthy human experience—love, bitterness, jealousy,
heartbreak, desire.”

“
Do you have an
obsession?”

“
People. I become obsessed
with extraordinary people.” Kilroy ran his thumb over Bode’s lower
lip. “As you may have noticed.”

“
Creep.” Bode butted
Kilroy’s chest gently, hiding his smile.

“
You should open yourself
up to it. Love without obsession is a very faint thing. Obsession
is what’s missing from the world now. It’s what will bring us
back.”

Bode snickered. “All right, Kilroy Ballast.”
He glanced up and placed a quick kiss on Kilroy’s chin. “Prepare
for me to become obsessed with you. I’ll watch your every move and
pine when you’re away and contemplate suicide when you’re angry
with me.”

Kilroy laughed too and tugged a hank of
Bode’s hair. “You have a very quaint idea of obsession,” he said
softly. “But it’s a start.”

3.

INSIDE THE HYDRA
ARENA

The Grand Ballast went on
hiatus after Warren. Kilroy’s car was unhitched from the rest of
the train in the rail yard and a conductor was hired to take Kilroy
and Bode east toward the Hydra Arena, while Mr. Lein stayed behind
to watch over the other performers and get a doctor for
LJ.

Kilroy and Bode sat stiff
and silent, like lovers after a quarrel. The car barreled through
the night, and Bode tried to stay alert despite the Haze dragging
on his mind.

Kilroy asked, suddenly,
“What were you? Before you came to work for me?”

“
A dancer,” Bode replied
immediately. He hadn’t forgotten that.

“
And?”

Bode glared at him. “I
danced in a theater. I didn’t appreciate my parents. I thought they
were dull.” Bode’s throat closed. He wanted, abruptly and with a
brutal urgency, another chance to love them.

The car glided on. Bode
found the air in it unnaturally thick.

“
A murderer.” Kilroy spoke
the words so quietly they drifted smoke-like into the sound of the
wheels along the tracks. “Don’t forget.”

“
Gimme a
cigarette.”

Kilroy rose slowly. Walked
over to Bode and stood beside him. He appeared to study the dark
window with its green velvet curtains. Scuffed one shoe against the
rug. Bode tensed, shying back as Kilroy’s hand came up. But Kilroy
only reached into his pocket, took out a case of cigarettes, and
lit one for himself. “No,” Kilroy said shortly. “I’m not inclined
to share.”

They didn’t speak again for
many miles. A specter joined them in the car, drifting about
restlessly. A thin ghost, frail and uncommanding. Bode tried to
ignore it.

The car stopped suddenly.
Kilroy looked puzzled. He went to the window and peered out. The
specter had vanished. “Oh my.” Kilroy went to the door and pulled
it open. “We’ve encountered an obstacle.”

Bode followed Kilroy
outside.

A young woman was crouched
beside the tracks up ahead. She was using a can of spray paint to
write something on the grass. All around her, white numbers
glowed.

4717. 2022. 1025. 2176.
3571905. 6271906.

Bode could hear the woman
muttering to herself. “These were my numbers; these were my
numbers, and these were the things that mattered.” Over and over as
she spray-painted a clumsy
3
on the edge of the track.

“
That’s very sad.” Kilroy
glanced back at Bode. “Don’t you think so?”

Bode couldn’t
answer.

“
Hey!” Kilroy called to the
girl. “You’ll want to move back until we’ve passed.

The girl didn't acknowledge
them, and after a moment Kilroy stepped back into the
car.

Bode thought about running. But he was in
the middle of nowhere, with no food and not enough clothing for the
coldness of the night, and no sense of how close he was to
civilization. Then he thought of the debt something hooked his
gut—regret and shame. The most effective chains were simple. They
were guilt and ghosts.

He walked over to the girl.
Watched her paint. He could see tears glistening on her face, could
hear the hitches in her breath. He closed his eyes and let strains
of memory drift through him like music. He’d spent his first few
days with the Grand Ballast forcing his fear into a cold fury. And
one night, he’d broken. Had gone behind the train while the others
were passing gin around the fire. Had crouched in the grass,
vomited, and cried. Had missed his mother, who’d never learned the
truth about what he’d done. Nobody knew but Kilroy and
Bode.

He shivered his way through
some in-between place and thought about what he had craved most
these last few years. Forgiveness. How he had wanted to pay, wanted
to suffer, but only in theory. What he had truly wanted was for
Kilroy to stick his arm into the slick, carnivorous muck of the
betrayal that stood between them, and pull out the threads of good
things: mercy and desire, the whole history of their time together,
too strong and too pure to have been ruined by a second’s poor
thinking.

“
Hey,” he said gently to
the girl.

The girl paused in her
chanting, but she didn’t look up.

“
Can you step back for a
few minutes?” he asked. “We’re going to pass now. We don’t want you
to get hurt.”

She didn’t respond, and he
put a hand out to touch her shoulder.

She whirled as soon as he
touched her, and gave a terrified screech, backing away. “Shh,”
Bode said. “Shh, it’s all right.”

He wasn’t sure what else to
do for her, and at least she was a few feet from the tracks now.
She gawked at him.

