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Dangerous Conversationalist
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 Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:33 am
When Genie came home from work she fortuitously trapped Lola in the stairwell to Basil's loft when she opened the front door. An occupational hazard of her apartment's layout she might have noticed sooner if she ever had company over. She came bearing pizza, the box flat on her palm and balanced with the (admittedly less-impressive) but casual skill of a basketball on the tip of a finger. Lola helped herself to a slice almost faster than Genie could set it on the counter, explaining under her breath that she'd missed lunch.
Genie wasn't surprised. Lola still hadn't completely shed her memories of dorm-life. She didn't keep a meal-schedule and just seemed to graze throughout the day when it was convenient, binging on whole boxes of potatoes, pasta, and rice and somehow never gaining a pound. She was one of those people that would hold her pee until it "went away" if it meant she didn't have to get off the couch. She painted new eyeliner over her old smudgy eyeliner from the night before. She let her trash pile up and regularly pulled all-nighters, working eight-hour shifts at the hair-salon running on fumes.
Genie was sure there was some untreated depression in there for flavor, but didn't linger on the thought. She shucked off her jacket, making her way toward her bedroom to change into her lazy clothes. Lola attempted to follow her, presumably to keep her company. Most women didn't think anything of changing in front of each other, but Genie was quick to kick the door behind her in an increasingly common fit of self-consciousness. Lola didn't seem deterred. She leaned against the other side of the door while Genie hiked her shirt over her head.
"I hope you don't mind. I noticed you guys had started painting the upstairs so me and Basil finished the job. He's kind of a mess, but I'm sure you can hose him down tonight."
Genie hiked her knee to shorten the distance between her hand and the sock she was trying to take off. She lost her balance, stomping down the uplifted foot and grabbing the doorknob.
"Okay?" Lola called.
"Yeah."
She plopped down on the edge of her bed and pulled off the other sock. At that moment a group of clouds passed over the sun, darkening the room into a preview of the night. Even though it was still light outside she tugged the cord on her bedside lamp.
"You guys painted, huh? Did he have fun?"
Lola laughed brightly, "Are you kidding? He loved it. He didn't want to use the brush though. He kept wanting to like, paint the wall with his hands." An invisible shrug, "I mean, it's whatever. I just painted over what he did with my brush so it all evened out."
Genie smiled to herself. She felt sorry to have missed it, "Yeah? Well, thanks. Is he still upstairs?"
"Mhmm. I've got him picking up the newspaper. I didn't have to tell him to do it either. He's so helpful."
Genie felt a warm little flop in her tummy. It probably shouldn't have made her as happy as it did. Basil was naturally helpful, but in a oblivious, docile sort of way. A self-awareness of needing to be taught, guided, and led more than anything more altruistic she could have fostered in him. Still, it was nice to hear someone compliment him.
The women prattled up the stairs in modest tones, Genie ahead of Lola. When Genie stepped into the loft, she laughed once and suddenly fell quiet, stopping so quickly in place that Lola bumped into her. Genie did not move her head. Her eyes slowly swept the room. The warm sense of calm she had come home with had now surrendered to the same eerie chill she had felt only that morning.
The room had been... rotated.
While of course the physical dimensions of the room were just as they had always been, she observed with mounting unease the way that every item, every piece of furniture had been moved to the adjacent wall with a startling accuracy.
Although her memory was not so immaculate that she could have accounted for where all of these things had been before, it was easy to recognize the displacement of items that were familiar to her, and assume a pattern. The poster-bed, once against the north wall, was now inexplicably against the east, and so on. The free-standing towel rack modified for clothes, the laundry hamper, the night table, the braided rug by his bedside. Even the scant few items on the shelves, and strangely enough, items that had been disregarded on the floor.
Nothing had been rearranged or organized. Nothing had been moved in the interest of convenience, efficiency, or personal preference. For whatever inconceivable reason, the whole room had just been turned, as if on a pivot. And the effect was unbelievably creepy.
Sidling around Genie, Lola continued towards Basil, who made no effort to explain. He just stood there, wadding up and shoving damp newspapers into a garbage bag with a toneless hum on his lips. He was speckled with red paint and sheathed from the elbows down like sinister vambraces. If Lola were aware of the change either, she didn't show it. She went to him and patted him on the back, quietly praising him for doing a good job. Genie felt the urge to warn her that she shouldn't walk up behind him like that, but was finding it very difficult to form words.
Basil looked at Lola with a gentle smile of recognition. At that time he noticed Genie was with them also, facing her with an even bigger smile and a child-like wave. Genie mouth attempted to return it, but it didn't come off right.
Ordinarily this was where Genie would have went to him for a hug, but her feet were frozen. Basil picked up on her hesitation in an uncharacteristic moment of thoughtfulness. His expression turned quizzical, then something that defied easy description. Not wanting to put suspicions into his head, Genie's feet seemed to move on their own. She trotted to him, admittedly too quickly. His eyes rounded at the movement, and she felt him tense into the brief hug she gave him. He didn't hiss or bite, though. Just tolerated the squeeze and waited for her to release him.
There was no mistaking he was peeved. He turned from her to continue his work, with Lola gazing at her with what seemed to be condolence. She motioned with her head so they could talk downstairs. I am the best me I am. In the dark.
They both spared a glance at the stairwell to the loft and retreated into the livingroom.
"Eesh. Got a little cold in there, huh?"
Genie nodded, thrusting her hands into the deep pockets of her flannel pajama bottoms. She wondered for a moment why pajamas even came with pockets.
"Yeah. It's been kind of a weird day. I don't know what my problem is."
Lola shrugged, "I don't know. Baz is kind of touchy sometimes." Whether she was excusing or accusing Basil, her tone left unclear.
"He uh... kinda had a hissy fit earlier, actually,"
Genie's face implored her to continue.
"I was sitting on the couch, right? Lookin' at some magazine, check my horoscope or whatever, and Basil comes from downstairs. Has that big moony look on his face like he always does, like he's happy to see me. I think everything's fine. He comes over and sits on the other side of the couch, reaches for the remote. We watch a little morning TV, still no trouble. He was laughing, telling me some weird story he made up?"
"About twenty minutes go by. The remote is sitting between us, and I don't think anything of it. I reach over to take it and start surfing the channels once the show's over."
She paused for emphasis, leaning forward, "Genie, I felt him tense up from where I was sitting, it was weird. Like he was pissed off that I took it. But he's still cool. Doesn't say anything."
Genie started to feel the first pangs of dread. Lola didn't seem to be especially upset or rattled by her retelling, continuing an easy frankness, "Well, okay. So you know how sometimes you're changing a channel, and the one you pick for some stupid damn reason is like, a million times louder than the channel you were on?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, I put it on FX, right? And there's this really rowdy action movie on—Or, I thought it was. It was one of those "behind the scenes" things—Anyway, it was really loud. That didn't seem to bother him, but Basil sees me jump, and he loses it. Like I scared him."
There was a stringent pause between them, Genie cupping her mouth with her hand, "What do you mean, 'lost it'? He didn't hurt you or anything, did he?"
Lola waved her hand nonchalantly, "Nah. It wasn't exactly like that, but," It was then that Basil made a strange noise. It was either a cough or a clearing of the throat. Lola glanced over her shoulder at him, and made a cutting motion with her hand as if to say, "We'll talk about this later." Genie nodded.
With a second, preemptive glance over her shoulder, it was then that Lola lifted the edge of her top to produce a thin stack of envelopes from the elastic band of her pants, bound together with a hair-tie. She handed them to Genie, though when she took it, Lola kept her fingers pinched on the opposite end.
"Anyway, that's not important. I found these under a stack of boxes."
She glanced again, "They aren't opened or anything, and they're addressed to you. I figured you'd want to get a look at them." Genie nodded appreciatively and quickly slid the letters inside her jacket. When she looked up again, she saw that Basil was watching them, though Genie couldn't help but feel as if his eyes were only intent on her. He was silent and unreadable. It dawned on her that Basil had exceptional hearing, and that perhaps, he already knew he was being discussed. She knew in her heart she had nothing to feel guilty about. They were rightfully her letters! She was not in the wrong. Yet something in his eyes still cut to the quick of her. She didn't like the thought of someone who she could not easily keep secrets from, though she supposed that how well he could hear was irrelevant, without the tools to listen. She wondered if he had seen her put the letters in her jacket. In her mind, she tried to counter it. So what if he had seen! Wasn't she the one in charge?
She hadn't realized she had been holding her breath until Basil shrugged and looked away. Her hand had been jammed in her pocket, fiddling nervously with some loose change. After smelling her palm, she quickly regretted it. Lola hadn't detected the shift in Genie's mood, talking now in her loudest conversational voice, "So, how was work?" Basil watched as Genie escorted her down the stairs.
"It was okay." It was better than okay.
"Well that's good." A pleasantry.
Lola emerged into the kitchen before Genie so that she could retrieve the coat she had draped over the back of a chair. Genie closed the accordion door behind her, "Listen, thanks so much for watching him."
"Hey, no trouble. He's a riot."
Genie laughed awkwardly, "He's something."
"Mm," Lola muttered as she put her jacket on, preparing for the constant cool of the hallway. Then, Genie made a sound as if to stop her, encouraging Lola to look at her in inquiry. She began carefully, "Listen, I really wanna talk about whatever happened with you and Basil this morning, but we'll have t'save it for another time." Lola agreed.
"But, I've got to ask. Did you notice anything... weird, today? I mean, really weird." She wasn't sure why she felt the need to emphasize. As soon as she had initiated this naked interrogation, she questioned what there was to be gained by it other than the affirmation of observations which only she seemed to think were important. At what point did "following your gut" and being overly suspicious create a clearly marked fork in the road of reasonable doubt? Clearly if anything aside from Lola's confrontation with Basil had happened, it would have been discussed if not in the same breath, than surely now and without prompting.
Lola tried to think, now seeming impatient and eager to get home. Not in any incriminating sort of way, but in the way that implied she had things to do and didn't see how this was important. Regardless, she gave it an unsatisfactory amount of thought before shaking her head. Genie pressed her, "Come on, really? Okay, I guess I'll just come straight at it. Basil's room?" She hoped to lead Lola from there. Being an artsy type, Genie had assumed that Lola would have known something about it, or even have perpetrated the move herself for some incomprehensible "artist's" reason. She was aware that to paint the wall, Lola would have had to have moved the furniture a bit, but the move would not have been so dramatic. The move had seemed deliberate, and she was intent to know the purpose. Still, Lola shook her head, mumbling.
"It didn't look like that this morning. It's all... different!"
Lola was remorseful, touching Genie's shoulder, "Oh my God, the walls? I'm so sorry, did you not want me to do that? s**t. Well, maybe next week when you have the time we can try and paint it back how it was or something."
Genie felt like she could scream, pushing Lola's arm away, "No you moron! The furniture! It got all twisted around! It didn't look like that this morning!"
Lola took a step away, holding her coat protectively around herself. Her silence implied she still knew nothing, a fact Genie couldn't reconcile, "I mean... You didn't hear anything? You didn't see him moving the furniture around? For Christ's sake that bed alone took three guys to get it up there, how is he doing it?"
Lola shook her head timidly, "I... I don't... I need to get home, hon. I'll call you tomorrow, alright?"
Genie excused her from the room with a yawning sigh, taking a seat in one of the kitchen chairs with her head in her hands. Lola slipped quietly out the door, heart racing.
Twenty minutes later Basil presented himself, a bag of paint-soaked newspapers in each hand. He unceremoniously dropped them in the kitchen, knowing they would be dealt with, and turned to return upstairs before Genie stopped him. "You shouldn't be around the fumes, hon. You'll sleep down here tonight."
He nodded, pushing a sporadic "Fft!" between his teeth as he redirected himself to the living room. Genie walked to her computer desk, and produced a small manila folder from one of the drawers. From it, she removed some papers that she then handed to Basil. He didn't accept them right away, Genie shaking the pile at him, "Here. Why don't you practice your handwriting?"
Basil seemed slightly annoyed by the request, but did not resist her. He asked irritably for a pencil, to which Genie pointed out that there was one on the table in front of him. Her hands dived back into her pockets.
"Hey. You've been all crabby since I got home. You wanna tell me what's the matter?" She knew what the matter was, and so did he, though his interpretation of the situation was likely to be clearer. Basil pretended not to acknowledge her, resentfully scribbling the fat loops and triumphant arches that defined both capital and lowercase A's.
"Well, you don't have to do 'em all. Just finish that first page, and you can watch whatever y'want. "
Basil's pencil briefly stopped moving, though he did not meet her eyes. Given another moment, he continued writing, now with a renewed concentration. Genie lingered there beside him for a while longer, before turning into the bedroom where she could have a moment to unwind.
--
Genie wouldn't touch the letters again until bed-time. She wanted to read them privately, and had other responsibilities that demanded her attention. When she had felt that Basil had again warmed to her, if only slightly, she guided him into the bathroom for a shower.
In no time at all, he had made the observation that the nozzles were somehow correlated to the temperature of the water, and demonstrated this understanding by twisting the hot faucet until Genie had to forcibly yank him out of the stall before he scalded. Tonight, she had carefully tested the water to his satisfaction and her peace of mind.
Once she'd separated from her inhibitions, she'd quickly gotten used to it. It wasn't that much harder than washing a dog. She only needed to mind his face, and not move too quickly with the shower-head. She was charmed by the resonant groan he summoned when the spray first drenched him, collapsing his hair and creeping down his skin. He made it clear he preferred it to be hot. He liked the bathroom misty and humid when he got out.
The bathroom had very poor ventilation, and Genie sometimes found it difficult to breathe in the jungle mist. She held his wrist with one hand and moved the nozzle with the other, taking comfort in the fact that for just a while, his pointed frozen hands would become soft and mammalian. Below him, pink water coiled down the drain.
When bathing him, she made it clear that he would need to start doing this for himself one day, introducing him gradually to the concepts of washing his hair or scrubbing himself with a cloth. She'd been sitting on the toilet-lid when Basil had inadvertently worked some of the conditioner into his eye. She had taught him how to hold his head back when lathering his hair, but for whatever reason, he still felt compelled to rub his eyes with un-rinsed hands faster than Genie could call out to stop him.
She nursed his irritation with gentle dabs of a warm washcloth, asking if he'd learned his lesson. He replied with a grunt, bubbles snorting through his nose. The whole thing felt like so jejune and sitcomy. One of those what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you moments.
Despite these obstacles, some in communication and some in delicacy, she had to admit, as he was merely a floating torso, she recognized this would be the easiest bath-time would ever be for them. When later parts of him began to develop, she couldn't begin to imagine. Hopefully Basil would be more independent by then and whatever he should do in the bathroom would cease to be any of Genie's business.
After fitting Basil in a cotton sweatshirt, she led him to the couch and put a test pattern on the TV. The high-frequency whine was intolerable for humans, but for Basil it was like the ocean setting on a white-noise machine. He fell asleep in minutes.
She let out a deep sigh, wiped her still-damp forearms on her trousers, and took a seat on her bedside where the stack of envelopes still waited. First, she checked to make sure the door was firmly closed behind her before she plucked a bobby pin from the night-table drawer to use as a letter-opener. She slit the top of the first envelope and removed its contents.
They were written on spiral-bound notebook paper, with the telling skirts of brittle ruffles. Unfolding it, the handwriting was familiar. She rested her elbows on her knees as she read, holding the sheet in one hand and touching her fingernail of her surviving pinky to her lip with the other. The voice of its writer was one of thinly veiled remorse. It insisted upon itself paragraph after paragraph in ways that were both redundant and revealing. There were four letters in all, and what each increasingly lacked in length, grew in sentiment.
The last only read, "C'mon little sister. Call me."
Her heart raw and open, Genie wasn't sure of what she felt, folding the letters neatly and sliding them back into their deflowered envelopes. She found herself clouded by questions that were sure to make this night's sleep a difficult one. Why would Basil hide what he hadn't even taken the time to read himself? Was he implicated in some way? Did his motive have something to do with the rearranging of the furniture? And why would Mickey choose to reach out to her in this way instead of calling the house or sending an email? Was he not able to? Was Lola involved, somehow?
She steepled her fingers underneath her chin, closing her eyes. She wracked her brain for answers, though she quickly abandoned the search when all roads led to nowhere. She decided if she wanted to find out, she would just call Mickey tomorrow and settle this as he wished. Like an adult woman.
In the livingroom, Genie could hear Basil talking in his sleep.
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Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:54 am
Why that was necessary she didn't know.
Genie and her brothers had been uprooted a thousand times over, native to nowhere. The better part of her early childhood had been spent inside of a car, tumbling from state to state with all their worldly possessions strapped to the roof rack. Their all-important "bathroom bags" crammed against their legs, scarred from thorny switches, with clean underwear and socks and travel-shampoos in zip-lock bags.
Meals were rigidly planned, and deviation would not be tolerated, her mother attending to them as they washed their hair and changed their clothes in gas-station bathrooms, clean and fresh-faced in time to watch the sun rising.
Toby, the youngest, had not been privy to this lifestyle, his presence announced only months after they had found a place to settle. To this day Genie maintained an appropriate level of skepticism as to the nature of his origin, when it had seemed so implausible that their parents would have found a spare moment to conceive him. To this day Lionel called him the "mortgage baby".
As Genie's father muscled through the star-spangled night nearly four in the morning and aiming to reach county by 0600, she had found herself with very little to do but watch out of the window. Glancing at her father's then-broad shoulders and the close crop of his graying head, she knew that he would be totally, blessedly immersed in the drive. He never appeared to notice or care whether she was awake, far beyond her world, and she barred from his.
She would then turn her eyes just so slightly, to see first that her mother and brothers were all asleep, which they were. The window would be cold against her cheek, barely squeezing one eye closed. Out there, an indescribable sense of peace and contentment fell over the land, little families of houses gathering together for warmth in the distance. Never so much as a porch-light on. At this hour, everyone was asleep but her, and every night, it was a tiny miracle.
She had developed a keen eye for the America inside America. Supped at too many 24-hour greasy spoons, visited many of their questionable facilities, almost always unisex, and been made interesting propositions by the vagrants and truckers inside them. Not ever among them had she ever seen another ******** Delectable Derek's to warrant an original, and somehow, this made her feel cheated.
She rubbed her eyes, empty. Across the street she could see a public garden with its flowering shrubs and voluptuous Granada roses. Basil would have loved it, but recently two peafowl had been introduced to its gated bounty, and she could not run the risk of creating a rivalry between her prowling predator and an expensive, foul-tempered bird protecting its roost. Not even dogs were allowed to be walked on the flagstone pathways for fear of trauma, physical or emotional, to the birds.
When she had first moved to Durem, she had had her first date here with a paper-pusher from the document destruction company. A toothless cog with no future, but dimples like pinched bread. It had ended with sex (she remembered laughing inappropriately at inopportune times), but the future had looked grim the moment she had relieved herself from the damp, tangled sheets, watching him through sleep-crimped eyes as he guarded the texts on his phone in a way that made her too suspicious to bother. When all was said and done, she didn't have quite the same enthusiasm for unpacking that she had arrived with. A few breakables did not survive, nor did the Granada rose he had wrenched out of the bush for her, which she'd dropped with some small ceremony out of her living-room window, watching it spiral onto the sidewalk below. She remembered the way Harriet had pulled her into a motherly hug smelling of bengay and lavender soap, asking if she had learned a lesson.
I am in the big room, eating the wind from the hair conditioner. It is cold, but nice, like how Genie's ice cream must taste. It smells cold.
She was partial to this place because the tea was cheap and helped her wind down in the evenings almost as well as liquor. By the time she started the drive home she could barely keep her eyes open. But not this time.
I hear a noise outside the door, past the kitchen where Genie puts her shoes. I feel the noise in my skin, and my skin gets bumpy. The scuffling interrupts me when I eat. That makes me angry.
After having finally evaluated the letters, she had waited four days before calling Mickey to arrange this lunch-meeting. Well, not so much wait, as procrastinate. Always, before sliding underneath her sheets (being sure to add into her prayers the almost perfunctory wish that Basil should sleep peacefully and uninterrupted by the impulse to roam) she assured herself that she would call him first thing in the morning. But a full night's sleep went a long way towards affecting a decision to be made the morning after, as she had gleaned from her encounter with the dimpled paper-pusher. A decision to be made "in the light of day" when everything was apparently clearer than when emotions were fresh and still settling. It struck her as almost funny the list of things she added to that promise as she shut her eyes. "I'm gonna call Mickey. I'm gonna get this s**t done. And then I'm gonna finish the dishes, drop off my checks, and talk to Phil about getting that wasp's nest out of the terrace so people could start having barbecues and stuff out there. Right after my goddamn danish, this is gonna happen."
She envisioned herself doing these things, envisioned Basil being quiet and well-behaved as she did them. Or at least, somewhat predictable. Able to premeditate and correct him in a single act; crack the whip as though he were a man-eating lion in a tent. Hi-yah! Back to the Arms, Basil! Hi-yah!
I open the door. A small thing is outside, sitting on the floor. Pushing its body against the walls. It has hair that is gray, and five legs. Four on the ground, and a long one that waves. It looks alive. It moves as if it is.
At first, she hadn't seen Mickey come in, preoccupied by a slew of distractions taking place elsewhere. Lost in the certain haziness that came with waiting for someone much too long. He might have walked right past the front window without her noticing, dust-muddied in the corners. She grimaced at the decorative farm animals that she assumed were meant to inspire hunger.
She ran her finger across the tines of her fork. It was then that a bulky shape entered into her periphery. She felt as though initially Mickey was happy to see her in person. He might have even smiled, though realizing he had been noticed, chose to straighten his back in a decidedly self-righteous condition. After shedding his jacket, he put his arms together, forearm on top of forearm, and draped the coat over them. He only ever did that when he was feeling smug about something. It was mirrored in his voice, a hoarse utterance. "Can I sit?"
Genie did not look at him, waving vaguely across from her, "Go ahead."
Is it a leg, or a head with no face? I want to touch it. Maybe it does not talk to me, because it has no eyes to see me with. I'll touch it, so that it knows I'm here.
Mickey grunted loudly as he lowered himself into the booth and shimmeyed towards the window. There were times she saw a great deal of their father in him, as he too, grew noisier with age. Without asking, he reached across the table, helping himself to Genie's hashbrown; A spongy loaf of potato and grease, the smell of which alone could either turn her stomach, or inspire her to reminisce. He knew she didn't particularly care for hashbrowns, and so felt confidant taking it. For whatever reason, this got on Genie's nerves. It was almost a challenge, more felt than perceived. She felt herself drawn inexorably into a conversation they weren't having yet. Feeling insecure and pissy that Mickey would already be doing these little mind-games when he had communicated something so entirely different in his letters.
Maybe he had gotten second thoughts between delivering the letters, and now. Maybe he had agreed to come with the intention of telling her off for good. Maybe she should brace herself... Taking a hashbrown was a harmless offense, certainly. Maybe she was reading too much into things.
I try to touch the leg, but the small thing runs. It runs very fast. I can not let it leave without knowing.
Ignoring the napkin dispenser, Mickey wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, until realizing that the grease would not so easily dry, or be absorbed. Grimacing at the shiny patch on his skin, he wiped it a second time on his trousers. He managed with little difficulty to flag a waitress and request coffee. She walked away on the scuffing of sensible flats.
I'm looking in the hall. I can hear the small thing. Its heart, and four ground-legs. I hear it. I want it.
Genie nursed from her tea, "Not gonna eat anything?" He shrugged, staring at her with lazy, slow-blinking eyes. "You can finish my eggs, I guess." A poor opening bid. Conversation was difficult to start up when she had the feeling that if she were to open her mouth at all, a frog or a roach would drop out. The waitress had returned quickly. In one hand, she carried the brimming mug, and in the other, balanced carefully on her fanned fingertips, was a small cartridge of sugar packets, some disposable cups of jam, and a roll of utensils. She set each of these things down in succession, being careful not to allow the coffee to dribble over the edges with a steady, practiced hand.
She asked in a quick voice if Mickey needed some time to think about his order. Mickey replied he would not be eating, deflecting any attempt to persuade him. The waitress eventually accepted defeat but did not remove the utensils, leaving them to sit awkwardly on the table as an indicator of a meal that would not be arriving.
When she left, Genie frowned."You could've been nicer to her."
"I was nice."
I want to sleep... I'm sleeping in the hall, where there are no hair conditioners. I feel warm.
"You blew her off. You worked in restaurants before, you know how hard it is."
"You can't wait to start on me, can you?"
"Whatever." She said coolly.
They labored through another period of prolonged silence, Genie sipping at her tea, if only to appear as disinterested as she wasn't. Having finished his coffee prematurely, Mickey reached so as to slide Genie's plate of eggs across the table. He did not section them with her fork, but rather, ate them whole. It was all teeth and jaw. Disgusting.
Genie enunciated, "If you were going to take the eggs, you were hungry. You should have gotten something."
I can hear it in the elephant-vater. On the top. It cries, and the noise sounds like a person. I know that its in there, but I can't get to it... I can only hear it. The space is too small. I wait for it to come out by itself.
"You offered. You want to let food waste?"
"I'm just saying."
"Genie, stop." He said in a low voice. Mickey tended to mumble and it drove her crazy. He did it because there was always the possibility that she would only hear half of what he said, and the situation felt easier to control. But Genie had heard him. She stiffened at the reprimand, her eyes bright and cold.
Mickey noticed, but remained calm.
"Maybe we should get out of here, since I already finished my food and you're not gonna order."
"I'm not gettin' up. I just got here." He said evenly. He almost seemed to be ignoring her, as if she were a waste of time.
"Lazy a**."
That had gotten his attention.
"I came here from a job." He said petulantly, knowing that he hadn't.
"Where?" She challenged. <******** you, that's where!"
"Why are you acting this way?"
"Because--" He stopped, lowering his voice in realizing that they were starting to attract unwanted attention,"Because you're still the snotty, self-absorbed brat you were when I left."
"When I threw you out."