He got in the car, which
creaked as it started forward.

The specter was back,
standing near Kilroy’s bed. He looked at Bode with a horrible face
that was cracked and oozing shadows. His skin peeled and the strips
of it quivered, and his eyes were a haunted mess. Glass shards
stuck out of his middle like a vile skirt.

He watched Bode as the moon
raced among the trees. When Bode stood, the ghost’s eyes
followed.

***

The Hydra Arena wasn’t
nearly as impressive as Bode had expected. It looked like a
leaning, dripping cake—uneven concrete tiers and paint that had
dribbled down the walls in ribbons. At the entrance was an archway,
glittering turquoise with gold letters: WELCOME TO THE HYDRA
ARENA.

The stands were nearly
full, though the show didn’t start for half an hour. Bode estimated
the place seated around five thousand. He gazed around the arena
and noticed little things—a popcorn box flattened and grayed with
shoe grime, a soda vendor with flies pestering his mess of
dreadlocks. He got a knowing stare from an old woman with a pierced
lip and cheeks draped like stage curtains. She blew a small bubble
with her gum.

The pool was aboveground,
circular, maybe thirty feet in diameter. Its sides were glass, and
the gold muntins between the panes looked like the tension casings
on a drum. Spectators in the first few rows could watch the show
through the glass, and everyone else got an aerial view of the
action. Four massive video screens offered alternate
vantages.

Once again, the Haze was
failing to make the world blur, and once again he wasn’t sure if
that was good or bad. He kept surfacing from what should have been
an unbroken dream, gasping in confusion, seeking a shore that
seemed just out of reach.

I want to see. I want to
know.

He and Kilroy had box seats
five rows up, so they could see the top of the pool, but they could
also watch through the glass if they chose. Kilroy had dressed Bode
in a suit. Literally dressed him, positioning him like a doll as
he’d put on his socks, buttoned his shirt, tied his tie. Bode had
endured the humiliation quietly, pretending his mind was
adrift.

Kilroy had his program open
and was leafing through it. Bode glanced at the list of acts and
was drawn to the finale title: THE BOY OF THE WATER IN HIS LAST ACT
ON EARTH.

“
Emily McCullough.” Kilroy
pointed to the name of the Hydra Arena’s director. “I knew her,
once upon a time. I didn’t realize we’d made similar career
choices.”

Many people recognized
Kilroy and came to shake his hand. Just as many recognized Bode.
Bode shook hands numbly, signed autographs, and posed for pictures
until the show began.

The opening act was a
synchronized swimming number. It featured two men and two women.
The girls’ bodies had been painted red and the boys’ bodies blue,
and when they linked in the center of the pool to form a rotating
pinwheel, the wheel turned purple, and plumes of paint streamed
from the performers’ skin, inking the turquoise water. It was quite
impressive, though Bode’s thoughts kept drifting. A dark bird
streaked across the gray sky. He heard laughter in the row above
him.

“
Really, there is nothing
inspired about the sex,” Kilroy remarked as they watched the two
pairs fuck in unison. “If it weren’t taking place in the water, it
would be nothing unusual at all.”

The other spectators seemed
bored too—fanning themselves with programs and chatting through the
performance.

The second act was a fairy
tale in which a villager set out with a net to catch a mermaid. The
young woman playing the mermaid wore a tail that had such detailed
scale work and moved so realistically Bode wondered how it could be
a costume. But once again, the sex was dull. Bode ended up looking
away for most of it.

An unpleasant third act
featured water boxing, and the crowd paid more attention to this
one. Two young men punched each other until blood streamed from
their lips and noses into the water, where each drop broke apart
and spread slowly. Bode curled his lip, dread warping itself into
anger as cartilage smashed and men grunted and blood whorled around
them. The water was up to their chests, and they couldn’t dart
forward or back. Sprays burst upward with each arm
movement.

Bode watched the close up
shots on the video screen. One of the men staggered back with a
splash as the other punched him in the ear. The puncher had a
tattoo on his cheek of a wolf dragging its trap-caught hind leg.
Bode tensed.
Don’t hit him. Stop hitting
him, you fucker.

“
Bode,
sit
back
,
and don’t snarl.” Kilroy nudged him.

Bode turned toward Kilroy,
still snarling.
I hate you. You fucker, I
hate you.
Faced the action
again.

The first man dragged the
second to the edge of the pool, to the ladder. Pushed him up so
that his upper body was out of the water, hanging over the edge,
then stood on the ladder and fucked him.
It’s nothing. It looks like nothing. It’s boring, and
whatever people think they’re hungry for is not what they really
want. They’re lonely, and they’re afraid of what this would look
like done with love, and so they watch it done in the water
instead.

His stomach got tighter as
more blood stained the water.

Is this what I look like?
When they fuck me? When he hits me?

Does it look like
nothing?

Moments later, mercifully,
the Haze came to the rescue. Parked itself like a chariot of cloud
in front of Bode, and he climbed into the softness. He watched the
end of the boxing match without feeling much of anything, and then
zoned out through the next few acts.

Eventually, he was aware
of the announcer’s voice: “
Here it is! The
moment
we’ve all been waiting
forrrr…
”