"I said stop."
Any moment now he would be getting up to leave. It was only then that she felt the desperation to keep him seated when his departure became a very real possibility. She would not see him again for weeks, maybe more. Hurt his pride once, shame on her. Hurt it again, and... well.
It benefited her to feel that her rudeness was stemming from fatigue; A physical and spiritual weariness. She hadn't taken the car, the diner a sensible power-walk away. The wind had been a bracing current against her cheeks, filling her with health. Lately, she had just felt so tired. So displaced.
When she had arrived, seating herself at the booth near the window, she had begun to cough uncontrollably. The deep, awful coughing that came from her chest, not the back of the throat. When the tea arrived, she drank it rapidly. Desperately. She then spat something hard and awful into her napkin. Something yellowy-green she had quickly crumpled and abandoned at the corner of the table. It was still there, even as Mickey was gathering his things.
The napkin terrified her, and so did the prospect of going one day longer without the kind words and simple assurances of her brother. She had had enough.
She leaned slightly, as if to exit the booth and block Mickey's exit. "Mickey, you stop. I don't like this."
Mickey said nothing, sensing a vulnerability. He settled back into his squishy vinyl seat, as did Genie.
"I don't want this pissing contest any more."
He seemed to agree, although he felt uncomfortable with her phrasing. Men pissed, women "excused themselves."
"Yeah." He mumbled again, with what seemed like great effort. He started to feel ridiculous. When he'd agonized over those letters, his words were resonate. They were an extension of himself, written with purpose and blood. Projected by guilt. Everything he had said, he meant. Now those same feelings left him stunted and silent.
Genie picked up the lull, "I know I was really shitty to you when you came over. I'm happy to see you. Really."
I'm standing the hall. It has been a long time, I think. I want the small thing to come out.
She put her hands under the table so Mickey wouldn't see them tremble. "You were shitty, I was shitty. We were both shitty. I can admit that. But are we really gonna ignore each other until one of us decides who was shittier? I really miss you and I want us to be okay. I want us to get out of here and try to talk about what happened." She knew she was saying too much.
Two headstrong heartbeats quickened with feelings of shame, and then anxiousness, waiting for those two little words to appear like a party-guest much too late. Both of them wondered if the other felt no such doubt of their convictions. Their relationship was the consistent exchange of barbs and cynical observations, masking a fear of judgment. Masking a fear of losing control, which they had already done tenfold.
Genie's large eyes lifted from the table. It felt as if she would be the first, but Mickey was chivalrous enough to spare her this blow for all her efforts. Hard as he had tried to stick to his guns, Genie needed this victory. She needed it like a breath of air. For health.
"I'm sorry."
Genie smiled, touching his hand. Without shyness, they leaned across the table for a hug. Mickey held her a beat longer than necessary, patting her on the back and sighing.
The waitress approached them a third time after several minutes of stifled, impersonal conversation. Having seen their embrace from a distance, she asked if they were paying together or separately. They glanced at each other for a moment, uncertain themselves. After a moment, Mickey shook his head and smiled as he drew his wallet out of his trouser pocket.
It's been longer. I want to cry, because it is so long, and I want to do something else. If I cry, will I sound like a person? I heard it move, but now there is nothing.
---
They walked elbow to elbow down the sidewalk. They had received some approving glances from passerbys, few as there were during working hours. Genie knew how they looked. Mickey did too; how the waitress had seen them. It wasn't always so obvious to people they were related. It was their camaraderie that sealed it, she was sure.
It was when they received glances of that nature, that Genie knew that she and Mickey were going to be fine, because it gave them one more thing to laugh about.
Mickey had taken the bus, as Lionel had needed to borrow the truck, and so was free to walk home with Genie and be driven back home at his request.
Despite their reconciling, he still did not tell her that he had lied about having come from a job. Genie window-shopped idly as they talked. Mostly small things that never tread into the dangerous or unexpected. Avoiding the obvious. Mickey talked about his money situation, about repairs that needed to be done on the house. About one of his clients who was 46 and pregnant with her third child, who would be fortunate enough to graduate just in time to see their mother collect social security and their older brothers grapple with the onset of impotence.
Genie mostly nodded, pushing the conversation forward with small, insincere nudges as if touching something unsavory with a stick.
Already her mind was back to the awful napkin that she had left sitting on the table. The fear, the significance.
Mickey interrupted her thoughts with a jab of his elbow, "Hey."
"Hm?"
"Alright?"
"Yeah."
They kicked around the block a little, prolonging their walk. Mickey asked if she had had enough to eat, and Genie sighed. He mentioned how little she was talking now, and it occurred to Genie that she had very little to discuss anymore that wasn't Basil. She mentioned him offhandedly in a story, but even so scarce an appearance seemed to draw the smile from Mickey's face. As if she had casually mentioned being mugged on her way to the supermarket.
"So you still got him."
Genie drifted from him slightly, pushing her hands into her coat-pockets. She chewed her lip for a moment, and then met his glance from under half-lidded eyes. On many women, the expression was provocative. It expressed interest and feminine stirrings. On Genie, it was like a toothpick hanging from the whiskery lips of a mobster. "No, I dropped him off at the fire-station after you left. Of course I do. What made you think I wouldn't?"
"He's a handful." He said, shrugging matter-of-factly.
Genie didn't try to deny it. "Yeah. He is."
"So?" They stepped down from the curb.
"So, nothing. He's mine and he's staying. I just hate how you make it sound like he's always going to be... the way he is."
Mickey groaned skeptically.
"Stop. He's not bad, Mickey. He's just confused, I guess. He doesn't remember things. And he cries... You've never seen him cry like I have. He wants to be good." She looked at him with fresh determination. "He is good."
"So he cries. You know who else cries? Sociopaths. They cry because it works on their mothers who look the other way for them. How do y'know he isn't faking or copying what he sees so you'll lay off of him?"
"Oh my God," she sighed. "I know it's hard for you to get this because you look at him, and you see like, a young guy. Like he's a teenager that's supposed to know better. But he's not, and he doesn't. Not in here," She tapped her forehead. "I literally can't explain this any clearer."
Mickey remained dubious, offering a shrug.
At this point Genie couldn't shut up if she tried. "Maybe his "problem" is that it's a big ******** up world out here with a lot of miserable, ******** up people, and he's somehow got to make sense of what it's taken you and me thirty-some odd years to work with overnight. Because people like you keep judging him by how he looks and forcing him to grow up faster than he's supposed to. I'd be frustrated too."
Mickey seemed to be considering her words, but remained distant. He smacked the leafy arm of a shrub as they passed. "I just don't know, Genie. Assuming you're right and that he doesn't know better— What if he "doesn't mean" to hurt you? Like, in an accident? He can be fine sometimes, I guess. But you and I both know he's strong, and he's clueless, and hey, isn't he supposed to be some kind of experiment?"
"You can get on me for judging the way he looks, but what about you? You said he's not human. He just looks like us and talks like us, but I doubt he knows what he's capable of any more than you do."
He did make a pretty fair point. Genie remembered feeling the fleshy teeth that unfurled into needles. Like empty balloons with a toothpick inside. How frightened she felt, and how frightened her lizards must have felt before being squeezed slowly. So slowly... And Basil crying when he realized. Weeping so much like a human child. When they stopped at a crosswalk she held a brave face, but quickly became short with the button.
"Yeah, okay. Maybe I don't. But one day he'll be able to tell us."
Beep beep beep. She looked at him with the same face their mother would make. A face she refrained from making when her children misbehaved at a family event, lulling them into a false sense of security before lashing out at them on the walk to the car. Yelling in her whispers.
"Until then, you need to be nicer to him." She said. Non-negotiable.
Crossing the street together Mickey only shook his head. "I can't babysit him anymore. It's just too weird for me."
Genie was frustrated, "You know, she doesn't seem to have a problem with him. I think you're just getting soft."
"He almost jumped out of a ********' window!" He exclaimed, half laughing, half yelling. And it was then that they were no longer walking. Genie had walked several paces ahead of Mickey, and turned to face him while Mickey stood gawking, arms in mid-air. Two cars passed them, and with them came a tailwind that sent Genie's hair afloat. She sniffed at the exhaust a bit.
Mickey was almost certain she would cry and felt a familiar heaviness, as if already he had said the wrong thing and they had celebrated too soon. But Genie didn't cry. To his surprise, she giggled. Cupping her face, it came like music. The snorting, the giggling which escalated into peals of laughter. She even held her sides to contain it. Mickey couldn't say he knew what had come over her, or himself for that matter, but the laughter was fast becoming infectious. He shrugged, his arms slapping his sides with how heavily he dropped them, and he laughed with her. They laughed until they cried. They laughed back to the Gregarious Arms.
A soft, warm breeze filled Genie's lungs, and she breathed clearly when she was finished.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 7:51 am
Genie and Mickey entered the lobby together, but Genie was eager to reach her apartment and walked quickly ahead of him. She wasn't in any rush, so much as she was feeling winded from the walk and wanted to take her shoes off. There had been some residual talk about Basil while they rode the lift, punctuated by short, electric pauses. Although Genie had confessed to him that she wanted to "talk things out", it was easier in theory. While Genie was at the diner, she had left Lola in charge.
Without Mickey around, Genie and Lola had spent more time together than they would ever have under normal circumstances. Through enough time and proximity and vulnerable conversations, they had finally tipped over from neighborly acquaintanceship and into friendship. Granted, Lola could still be as annoying as a bad itch, and Genie had no reservations about telling her to shut up when she carried on too long, but all in all, she could not say they had made such a terrible time of it. Lola had been there for her when she had needed a friend. She treated Basil like family, and always made time to watch him.
When they arrived, Lola was peeling apples at the table while Basil sat across from her jotting something down on a notepad. For the better part of the evening he'd been helping Lola peel, but he kept getting frustrated with the peeler. He made that face that predicted him throwing something across the room and figured it would be a better use of his time to practice drawing. Between them was a fragrant pile of sticky peels.
Lola perked up, "Oh! Hey kids. Good lunch?"
Genie hung up her coat and Mickey kicked the door behind them. Genie saw an empty mesh bag on the counter and a stew-pot of cored apples brewing on the stovetop. Lola explained that she thought it might be fun to try her hand at home-made apple jelly. She ran out and bought four or five bags so she could donate the peels to a compost heap she'd heard about from some college kids who'd come to the salon to collect hair, which was apparently rich in nitrogen.
A conversation stirring between the women, Mickey glanced at the unfortunate creature sitting at the table.
It didn't take long for Basil to notice, looking up from his paper. The two locked eyes and Mickey felt a shudder run through him. There was no such uneasiness in the boy. Just the flat, open expression Mickey remembered. Basil picked up the notepad and turned it so that Mickey could see. Mostly it was doodles. Nothing impressive. He nodded stiffly in a way that was more acknowledging than encouraging, and stalked into the living room.
When all the apples were peeled and put into the pot to cook, there wasn't much left to do but wait until they were soft. The humans settled into the living room to talk and listen to the radio. With so many people around Basil quickly lost interest in drawing and came to join them. Mickey's jaw set as Basil dropped his head unhesitatingly in Genie's lap, a sight he liked less and less by the minute.
As the evening stretched on he started to loosen up. They drank dewy glasses of hard lemonade and tried their best to sing along to the radio. Genie and Lola burst into giggling fits when their voices would ride the same hills and valleys, louder during the chorus and softer and blurrier during the parts they knew the melody to but not the words.
Every so often Lola would get up to check the pot, and when she did, Mickey's eyes followed her. Genie noticed, but said nothing. Smiling to herself as she carded her fingers through Basil's hair, soothing him into a light sleep.
When Lola came back she bent over the back of the couch, cooing for all the world like Genie held a newborn duckling. Like the black mess she combed her fingers through wasn't the filthy and tangled mop of a boy, but fluffy and yellow. The knifeblock of his face a sweetly chirping beak.
"Oh, loooook."
Genie gave a little sigh, "Yeah, he's so calm tonight."
Mickey sniffed.
The worst came when Lola had said something just loud enough to rouse Basil from his nap. His eyelids fluttered and he yawned, and with no exaggeration: It was the most hideous yawn he'd ever seen in his life.
Basil's eyes squinted shut and his tongue rolled at the sides, just like a cat. Then, his mouth stretched, the distance between his jaws growing larger than they had any business to be. His snake teeth descended, pink and wiggling, and Mickey felt a pressure in his fist. The warning tension of his glass threatening to shatter.
Genie and Lola, having seen him yawn countless times, barely even noticed. When his face collapsed back into some semblance of normalcy, Genie lovingly kissed the top of his head and told him that if he was feeling tired he could go upstairs to bed.
His reply was the first that Mickey had heard him speak in three months. "Nuh uh. I'll stay." Basil went upright again but stayed propped against Genie's shoulder while Lola checked the pot again.
"They look about done." She called.
An hour later the four of them were on the roof of the Arms, sprawled out on lawn chairs and watching the sun set over Durem. The jelly hadn't been stirred well enough. It was chunky with small pockets of water that burst open when you punctured them with your spoon. It still spread like a dream on English muffins and was strong with cinnamon and cloves.
They were discussing the "27 Club" because apparently Lola had watched a documentary about it on MTV. Basically, the 27 Club was the name given to a group of musicians and entertainers that had all mysteriously died at the age of 27. Lola was attracted to the mystery behind it, the belief that it "couldn't be a coincidence", citing a laundry-list of Hollywood conspiracies and occult influences.
Genie fired back that most of the people she mentioned were drug addicts and party animals. People that were able to survive their own excess through their twenties, but at nearing their thirties had simply done too much damage to themselves for the lifestyle to last.
Mickey said nothing, making a point of keeping his mouth stuffed with bread. Basil sat nearby, maybe listening, maybe not. Occasionally Mickey caught him swatting at things that weren't there, or making strange faces to himself. He tried to bring Genie's attention to it, but she swiftly dismissed him.
"We're right by the storm drains, dummy. You yourself just swatted a mosquito off your neck. I told Phil to clean them out but he never listens." She flashed her eyebrows at him, "Maybe you could volunteer."
Mickey sulkily spooned jelly into his mouth, keeping Basil in his periphery.
He might have Genie fooled with that lovable doofus act, and she had gone and let herself get all attached. But he had more than made up his mind that he was the same, creepy thing that had crushed three lizards and threatened his sister's chance at a normal life. He knew she would never let him go without a fight. Not until she saw him for the danger he knew he was, and in this moment he had dedicated himself to proving it.
Breaking his concentration, Lola called out to him, "Hey, sugar! Come here."
He obeyed and Lola laughed, taking his hand and running her thumb over his filthy knuckles. "Baz, did you ever tell Genie that you can sing?"
Basil shook his head, visibly cringing.
"No, come on. You're really good! Sing something for her. Make something up, we won't laugh."
Basil grabbed his hood in both hands and lowered himself onto the ground in front of the lounging women.
Mickey couldn't help leaning forward with interest. Basil seemed to be thinking hard about what he wanted to sing. He didn't know many songs by heart, and began to feel the pressure mounting as both women watched him expectantly. It was no wonder so many people crumbled to pieces in front a crowd. Mickey was almost hopeful that this would be the time that Basil's facade of humanity would fracture, and he might attack the women so that he could come to their rescue. It was a terrible thing to wish, but there was no taking it back once the thought had entered his mind.
It was then that Basil let his walls come down, and he sang. And even Mickey had to admit, he sang beautifully. His words made no sense at first. He sang about his name and who he was, about the colors he saw around him and how good Lola smelled every day. He sang about apples and the flies. Sometimes he hummed or made other noises. The voice he sang with was a borrowed one, a deeper register than his natural voice, but the women didn't seem to notice or care.
They only sighed, feeling like queens in a private court.
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:08 am
It always started the same way. He was stranded on the side of a country road, with no street signs or guardrails.
Neither the road or the area were ever familiar to him, as though he'd glimpsed them only once in a movie he hadn't particularly liked enough to remember. It was dark but the moon lit his path. It looked abnormally large to him, burning in the starless sky like a puncture in the floor to infinity. The only sounds he could hear were cicadas and chorus frogs, but with an artificial quality that made him uneasy, like a white-noise machine.
The weather was balmy and spring-like. The breeze carried a scent like clover and damp, mossy earth. It wafted through the blackened trees, their branches brushing the bottom of the moon. Tickling a laughless giant.
It was densely forested, with no immediate signs of civilization. No porch-lights gleaming in the distance, no trash in the ditches. Despite this, the dream was so authentic that some nights Basil couldn't be sure he wasn't awake, having grown accustomed to waking up in strange and eerie places. Except for the gnawing feeling that something was not right.
Time was immaterial here, and never in the duration of these dreams did the moon ever shift or the dawn ever come. Basil didn't dare to venture into the center of the road, because there were cars. He'd glimpse their two lights on the horizon, and even feel the grumble of its engine. The car was always the same. Economy-sized, with tinted windows and no visible driver. It was always in a hurry, hurtling past him in a flash of blinding white light and cold air.
The car was a signal of sorts. As soon as it appeared, Basil always knew to glance across the street from him. Because when the blur was gone and the twin red lights barreled into the pelted night, there would be his doppelganger walking in time to his nonexistent steps.
They moved as a pair on either side of the road, which never curved, never dipped, never rose. Always cutting straight. An incision through the countryside. No matter how far they traveled together, Basil had never been able to glimpse the creature's face, who wore the same hood as he did. They were of identical height and build, but carried themselves differently. Basil held his body comfortably, slouching, arms hanging. The Other was taller, authoritative.
Every so often, the car from before would pass between them, kicking up a trail of brown leaves and small pebbles. Basil knew it was not two cars that happened to look similar. It was the same identical car trapped in an infinite loop. Its only purpose perhaps to assure him of the dream-state. Basil never questioned the stranger, nor had any reason to believe that he might come from across the road to engage him.
The first four days the dream had started exactly the same way, and ended with Basil sweaty and disorientated in the sheets with the world's worst headache. During the days, Basil behaved typically of himself. If Genie did not come up to see him in his bedroom, he would inevitably pass her on his way downstairs, where she would brush the hair away from her eyes, adjust her work-clothes, and tell him what time she would be home in her most reassuring voice. Not that he payed much attention to time.
When Genie left, the door had always sounded so resonant behind her. Clicking shut with a certain decisiveness, leaving the house empty but for him. He had come to appreciate the small window of time between Genie leaving for work and Lola coming to watch him. It was the only time he got to himself. Twenty minutes at the most, which passed by with the unnoticed regularity of a heartbeat.
Approaching the day, he would open the window, and be fed a hearty breakfast of the honks and idling engines of morning rush-hour. Feeling content and drowsy when he became full, until the sound of the door opening awoke him. From there, Lola would turn on the radio, smiles would be exchanged, and another day turned into night, when the dream would begin again.
There had been nothing but The Walk. The burn in his lungs. Clover, exhaust, warm air, itchy skin, and the sound of cicadas. It was never the stranger that concerned Basil, but perhaps the presence of awful things in the woods beside him, open and exposing its black belly to him. He had hallucinated for much of his life. He had concocted many terrible creatures. Having the stranger near had almost been a comfort.
But after a while, Basil began to dislike The Walk.
It wasn't that the dream had become tedious, for all its consistencies, but rather, his beginning to suspect that it was all mounting to something. The suspense was starting to tease his nerves. Like it or not, he was starting to get a truer taste of human living. A blend of tedium and anticipation, in which every event spurred thousands of others. Overlapping and provoking. Everything contingent, everything necessary.
Little did he realize, his face pressed against the morning window, that a pain was settling inside of him he would struggle for many years to relieve.
There were nights he purposefully kept himself awake for as long as possible. Pinching his skin and drawing in his yellow notepad. Softly at first, then so angrily that his pencil would rend the paper straight to the cardboard backing. But sleep always won, and eventually, his head hit the pillow and the road was there again. Sometimes he wondered if at the conclusion of each dream, he had gotten closer to the destination he was meant to reach. The journey not refreshing, but in fact picking up from where it had left off. Somehow, Basil doubted it.
They continued on this way until finally, Basil stopped walking.
It was a test to see if the stranger might stop. Experimental. He had to know if the creature was an extension of himself, or something else entirely. If he stopped when Basil did, he was bound to him. Obligated to him. But if he kept walking, zombie-like toward the same mysterious location that beckoned them both, Basil would be obligated to The Other. Obligated to questions he was unable to answer on his own.
He stopped in mid-air, waiting, his heart beating thickly in his ears. By stopping, he had broken the routine of the dream, and it felt dangerous.
When he stopped, The Other stopped.
Sort of.
He only stopped after going ten paces more. As though not realizing Basil was not beside him. Somehow that was reassuring. To think he was capable of human oversights. There was one thing he hadn't anticipated. And that was the greater a distance between him and his double, the more Basil became aware of a tugging. A certain interior connection he'd never in a million years be able to describe.
"Hurry up." The Other said.
He had never heard the Other speak before, but it was not altogether unfamiliar. Basil said nothing, contemplating his next move before finding that the creature was becoming impatient with him. Basil hastened to close the gap between them, and just like that The Walk continued and the tugging relaxed.
"Hello." He ventured.
The Other regarded him with a severe silence.
"Where does this road go?" Basil asked, louder. In the dream his own voice had a strange quality. A bit of reverb.
"Not important."
"Well, who are you?" They walked together, maybe five minutes more, giving the Other time to lure Basil in with his silence. Hold his interest. Then, halting there with the trees immense and lively around them, the flies throbbing behind Basil's eyes, he heard it.
"We're we." It had been said with finality. As though Basil should already have known. It shook its head and looked at him, though the hood eclipsed any readable expression. Basil slowly became frightened. The fear became terror, and the terror, realization.
From the moment he'd become self-aware, Basil had always felt that he had never truly been an "I" as he understood it to be. A singular presence. Selfishly existing independent of a greater force. Halved and unhappy.
He had never considered the prospect of identifying as a "we", a truth visible in the pregnant moon. Looking at this stranger now, he felt a great sinking, and then a great lifting of spirit. As though he had shed a proverbial second skin. Wiggling from it, struggling from it to become fresh and shiny. Sensing his enlightenment, the Other radiated some indeterminable glow. A rich and self-assured pleasure.
Basil couldn't muster any words. What could he say to some entity inherently himself, that likely knew what he meant to say before he could say it? Stripped of his confusion, challenged to understand it, he ran. Down the road, away, feeling the burn of the haunted headlights on his back.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:01 am
The Troubles
Basil didn't dare to dream again after that.
For the next four days he'd erased all sleep from his life, and his disposition was appropriate. His posture wilted. His eyelids drooped. Exhaustion (and a slight delirium) raised his proneness to tantrums the more he lingered on the dream's significance and the words of the stranger.
On the third day, Genie told him he wouldn't be allowed to turn on the radio until he finished a few worksheets. At first he just ignored her, but when she kept pushing him, he finally ripped a book from a shelf in the living room. He pitched it at her as hard as he could, the spine striking her shin, and stormed up into his room after tearing the folding door off its rollers.
Genie took it, because she had to. Where she had experience with the tantrums of children, she also had experience with violent males all throughout her life, and knew that the best thing to do in either case, or in this weird overlap she found herself in now, was endure it. Stay calm. Though, when he had left, her eyes closed tight against the sting of tears and she gave herself permission to savor them.
She sat on the toilet-seat, dabbing the spot of blood that had surfaced where the impact split her skin. It wasn't a serious wound, but would bloom into a very painful bruise. She jumped when Basil darkened the doorway, assuming he would stay in his room for the rest of the night or until Genie came to talk to him. She stared up at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, until Basil's face met her leg and screwed into a sob. He yelled more than he cried, beating his head with his fists until she stopped him. He resisted her at first, but eventually submitted to an embrace.
He apologized, voice wretched and broken, and Genie had cradled his head against her chest.
"It doesn't hurt." She told him. The first time she had ever lied to him. "It doesn't hurt... Don't cry."
That night, after Genie kissed him stiffly on the forehead (noticeably hesitant to meet his gaze), Basil did everything in his power to stay awake. He hadn't even been aware that the sun had set. Already he had lost great tracks of time, and it was difficult to distinguish one day from the next.
This would be the third night that he had gone without so much as a nap, starving for it. He roamed the house in a haze, pinching the skin on his neck with two fingers. He muttered in varied voices he had learned from strangers. When there wasn't a white spot left on his neck to twist, and his spirits could fall no lower, he left the apartment and ridden the lift a total of thirty-eight times. Watching the yellow lights strobe past him with each floor. The sound of the motor soothing him. Giving himself over to the mindless and tactile satisfaction of pressing the buttons.
A woman working the third shift that night had patiently waited for the elevator to groan its way to her floor. When it had, and she saw that it was occupied, and by who, she hadn't given it another thought. She turned around and walked quickly, stiffly down the hall to her door. Basil didn't know why he'd felt the urge to get out and follow her. His intentions in that moment didn't feel good, but they weren't menacing either. Some blend of fragile desperation and desire for attention.
When it was time for Basil to return to his own apartment, he felt as if he weren't even a presence. He opened the door carefully and swallowed the sound of it closing it behind him. He groped for the lock in the semi-dark, twisting it shut with two quivering fingers as he tilted his head against the door. He shut his eyes, and sighed in a long shivery breath. When he turned around again, greeting the house he had known so well, his breath hitched at what he saw.
Dotting the kitchen like blemishes, leering from the blackness, he had glimpsed innumerable faces with tiny red eyes. Eyes that he did not yet know to be numbers, on the stove and the microwave. There were the usual sounds he could have expected. The humming of the ceiling fan and the gentle noises of the night. However, the longer he listened to the silence, steadily thickening, the more room there was for his mind to stir up noises of its own. A soft groaning at first, a chorus of whispers. A chattering sound like click beetles. And of course, the pounding of his heart.
He knocked a stack of dishes off the counter as he ran to hide in his room and slide underneath his quilts where things were often safer and calmer. For twenty minutes, he breathed exclusively in gasps, blinking back tired, angry tears and feeling the faces advance upon him from the room below. Urging him to sleep and continue The Walk.
The sickness had been too much, aching within him, and he very soon fell into a very long, deep sleep. So deep in fact, he slept for fifteen hours. The night stretched on without him, the car alarms quiet on his street, and Genie sleeping soundly from the Tylenol she had taken.
When he crawled out of bed again, his muscles felt like lead and his head throbbed. Outside, it was night-time again. Seeing this, Basil could only assume he had in fact taken a very short nap on the same day. Genie had been double-checking the floor for trace shards of dishware, watching as he moved sluggishly into the living room and his half-body collapsed onto the floor. Pitiful.
She set down the plastic bag she had been using and crouched beside him, brushing his cheek with the ridge of her knuckles, "Basil, don't tell me you've been sleeping this whole time."
He grumbled, "I wasn't." It hadn't been a lie, exactly. He told her what she had asked him to.
"No, hon. That's not—" He shook his head and rolled over. Genie held his arm, pleading, "What's wrong. I can't help you if I don't know. Are you sick? Are you mad at me?"
"No." He said, shutting his eyes. "I don't know."
The wound on her knee pulsed. "Is it Mickey? Did he say anything to you when he came over? I know you haven't seen him in a while, and I know that maybe you were scared when I had that big argument with him. Is that it? Did Mickey coming back make you upset?"
At this time, Basil had become quiet. A different kind of quiet, his brows knitting, confused. When had they ever fought? Was that why Mickey had not been here to watch him?
Genie could feel these questions in his silence. His ignorance. She brushed her bangs away from her forehead, holding them there.
"Basil, I'm really, really freaked out here. You seem like you're angry at me all the time for no reason and you're just... out of it. I feel like there's all this stuff going on with you and I don't know how to fix it or how to make it better. I don't know if this is just a phase or how you are, but you need to talk to me."
He rolled towards her, sneering, " Both were stricken by the hatefulness of his reply, which until this moment had never appeared in Basil's temperament. Neither had that word existed before in his vocabulary.
He couldn't say he knew where that had come from. It had just... popped out of him. Springing from the empty space where his hatred for The Walk had been. A space he began to investigate. Anything to find cause for saying something so horrible to Genie.
Now that he thought about it, the very thing that Basil had tried to avoid by losing sleep had never happened. For most of the night, it had been black. His mind unconscious. It wasn't until much later, not even an hour or so before he had woken up, that he had found himself on The Walk, and it had been a very peaceful Walk. There had been no cars, no breeze, no fear. But most curious of all, no Stranger.
That was all that had happened, as far as knew. A half-remembered glimpse of the road, and nothing more.
As he searched his mind for an explanation, Genie was clutching her face in both her hands. He looked at her and felt new. Her worried eyes. Her motherly voice and coarse, mangled hands. He felt terrible for her, and for himself.
He reached for her, "I'm okay, Genie." He lifted her face and pecked her awkwardly on the cheek. His lips were cold and chapped. It couldn't have felt nice, but she touched her cheek anyway. Like it was precious.
She helped him up off the floor. "I'm sorry I get mad at you. When I sleep, I see pictures." He picked his words carefully, "They aren't very good pictures and I don't want to do that anymore. I hate it."
"That's it? You've been having bad dreams?"
He mouthed the word before he said it. "Dreams?"
"That's what those pictures are called. Everybody has them." Her mouth stretched at the edges. "You haven't been sleeping. You passed out last night, didn't you."
He nodded.
Her voice took an edge that frightened him, "Basil, that's really, really bad for you! You should have said something!"
She talked and motioned in staccato, "You have to sleep. Whether you have bad dreams or not, if you don't sleep, you get sick. And you... you hurt people. You hurt me. You don't want to be like that, do you?"
Tears swelled against his lashes, which she sympathetically wiped away with her thumb. "I know you don't. But now you can sleep, and things will get better. Now I know."
He leaned against her, nodding desperately. She rubbed his back awhile, soothing little circles, then urged him toward the couch.
"You slept the day away, bub. After I clean up the kitchen I'm going over to Lola's for dinner. From what she's been telling me, I think maybe you should come too."
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:29 pm
 stres·sor (strsr)
n.
1. (esp. of a smoker) An agent, condition, or other stimulus that causes stress to an organism.
The next day, Genie taught Basil how to play Scrabble.
They set up the board on Genie's bed, putting a dictionary underneath to steady it. They'd been playing for hours with not even half the board filled. Genie was patient, amused by the faces Basil made when he concentrated. He was examining his tiles with the scrutiny of someone deactivating a bomb. Since his turns took longer, she'd been painting her toes. They were red, but there was more pink to it than Genie liked.
Still early in the afternoon, the blinds were half open and the window cracked. Genie had reassured him that it would be alright for him to let her see his tiles, but after briefing him on the rules he decided against it. He wouldn't cheat. The only time he consulted her, reluctantly, was when he pulled a blank tile out of the little velvet pouch. She smiled and told him that it was whatever he wanted it to be.
Genie was excited. She sensed that Basil would be able to write soon, and she was looking forward to reading the things he would write. He would write letters and grocery lists and post-it notes and all sorts of things. He might even be able to keep a journal one day.
When he was drawing or doing a worksheet she noticed that he wrote similarly to a child with a crayon, his fist clenched almost white-knuckled around the base of the pencil. He drew all his coordination from his arm, which had been proven to be very, freakishly strong. The sheets were freckled with clouds of graphite where the tip of the pencil had shattered against the paper.
Basil was frequently frustrated. He cried out and thumped his head and made curdled faces. Then he would reach for the sharpener, twisting it petulantly over the pencil like he was unscrewing a bottle cap. Or the head of something small.
She gave him credit. All the credit in the world. Even at his most discouraged he was always determined to finish and rarely took breaks, even though writing this way was stressful on his arm and gave him wrist-cramps. Genie noticed that he was always clenching and un-clenching his hands as though he was starting to lose feeling in them. When she suspected he was on a path to developing carpal tunnel, Genie had spent no less than three hours showing him the right way to hold a pencil, telling him that he'd be doing himself a big favor if he started writing from his wrist and not his bicep.
Holding a pencil the normal way was uncomfortable for him. His fingers were too long and bunched together, but more than that he lacked confidence in his ability to write with any kind of precision. His hand wouldn't stop shaking. Genie was torn between letting him continue to do what felt natural to him or forcing him to adjust.
She had to admit that although his letters were very big and close-together, his sentences were still completely legible, which could not be said about his next few worksheets. His hand lost all muscle-memory and his letters were more spiky and shivery than a polygraph readout. Still, she knew it was important to challenge him. Her guilt ebbed away when his script turned cleaner and tighter with practice. He broke much fewer pencils.
Genie remembered holding up his most recent worksheet with his oldest, which she kept in the manila file to illustrate his progress. He simply glowed. There just wasn't a better word for it. She proudly displayed them on the fridge, pinning them together with a Schlitz bottle-cap magnet. As she moved some things around to make room she heard his voice behind her, pointing out that compared to the list of names and phone numbers Genie had written in faded pencil, her handwriting was still much nicer than his.
"Aw, buster. You've got two Q's and a J, here. What the hell are you supposed to make with that..."
He was holding his chin in his palm. With a stifled jaw he muttered, "What does a Q sound like?"
She leaned forward so he could watch her mouth, "Kwuh. Kwuh. Like that. Unless its followed up by 'U' and 'E', and then the whole thing makes a 'K' sound'. I know it's dumb, but I don't make these rules."
He mumbled affirmatively and put one of the Q tiles in his mouth. Genie sighed, reaching to take it away.
"Don't do that."
She wiped it on her pantleg. Instead of returning it she put it back into the pouch and fished for an easier letter. While she was sorting Basil put down an 'A' and a 'G' to make 'rag' from the 'R' in her 'hardly'. He could only build very small words on his own, which made it hard for Genie to let him win.
"Can you use that in a sentence?"
"What?"
"That word you just made. Can you use it in a sentence?"
He thought about it, then made a long exasperated sound and shook his head. "You do it."
"Well, okay. 'The rag on the sink is blue'." She shrugged, her skin mottled with shades of green and gold from the suncatcher in the window. Basil sat secretively in her warm shadow. "It's not as hard as you're making it."
He shrugged disinterestedly, then pointed at the board to remind her that it was her turn.
She frowned. Basil didn't often articulate his feelings. He wasn't very observant on his own, too occupied by the swellings and tremblings in his head. But he at least had eyes and a nose. He was able to see the yellow on her teeth and fingernails, smell the smoke in Genie's clothes when she hugged him, particularly here in the bedroom where she hid her secret shame best.
In early April, Lola and Genie had attended to a pressing matter. The details of what exactly Basil had done the afternoon that Lola had found his letters. From the front The Arms was an imposing figure that towered above the heads of her neighbors like a tribute, bleeding her lack of fortune into small serviceways and brick footpaths where children kicked empty bottles and street-punks tagged the walls with declarations of teenage angst.
There was a small courtyard at the intersection of the buildings directly adjacent to The Arms, accessible by these alleys and footpaths. At high noon it was a dark, secret place littered with terracotta pots and old leaves where a tree had never grown. Lola and Genie had bought two baskets of fries from the corner vendor and brought them back to the courtyard to eat and throw the leftovers to the starlings. Basil was free to roam, drawing small patterns in the dirt with a twig.
Ordinarily Basil didn't listen to their conversations. Not so much because he felt it was discourteous to do so, but because their conversations rarely interested him. He'd just as soon be thinking about other things. But something had specifically urged him to hear this conversation. Something had not been willing to let it be misread or misunderstood later. It turned his head with the sureness of a hand gripping his chin. Made his ears burn. He listened.
Lola had called him something. She said a word with sharp significance. A presser? Pressure?
She had called him a stressor.
He didn't understand, but felt the implication was not good. When people said good things about him, they smiled. Made happy faces with happy eyes and voices. His ears were always wanting for happy voices.
But when Lola had said he was a stressor... When she had mimed Basil's tirade through the apartment, told the awful things he had said and wept over afterwards, Genie did not supply these things. She did not have a happy face or happy eyes. She nodded and pulled something small and white out of her purse.
At that time, Basil couldn't listen to much more. Drawing in the dirt, he went back to being Basil, and listening to what Basil wanted.
Since then Genie had been coughing. The addiction clung to her clothes. There were several nights that he had encountered her in the house, driven awake by her own strange withdrawal dreams about home invasions and random fires. Sometimes she would lock herself in the bathroom for hours, brushing her teeth. When Basil investigated there had been bloody froth left in the sink. Blood from tender gums.
Genie was careful not to smoke in the house, and when she did, she did it near a window where Basil would be less affected. She hid her sickness from others, ashamed. The way an animal hides a lame leg to ward away predators. She resolved to stop because simply put, Basil needed her too much.
"...That's a good word." She said evenly.
Basil smiled, dipping his fingers into the bag for a new tile. He had only used one. "Thank you, Genie."
As he turned the board back to her, she stared. He had made the word 'rage'.
She pulled her lips into her mouth. It was hard to ignore. It was dead center on the board. She wondered where he'd heard a word like that. It was unlikely that he carried it around as casual knowledge. Conceptually he knew what anger was, but he wouldn't grasp for synonyms when he could just as easily have spelled 'mad'.
Rage was something else... It had a different implication. Children are mad when they throw tantrums. When a sea becomes tempestuous, upending ships and sending their crew wind-borne before drowning in the icy depths, the sea is not mad. It rages.
She swallowed, down in her chest where her cravings flared. At the time Basil was born she had been four months clean. She was on the patch and chewed gum like a fiend. She had become healthier, could run short distances, well on her way to kicking the habit for good. But then... things started to happen.
It started with her lizards. Then Mickey. People had become difficult to talk to because they had nothing in common with her anymore. Her love life had been burnt to cinders, her heart pillaged. Work was tedious and unsatisfying. Basil was unpredictable and frequently terrifying. Her love of him took mounting damage as many times as she discovered he was not in his bed. The more nights he roamed the streets, confused and battered. Feeling helpless to contain him while she insisted he was smart. That he was sweet, and good, and she was fortunate to have him. He was not her burden.
She grunted as she reached for the carton she kept on top of the dresser. She peeled the cellophane away and urged out a cylinder. She grasped it with her teeth, and chewed. She refused to light it, nursing the taste of tobacco through the paper. She didn't know why she did this to herself. Why she teased.
She hastily threw a few letters down and waited on Basil to make his move. By this time he'd gone very quiet. It was difficult to tell whether he had lost interest or was just distracted.
"How'd you sleep last night?" She ventured.
He shrugged, "Good."
"No bad dreams?"
"Don't think so."
Silence stretched between them like a canyon. She took the cigarette away. "Is everything okay? Do you wanna keep playing?"
He shook his head. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little relieved.
"That's okay... We don't have to."
She looked down. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the word "rage" again. She looked at it a beat longer than necessary, then dumped the board over.
"Well if you are having any more of those dreams, I think you should tell me. They really seem like they're bothering you."
This time he seemed to be ignoring her on purpose. He'd taken the pad they had been using to keep score and scribbled things in the margins with a runty blue pencil.
She watched with mild interest. "Do you want to tell me what's so bad about the dreams?"
"I don't know." He muttered. He sounded annoyed.
"You don't know as in, you don't remember, or you don't want to tell me?"
He sighed loudly, his eyes briefly meeting her cigarette. Then he looked back down at his paper, feeling foolish. Genie froze, then slowly placed her hand on top of the notepad to block his scribbling pencil. The other lightly cupped his face, "Sorry."
Basil quickly pulled away. He thumped his head a few times, which Genie understood to mean he was having a headache.
"Do you want a cold towel for your head?" She offered, a waver to her voice.
He said nothing.
"Basil?"
"Hey, are we playing a game?"
Outside she heard a car engine idling, then tires screeching. Genie slowly opened the window the rest of the way, then lit her cigarette. She closed her eyes, trapping the wetness between her lashes.
"Yeah... Today we're playin' Scrabble. I think you'll like it."
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:40 pm
 ♬ Gladiolus Rag - Scott Joplin April passed and so did May, bringing them to June. The breezy rains characteristic of spring had now given way to a cloudless summer. On hot days, the double-doors of convenience stores would be held open with bricks, circular fans on full blast, bagged ice at a premium. This was her life-long love affair with convenience stores from the time she was little. Taking penny-candy from the wooden bowl and reading the cards with dirty jokes in them, sometimes aloud to Mickey if her mother was not in earshot.
He was due for a haircut, she'd noticed, and their family barber had long since been retired and buried. He didn't trust anyone else with his hair.
He stayed clear of commercial salons with loud throbbing music and that vaguely chemical smell that hung on him like an ill-fit shirt. Where longer hair could be attractive on certain men, and the style gaining in popularity, Mickey had always maintained what he defended as "a boy's haircut", and never dared to venture that he might be one such man.
Since he'd come back to The Arms, she wasn't surprised to find his eyes landing squarely on Basil's black mop. Always dirty, always in his face. Hanging in thick oily fringes above and across the eyes. Perpetually wet-looking and flung from the back of his head in rebellious semi-curls.
Basil had never expressed a desire to cut it. He probably didn't know he had the option. She didn't give him any guff about it. As far as Genie was concerned, unless or until he had a job interview lined up, his hair was just hair. But on a cool Friday evening she had bought a few magazines from the supermarket. She only needed two or three, looking through them and showing some pictures to Basil.
At first, he had seemed horrified at the idea of having any part of him snipped with scissors. His stricken expression implied that he felt hair might have been something alive. A thing that could feel pain, be severed, and bleed.
She laughed, waving her hand, "No, cutting hair doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel anything."
To demonstrate, she plucked a small hair from the crown of her head and bravely showed it to him, "It grows right back after a while, and yours is gettin' pretty ratty. Just take these and look at the pictures, alright?"
He took them from her, gave them a cursory onceover, and in trying to toss them onto the table sent one or two fluttering onto the floor. He apologized while Genie bent to pick them up, but she could tell he didn't really mean it.
Lately he seemed to be suffering from more than his usual malaise. Struggling a little harder to smile. More frightening, he was getting better at masking it.
She wondered if he was depressed. Basil was often vacant and quiet, but Genie had never sensed that there was anything in it to be concerned about. More often than not she took his silence for daydreaming, or thoughtfulness. Now, there seemed to be more to it. A sort of restlessness. He could be distracted for a short time with small bribes, but those exchanges always felt hollow. Like he was just practicing putting on a brave face.
She knew his nightmares were getting worse. When he wasn't being evasive about them, he was emotionally unavailable trying to decipher them.
She remembered once on an overcast Monday, she'd come home from work to find Basil alone in the kitchen, staring very intently at his finger. Curious, she watched him as she set her things down and hung up her coat. Then she approached him, carefully, making sure always to be where he could see her.
She learned early. Never surprise him, never come up from behind.
"What do you have there?"
He startled at first, as though he hadn't expected her to take an interest. Then he smiled coyly and held up his finger. It took her a moment to realize was it was.
Basil had accumulated a large amount of scars and scrapes on his forehead. Often, this was from banging his head where his hair didn't buffer. Less often, when his scalp felt especially sore and sensitive, he'd scratch.
On his finger was a small white disc of dead skin, and in the center, a red dot. He had been transfixed by it for reasons she didn't care to guess at. She wet her finger and dabbed it off his own, flicking it to the floor.
"Don't pick."
Later, he stationed himself at the large window in the livingroom, watching the sky break into graduating shades of red while Genie folded laundry on the couch. When she attempted to comment on its beauty, a weak attempt to engage him, he grunted and went away.
---
Riding the lift was the only thing he seemed to enjoy doing anymore. Unimpressively, only about thirty people a year are killed annually by elevators. But more, upwards of 17,000, are injured or disfigured in accidents.
Typically it is not the passenger at risk, but those maintaining the elevator system itself, clambering around the shaft to clean and oil the various parts from dangerous heights.
While most commercial elevators are designed to be clean and impersonal, freight elevators, such as what was installed in the Arms, were not so. They were load-bearing machines built for function over beauty. Built to tolerate enormous abuse with non-slip floors and walls of fifteen gauge steel. Freight elevators did not deny the inherent danger. They weren't spartan rooms, static in time while strangers denied the reality of one another. These resemble a machine as much as a clean, plastic-covered steak resembles a cow. Precisely what makes it such a jarring experience when the lights go out. When a cable snaps. When a heavy man smiles, and jumps to touch the ceiling.
He was riding the lift now. Around his shoulders was the quilt from his bed, which dangled several inches from the floor like a cartoon ghost.
As usual, he pressed the button for the lobby, the 'L' long ago scratched away, allowing for a smooth continuous ride through the building, which he enjoyed with an almost meditative silence. This time of night he could expect not to be bothered. The elevator shaft was brisk, especially at night, a gentle current of cool air entering through the screen and caressing his skin. Each trip took an average of two minutes to go from top to bottom. Sometimes he'd ride the elevator for up to an hour. Other times, he only needed several trips before feeling calm enough to go home, where Genie would be waiting up to tenderly put him to bed. Tonight, it was anyone's guess.
At a quarter to two in the morning, as Basil descended the last three floors before reaching the lobby, he felt a twinge in his lower region. A density in his rune like the drowsy warmth of a fireplace. Fine music typically gave him this feeling.
Basil sensed music at greater distance than he could perceive it. He could sense a lively percussion section in an east-side boite nearly miles before bobbing his head to the tune of The Chairman Dances, the way a snake keeps its belly to the ground to hear the feet of the elephant. When the lift had finally groaned its way to the first floor, Basil became aware of a melody so sweet and so satisfying his mouth may have watered.
For no other reason than a lack of exposure, Basil's interests were very limited, and what he enjoyed, he enjoyed thoroughly. Morning, noon, and night, the radio was his talkative companion, schooling him in politics, art, people, and all manner of things existing beyond the Arms and his paltry mid-morning habits. Some might say the television would have been more illustrative, but both his patience and his attention were limited. He could not be expected to retain information through someone else's loud, animated interpretation, or be held hostage by the screen when he'd rather be doing something else.
The radio was more interpretative, encouraging Basil to create his own metaphors, ideas, and pictures. He frequently constructed magnificent moodscapes to music, always building, always in motion. Certain instruments represented themselves in eruptions of light and color, some of which he could continue to see in the physical realm, open-eyed.
The single elevator was installed in a large alcove just beyond the main office, behind which, Harriet and Phil slept comfortably in an annex on opposite sides of their marital bed, steeped in humble furnishings and mountains of security equipment. The alcove was of a series of three, which traveled the length of the main floor in twenty foot intervals, each just spacious enough to provide room for a pair of wing chairs, and a lamp to illuminate the tall back windows. Additions which allowed the room a sense of balance and symmetry.
The rule of three is an undeniable one, prevalent in writing and in design; In religion and academia. An odd number, yet a psychologically pleasing one. Someone had imposed on these alcoves, a skewed significance; a fanciful wish. Now, only two remained for use, while the third swallowed a chamber of thirty deaths, through which the legless Basil traveled.
With the unfortunate decline and advanced decrepitude of the terrace, Harriet had been forced to use these spaces to store her greenery in hopes that they would be able to benefit from what little light shone through. The building had a disadvantageous situation near other larger, industrialized buildings which cast the Arms in shadow, and encouraged throughout much of the lobby, a dry, vegetative smell from the plants. Brown, leafy ferns and crowded ficuses that did not thrive in such conditions, withered, their tops persisting a blush of green.
In the summers, the lobby was not easily warmed at night. Many alterations had been made to keep the Arms up to code and habitable by modern tenants, some heinous, and some necessary evils. The heating system must have been installed at the time of its ground-breaking many eras ago. It was cold, but the acoustics were phenomenal, the music taking on a certain full-bodied quality that enunciated where each note relinquished to another. Basil did not recognize it as a piano, but was aware inwardly of the tremendous pain of a hammer striking steel strings. Violence was always the color red, but subdued, yielding to beautiful sound, it had warmed to a generous pink. Pink, like a gladiolus, which remarkably, was the piece Harriet had chosen from her harsh collection of piano rolls, and interpreted by ear.
The Gladiolus Rag was a pale imitation of the Maple Leaf, appropriate of a film's happy ending or the definite vanquishing of a great evil. Though a rag, it was best played slower, by careful and considerate hands that savored without succumbing. Harriet was one such person, and a elegant sight in a spring-green peignoir and burgundy nail varnish (a color she described as "indulgent" for everyday wear.)
Basil had begun to feel a severity of the eyes, that hastened them between normal sight and that which was receptive to heat. He admired the slip of her large fleshy leg beneath the lacy chiffon as it nudged against the pedals, before he then saw her pink-white arms become garish red trunks leaving fingerprints against the keys, as though bleeding. Smearing her heat. It was his groaning that alerted her to him, startled, the last key she touched yelping shortly. She quickly turned to face him.
Harriet Walloway had a weak, characterless chin that seemed to disappear into a bowl of fat, which trembled beneath her rosy mouth like the wattle of a chicken. Her eyes remained bright and youthful behind her spectacles, especially so without. Tonight, she was without, allowing them to hang from her neck by a chain. "Mercy..." She sighed.
Despite momentary discomfort, his ears clung to his memory of recent sound, his rune to the unabashed happiness he had felt. When he was relaxed Basil tended to sink lower towards the ground. As he did, shutting his eyes, the blanket he was swathed in touched the filth of the floor, yet to be mopped. A wetness bled the length of the fabric, leaving it dark and heavy. Harriet, horrified at the sight, left her bench and wobbled towards him, closing her garment. Basil showed her his teeth, but without her glasses Harriet was unable to register the danger. His body was tense, but her good-natured fussiness nearly made him feel guilty for having threatened her.
"Oh honey... you're getting that wet. Come here, I'll wring it out."
Picking up the damp material, she led Basil away from the puddles as though on a leash. Her feet in slippers and dulling her normally weight-laden footfalls, neither of them left a sound on the shiny tile. She then twisted the blanket over top of a potted fern in the second alcove and adjusted it around his shoulders so that it set a little higher.
They glanced at each other in the darkness. A knife of starlight shone between two buildings, severing his brow and glittering in a single black eye.
She clucked her tongue as she went away towards the piano, Basil reluctantly following. She veered skittishly around a puddle with the daintiness a woman half her size.
"These floors are so treacherous in bad weather... You'd think it were a crime to carry an umbrella anymore." Sitting down, the bench creaking beneath her, she plucked at the keys as if trying to find her place in a book.
Basil "sat" beside her, huddled in his quilt. Harriet, having only ever played for herself, was not accustomed to an audience. She smiled privately, knowing she'd summoned him here. She continued to pluck, her fingers kicking like dancers.
"You liked that?" She chirped.
Basil nodded enthusiastically, which made her laugh. He reminded her of a cat with zoomies. The kind that could turn even the laziest, cleanest creature into a streak of fur, stopping to look around, lick itself, and begin again.
"Do you play?"
He grunted a no. She made herself receptive to conversation by turning her body toward him, fixing him with small anticipatory expressions. But Basil had nothing of interest to say. Though his thoughts became collected and organized in the presence of noise, so too did he gather a sense of shame and self-awareness that silenced him.
He felt that he wanted Harriet to be impressed by him, to feel pity for him, and by not speaking his chances were greatly improved. He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to be here.
Harriet would have none of it. There was a soft jingling as she untangled her glasses chain, "You can talk to me, you know."
She clucked disapprovingly, "Genevieve keeps you cooped up in that apartment all hours, I've never had a good look at you."
She perched the glasses on a fairy-like nose while she examined his face. At first she seemed pleased, but then scrunched the corner of her mouth. Basil feared he had done something offensive, only able to swivel his eyes while Harriet held him captive.
"You're a good-looking boy, you know that? Trim up these sideburns and you'll have to pay the girls to leave you alone." With her stubby hands, she reached to cup Basil's cheeks before working her fingers through the part in his hair, folding layers over as she would pages in a book until she left him with a clean center division. All symmetrical. If she had some product available she would have smoothed it all the way back, but instead she tucked the larger strands behind his ears, leaving his face was fresh and much too exposed for his comfort.
"There you go. You should keep this mess out of your eyes. It'll clear your complexion right up."
She patted his cheek twice and turned back to the piano. Basil only now noticed the lace runner over the top of the piano lid, and the small gold metronome which grabbed the light from a single pink candle. Simple and elegant.
"You're very privileged," She began, "I don't let just anyone sit with me on this bench. This is an 1886 Steinway." She stroked the gold embossed letters above the keys as she would an ermine stole, words which meant nothing to Basil.
"It's very old, and very special to me. My husband inherited it with this building, but he wouldn't know his a** from an oboe. He wanted to sell it to a collector or historian or something but somehow that felt wrong. I believe that things should do the things they were intended to do, whether its people, trucks, planes, pianos or-- anything. But then, that's me. 'Harry, your sentiment is showing!' " She laughed brightly, covering herself. Basil didn't understand the joke but laughed when she laughed.
It was then that Harriet saw a peek of fingers. The tight-fisted claws Basil used to keep the blanket around himself. She reached towards him again. When she saw him flinch, she gave him a smile that melted his reservations. She removed Basil's hand, which, while similar to Harriet's, were significantly larger and longer. Very fine hands, but unlike something a human should possess. She seemed to approve, holding his frozen fingers in her own. Her skin was as warm as a furnace.
"You've got piano hands." She said admirably.
Basil's brow furrowed.
"Your fingers are so long. You'll reach places that my little stubs just won't." She patted the spot next to her so that Basil could skootch closer to the center. "Come here and peck out a few notes for me."
It was true that Basil had been admiring the piano from a distance... He knew what music was, to a greater more fulfilling extent than most, but its manufacturing was something entirely different. He liked to make his own noises, mimicking with his voice or banging his hands on surfaces to see how they sounded. Instruments designed over hundreds of years to make specific and harmonious sounds were an enigma, as was playing them correctly.
He looked at the eighty-eight keys, and saw possibilities from the simple to the extravagant. He was excited, and wanted to play. Not play as a pianist plays a beautiful concerto, but play, as a small boy hits a ball with a stick.
At being given permission, he lifted his fist triumphantly, banging on a cluster of keys with a terrible lingering bom. His face was bright with fascination and pleasure. Harriet snatched at one wrist, unable to help the other which continued to flail across the ivory in such a way as to make her very soul shudder. She was still, nonetheless, a patient woman, giving Basil a glare of disapproval as shriveling as a magnifying glass to an anthill. He removed his hands quickly, as though she had inflicted his knuckles with steel.
"Sweet Moses, sweetie. I said play! The way you do it sounds like work."
She emphasized, "Gently, now."
Discouraged, Basil shook his head.
"Oh, don't sulk." He turned away from her, leaving a lonely space on his shoulder quickly filled with her hand. She motioned towards the keys, "Tell you what. If you try again and I like what I hear, I'll give you a present. How's that?"
This arrangement sounded agreeable, allowing Harriet this time to place his hands on the keys and manipulate his fingers. She mumbled as she went, her lips nearly eclipsed in profile by thick round cheeks.
"This one is called Middle C. It will always be right here where it says 'Steinway'. If you get lost, you come back here, you press it, and then we'll start again. Keep your wrists straight." She plucked a modified C-scale, her fingers trilling back and forth.
When it was his turn, Basil's hands remained stationary, though his fingers moved stiffly on the keys the way a nephew is hesitant to kiss his aunt. Hesitant to move. This was because Harriet emphasized the importance of form and posture, both areas Basil egregiously neglected. His slouching half-back was not used to being held straight and his head tended to go lop-sided as if it were full of water.
Harriet later came to realize that his abilities would not be contingent on proper form and posture, because, as he demonstrated, Basil had a natural gift. An ear for excellence that needed only to be refined by technical skill.
Weeks worth of amateur progress became elapsed. His hands were elegant as they bent the white keys into soft simple melodies. He knew what sounded best, pairing notes together like sing-songing children. Glancing at Harriet, who swung hazily in time, he started to fumble with loud and obvious errors.
She reached for the metronome when he had hit one bad note too many, gesturing vaguely at him with her free hand, "Go on, go on!" She said with thinning breath. "You're just fine, just keep your eyes on the keys. Don't look at me."
They continued on that way well into the night. When Harriet had shown him a booklet of church songs, he was taken aback by clouds and conflagrations of notes which held no reason or significance to him. They were like drawings. A Pollock painting where black assaulted white. It hurt his head to look at them for too long.
Harriet explained they were meant to convey a message the way words and letters did. He was skeptical. He pushed the book toward Harriet, who smiled and suggested they take a break. She stood up from the bench, taking the candle with her so that she could light other candles around the room.
During the day hours the furniture of the lobby was covered. Tonight however Harriet had neatly folded the off-white sheets into triangles, laying them over the low-legged table she frequently put flowers on. Now revealed to Basil, who in his several brief visits through this very lobby had never once considered the bulky white shapes scattered about, were two chaise couches with lion's paw feet, a wooden lectern with a loose pile of yellowed papers, a sideboard which had been modified for use as a secretary desk, and three cushioned ottomans of crushed green velvet. They were delightful pieces with organic curves and a musty odor that transported him to a different era.
He was tempted to snuff out the stench of the pink sangria candle she held, if it would not extinguish the sumptuous globe of light they found themselves in. He sucked his lower lip.
She went to the sideboard first. From a drawer she produced a cardboard box used for bullets, which she revealed to have candy inside. An assortment of Bit-O-Honeys, green peppermints, and small caramel cubes in striped plastic. Candies that kept for ages. She gave him a caramel cube, dropping it into his waiting palm and watching him expectantly.
At first Basil thought she must have been waiting for him to devour it like some grateful hungry animal, but quickly realized that she was in fact waiting for him to say thank-you, which he did.
He sniffed the wrapper, not especially fond of sweet things. He might have tasted it for Harriet's benefit, but the music had been so filling. He tried returning it to her hand, allowing it to topple between their fingers and drop onto the floor. Harriet first saw whether he would be a gentleman and pick it up for her, and waited. He looked at her with an unintelligent expression. She sighed and bent down.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't eat it..." He replied in a small voice. The first he had spoken to her.
"Can't eat it? Are you allergic? It's only caramel, dear."
"I don't eat people food." He said.
She grunted loudly as she stood up again, pocketing the caramel like she would a tissue with a child's booger on it. Secretively, to be thrown away later. She would not eat from the floor. "You're a strange one, Hudson."
She patted his shoulder and walked past him, taking a seat on one of the couches. She sat very properly, knees together. Basil sat on the couch adjacent to her while Harriet stirred through her candy box. "So if you can't eat people food, what does that make you?" She asked, unwrapping a peppermint.
Basil wasn't sure how to reply. "I don't know."
Harriet seemed unimpressed, working the peppermint. "Well that doesn't seem right. You should know what you are... And if you don't, Genie should. Someone should."
Basil shrugged, then rubbed his hands ponderously. "Well, what do you think I am?" He asked. Not in the smart-alecky way Harriet might have expected, but with genuine interest.
She smiled warmly, "I think," She began softly, as though speaking to herself, "you're a very talented, very strange young man with no manners."
Basil stared.
She stared back.
"You're like those funny people Einstein talked about. The kind that do the same thing over and over again" A crunching sound. " I know it's you that rides up and down the elevator."
Basil wasn't sure if that was an accusation or not.
She shrugged her soft shoulders, " I don't say anything because I know that that's what lost things do. You're lost, sweetheart, and you don't know where to look. But maybe in your own time you'll get there. And do you know why I can say that?"
He shook his head.
"Because tonight, something different happened." 
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Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:11 pm
It was a summer afternoon so swelteringly hot that the silhouettes of distant buildings distorted into a bleary haze. Outside in the serviceway a tabby cat sprawled itself in the shadow of a trashcan, the tip of its tail intermittently twitching. Even the heat could not encourage cats to cooperate, as a larger, scrappier tortoiseshell with a cloudy eye cautiously approached, intending to claim the shady spot for itself.
They exchanged business in the form of hisses, the tabby coiling its peaked body before the tortoishell launched itself and boxed at the head of its rival. There was some biting, a yowl, and a twist in mid-air before the tabby relinquished, dashing across the boiling street and into another alley, where in a frenzy, it launched itself at the lowest tier of a fire-escape, and missed.
Basil, being escorted by Genie to the drug-store, chuckled when he substituted the cats for people, imagining an unexceptional, middle-aged woman losing a fight to a meter-maid and catapulting herself onto the ladder.
Genie held his hand as they walked, to keep him from wandering. On days of this kind, the cold-blooded Basil might actually feel warm and human enough that his touch would be pleasant. He was drowsy on days like this, and very docile. She could expect him to behave in the store.
Next to the drug-store was a Chinese pastry shop which Lola visited ritually after shows. In the window were egg tarts and winter melons. On a hot day, the aroma was both interesting and tantalizing, the most pungent being the smell of red beans being cooked to sweetness. One didn't have to travel far however before sampling the oily, rusty smell of the automotive store. The one that specialized in window tinting, and for whatever reason, chose a penguin for its mascot. Genie smiled at its unintentional resemblance to Chilly Willy.
A plain-faced Chinese woman with moist, dark eyes exited the bakery as Genie and Basil were passing. She seemed to wobble, as though her shoes fit badly, struggling to carry a tower of covered dishes to her car. Genie without a moment's hesitance released Basil's hand, asking if she needed help. The woman's grasp of English was middling, and she seemed startled by the request.
"Hey, Ma'am. That looks like a lot to handle... You want me to help you carry some of those?" She indicated a flaking hatchback parked a short distance down the road, hatch lifted and handicap tag in the window. "Is that your car?"
"Yes, that my car." She confirmed.
Basil, it seemed, gave the act even lesser thought than Genie had. The woman had trouble seeing where she was going, able only to c**k her head from side to side to get a view of the street. At first, she had glimpsed a dark shape move past the woman beside her, consumed by its shadow. Warm, masculine hands fleeted across her own, taking the boxes from her arms without introduction. At first she shouted, nearly toppling the tower in an effort to resist him. Genie, embarrassed, tried to assure her that the stranger was confused, and that he didn't know any better, discouraging Basil in the same breath.
Ignorant of them both he continued to pull. He could be very willful once he had set his mind to something, and the heat made him deaf. The woman eventually felt that it would be more important not to let the dishes topple onto the ground for the money that was spent on them, relinquishing them with an angry, frustrated sound.
Genie assumed she felt she was being robbed or taken advantage of, and who could blame her? She patted the woman's shoulder, placating her, and indicated the car to her companion. "Basil, see how the back is open? Put those boxes in there. And don't drop any! If you drop one, you're gonna have trouble!"
In mid-day, the sun was bright and red, making his wings glossy. It was true that much of him was reptilian, such as in his icy hands and pointed face. He was equal parts glass, as Genie often overlooked, save for when it became an inconvenience to her shredded pillow-cases. She imagined glass as she had known it, in ways that were familiar to her. In the cup that held her orange juice as a child. In the shots she had knocked back on the border, burning the child away. In the stained glass windows of the church where she had routinely performed confession and opening rites, with saints and their basset-hound eyes leering down at her in her second-hand dresses and ugly shoes.
Basil was not such glass, not silica, which absorbed the light, and made it glow. Basil was obsidian, a by-product of lava. Of the steaming raw power of the earth, which held a spirit equally as ancient as that of the cobra. It was not see-through, and never glowed. It took the light, and held it prisoner in its fine, geometric edges. So fine in fact, that when it fractured, it became sharp enough as to put surgical scalpels to shame. It cut with minimal scarring, it changed color with impurities, but it never, ever glowed.
"He is so strong!" The Chinese woman remarked, deifying this sharp and terrible stranger as quickly as she had assumed the worst. Genie nodded, keeping a steady eye on him, "I suppose he is. I mean, he's not holding any more than you were."
She turned swiftly to Genie, pointing, "With no legs it not so easy! It sounded faintly as though she were telling a joke, and at the same time, entirely serious.
It was then that Genie noticed the brooch she clutched within her aging fingers, her thumb barely revealing the shape of a needle-like beak and smooth shiny head. A hummingbird with filigree wings. It was very elegant, and unlike anything she had seen, almost transfixed by it as her eyes darted between the pin and the car, where Basil obediently loaded dish after dish, laying them in straight lines on the floor.
Because he didn't have the good sense to know how to stack things, he quickly ran out of room. The woman shuffled with her funny limp to the car and stopped beside him. She examined the boxes, rearranging them so she could close the door. It was then that she did something unexpected. She broke the tape on one container, lifted the lid and offered to Basil as a reward. A sweet egg-tart.
She pointed, smiling, "See? It round and yellow here. Like sun, like happy face. You eat this and have happy face." She encouraged.
Basil held the small foil wrapper and poked his finger into the center of the custard, working out a dollop which he then popped into his mouth. His fingers were dirty and the air smelled like oil.
"Happy face!" The woman repeated forcefully, to which Basil grinned. Most might have smiled as an empty platitude, intimidated by this shouting foreign woman. Basil thought she was wonderful, and that the tart was wonderful. She bowed slightly, then shuffled to the driver's door. The sun came out from behind the clouds and threw her shadow onto the sidewalk where Genie beamed as proudly as the rays. Basil labored to keep the runny custard in the wrapper as he spooned it onto a huge flat tongue.
You did a good thing." She said.
He swallowed thickly, unaccustomed to the sensation, then licked the wrapper clean. Neither of them had to know he was holding it in his throat until he could spit it out later.
They later learned that the woman's name was Liang An Ling. Her Western name was more pleasantly alliterative. Lisa Ling. Her granddaughter worked as a cashier in the bakery, and had remarked to Lola about the sight she had seen. About the half-bodied demon on the sidewalk that had helped her flinty little grandmother with her burden, and was rewarded with a treat for his kindness. She said he had eyes like a lizard and a drawn, shifty face.
Lola laughed, "Yeah, that's Basil. He lives in my building, the one at the end of that alley there. Probably won't be the only time you'll see him around."
The girl was nervous at this, chopping salted pork for baozi. She'd had an easy life, with no significant turn of suffering that should stir faith in the old ways. The old demons and curses and superstitions to which her grandmother fed her prayers and fruit and incense. But when a creature such as Basil appeared to her, and the danger of disharmony was very real, she could not be certain what consequences were to be had by having him so close. What bad luck he might bring.
When Lola left, she lit an incense, and vowed to show deference and respect to the creature the next it should appear. Had she known he possessed the soul of a snake, she would have cried out in her foolishness.
Genie and Basil had gone to the drug-store for some very basic items. Iodine, a clean sponge for the sink, some impulse purchases like soda and crackers. She also needed a comb with fine teeth, because tonight she was cutting Mickey's hair.
He sat restlessly in her kitchen on a white metal stool, with legs so low that his large knees bent uncomfortably. Genie set down a cookie-tin he could rest his feet on. She didn't anticipate however that the smooth metal bottom would propel itself across the tile, out from under his work-boots, and that Mickey would fall off the edge of the stool and straight onto his a**.
Genie, briefly thankful that her scissors were not near his ear or neck at the time, burst into giggles. The Bolivian woman shrieked and pounded on the ceiling. Basil was nearby, bouncing on the couch. He thought it was hilarious, snorting with laughter.
"Assholes, both of you." He growled, grabbing onto the counter and helping himself back to his feet.
At that time, Lola came into the apartment. He tried manfully to regain his pride despite his aching backside, his back stiff and shoulders high while Genie spritzed his hair with water. Lola payed him no attention, kissing Genie on the cheek faster than she could resist and throwing her arms out to Basil as they rolled over the back of the couch and tumbled onto the floor together like puppies in a pet-store window. Another shriek from the Bolivian Woman.
"How's my big guy?"
"I'm writing! I can do it so much better!"
"I heard a thump in here, what'd you do?"
"Nothing!" Basil cried earnestly.
"Watch his wings!" Genie quickly reminded.
"Oh, he's fine." Lola said in her relentlessly adolescent spirit. She wasn't wearing makeup today, which was a refreshing change. She often chose unflattering eyeshadow palettes and foundation that caked. Truthfully Lola hated makeup, and it seemed to return that hatred in spades. She didn't have the patience for it, slapping it on because she felt like she had to. As if somehow she wouldn't be taken seriously without all the plucking, shaping, and smearing.
She had dark eyelids, her skin Irish-fair. She wore a stiff white cotton blouse with a lacy collar and elastic cuffs. As she gathered herself from the floor, Mickey's eyes found the exposed left cup of her brassiere peeking above the neckline of the blouse. She fixed it unashamedly. Against the sunlight, an unnatural red outline enclosed her face, and her eyes crinkled as she smiled. Mickey was lost. Genie poked him knowingly in the back of the ear with the scissors. He grumbled and looked away as Basil led Lola up the stairs to show her his latest worksheets.
Once they were gone, a silence fell over the siblings, one dutifully snipping the prematurely graying hair of her brother.
"What are you doin', boy?" she sighed.
"Sittin' here while you mangle my head."
"She's still a baby."
Mickey tensed, turning away as though he didn't know what she was talking about. He knew he'd been caught, but so what? Lola should know better than to traipse around in low-cut shirts like that if she didn't want to be looked at. He wasn't a eunuch for God's sake. And was the age difference really that big of a deal?
She gripped his shoulders and leaned down against his ear where he could plainly see her in peripheral vision, "She's also my friend and the last thing she needs is boy trouble. She's gonna call her mama, and her mama is gonna say something nasty to her, and who do you think is going to have to clean up your mess?"
She blew a cloud of trimmings from his shoulder, "So you watch it or I'm gonna finish what the floor started." She went to the sink, rinsing the scissors, "You're all done."
Mickey stood up from the stool and bent down near the oven, looking at his reflection in the door. "It's nothing, okay? She's a good lookin' girl and I was just doing what comes natural." He emphasized, "That's all."
"Pig." Genie said quietly, flicking water from her fingertips. She marched into the bathroom where she kept the dust-pan. Mickey sucked his cheeks, and moved the stool across the room with short passive-aggressive kicks until it would go no further.
Genie came back from the bathroom with the pan and broom, kneeling on the floor where she swept the hair into a neat pile, though the brush had very stiff bristles and tended to fling the trimmings more than push them.
Genie hollered from the floor, "Hey, Baz! You want to go next? Shave a little off the sides?" She tried to make the experience sound like something to be excited about, but her voice was much too croaky and tired. There were the sounds of footsteps upstairs. Lola's of course.
"Just one second!" She called.
"One second!" Basil echoed.
Genie sighed. She was annoyed, but there was no reason to put Lola or Basil through the awkwardness of a petty fight. She looked at Mickey, who looked back at her, arms folded across his chest. "I'm sorry. Okay?"
"Yeah." Said Mickey.
Lola and Basil came down the stairs, one after the other. Basil immediately looked for the stool, then at Mickey. Mickey knew he was being asked to explain its absence. Irritably, he gestured towards the table he had kicked it under. He didn't make a move to fetch it for him.
As many times as Genie had explained the life cycle of a Raevan to him, he still didn't fully accept or understand it. Looking at this thing, he could say with confidence that he wasn't a baby, or an invalid. At the very least he could pretend not to enjoy being coddled so much. He knew the kid didn't have legs, but that didn't mean he couldn't have pride, right? He told himself that Basil would be weak in his future. A limp-wristed crybaby that would never be challenged. An anxious house-pet that needed the radio on so it wouldn't feel lonely.
Genie knew Mickey was being defensive about being caught in the act and taking it out on Basil. She shot him a look as Basil brought the stool to her, then pushed his shoulders and forced him to sit.
Lola favored Mickey with a glance, her eyes quietly judging his physique. All callouses and creases. Mickey felt a burning inside which he rejected in favor of hatred for Basil's strangeness. Basil was as always, an enigma, his thoughts completely beyond estimation. When the tension was subtle, as it was now, he seemed to remain unaffected, either by genuine ignorance or distractedness. He looked up at her with shiny eyes, and she remembered the tart he had eaten with so much pleasure. The good-natured act he had performed without even having to be asked.
Suddenly, Genie wanted the both of them to leave. Just get the hell out of her kitchen and take their weird high-school antics with them. She ran her fingers through Basil's hair, finding it to be clumped and oily, as always. She spritzed it with water, warning him that it might feel cold on his neck. He made a complaining noise, and Lola went to the counter to turn on the radio to comfort him.
Mickey shook his head, then cleared his throat and followed behind her. Lola turned, believing the throat-clearing was a bid for her attention, when in fact, he had done so because he genuinely had a blockage to be cleared. He brushed past her.
" 'Scuse me,"
Lola had looked stupid and open-mouthed like a carp, and Genie couldn't believe the things she put up with.
She brushed through Basil's thick black hair, frustrated with every new tangle she encountered and picking them apart with her comb. She scolded him when she discovered a mass near the nape of his neck. A knot of hair the size of a cherry tomato. A product of neglect, from not brushing. He shivered when she cut it out with her scissors. Holding the filthy thing in her hand, she worried she might find evidence of parasites or worse in the shiny black coil, but the hair was clean.
She very nearly threw it away, but as she held her foot on the pedal of the trashcan she realized that this was a special thing. The first lock of hair, from his first haircut. A funny reminder when years from now, he might one day be able to keep himself so finely groomed, and be so handsome that to look at that hideous little hairball she had preserved, his face would turn red from embarrassment.
Presently, he made a noise. She turned and saw he was chewing his shirt sleeve. She smiled patiently and found a drawer to put it in until she could find something better.
Basil had never gotten around to telling her how he might like to have his hair cut, so she just snipped and sprayed and combed until she liked what she saw. Basil seemed astounded by the sensation, his head feeling different, lighter. Tilting a damp itchy neck, he looked at the floor around the stool where many black tufts were scattered. He smiled knowing Genie always told him the truth. It hadn't hurt at all.
He got up from the stool, scratching his neck until Genie wiped his shoulders with a damp cloth and shook out the back of his shirt. "All done."
He turned to Mickey, ecstatic, "It didn't hurt!"
Mickey scowled from his chair in the living room, as if Basil were standing there with a dead animal hanging out of his mouth.
He talked past him, at Genie. "Sit him down again, you ain't done. It's still all shaggy, he looks like a bum. And what's with that s**t over his eye like that? Makes no sense to wear it like that on one side and brush back the other."
"He looks fine, Mickey. That's how he likes it."
Mickey shrugged, mumbling just loud enough for everyone to hear, "He looks que--"
Even Lola seemed horror-stricken before the word came out, her face blank and smooth. Genie knocked a bottle of dish-liquid into the sink as she turned, hands on her hips. The clatter made Basil's eyes dart about in that shifty lizard way.
"No, finish. He looks what?" She said.
His face puckered up like a baby. He held that expression for several minutes, his face tight. Eventually it relaxed, and he had a laughter in his voice, "Hey, Basil!"
Basil looked quickly towards him, positively canine. Mickey rarely addressed him personally anymore.
"Come here." He said, waving his hand.
Genie tried to hold his shoulders and force him to stay, but again, Basil was very willful. Mickey quickly regretted his decision. At this distance Basil's eyes seemed to burn into his skin with an open acceptance, and he hated it. He did his best to ignore it as he leaned forward, his hands on his knees as if telling a story to a half-circle of children, "You know why girls got long hair and men keep theirs short?"
"Why?" Basil said immediately. He had never made this observation for himself, and upon realizing it, became eager to know. He liked to learn.
Genie's face paled. "Stop it." She said. This time she wasn't so sure of what Mickey might say, but Basil was well within biting range.
"Because men are one way and women are another." He began sagely, "They do certain things that benefit each other, and it makes a society work."
"Men protect women, and have a long history of fightin' for what they need to keep their society and way of life going. Back in old times, men figured out pretty quick that if you've got too much hair on your head, it's one more thing for yer' enemy to grab 'hold of in a fight. A guy could be riding by so fast on his horse that if he got yanked down, his head would fly right off and the body would keep ridin'."
He poked a finger into what little had formed of Basil's chest, an emphatic jab. "Havin' long hair like that means you don't care who knows you're weak. It's an invitation for trouble."
He leaned closer, his voice drawing to a hiss. "You keep yours shaggy like that, and one day, somebody's gonna rip your head right off."
"Okay that's enough!" Genie shouted. She couldn't see Basil's face from behind, but feared the worst. Lola said nothing, and remained impartial. She had learned very quickly that Witham folk nursed impressive tempers, and that it was best not to get involved.
Genie and Mickey were made up of the same elements, in equal quantity. They both had large on-going fires that they ignited with their stubbornness, until both burned into slow defeat and filled each other with smoke. This defined them, in constant battle and conflagration, but also, in constant remorse and reconciliation. Genie had forgiven Mickey for larger blunders than this, and occasionally every so often, Mickey would urge an apology from her. They would open their mouths to speak to one another, their heads like chimneys through which the smoke poured out. They would then re-build their fires, and begin again.
Basil was very much a Water person, Lola speculated. It was true that he carried far too much in his spirit, which caused him to flow in all directions, never stopping to finish what he started. But also, as the water froze into Winter snow, and waited silently, patiently for Spring, he took on a mysterious hidden aspect as well. As quickly as they had burned both their fires, Basil spoke, and extinguished them both.
"I think I'd like to have my head pulled off..." He said frankly, easily. "I would keep it in my drawer and let my body walk around. It would be so con... con..."
"Convenient?" Lola offered meekly.
"Yeah." He said.
Genie and Mickey exchanged glances, humbled by Basil's innocence.
---
In just a few weeks Basil's hair was already past his chin. Growing with it was a calmness that had settled over him, which Genie could only attribute to his infrequent piano lessons from Harriet. Harriet said that of everyone, he had wanted to impress Genie most of all, and that by practicing in private his confidence was bolstered. So, he had refused to perform for her. She could only accept this quietly, and count her blessings.
Playing music had given Basil a discipline she had never seen before, tempering his outbursts. He retained information in greater sums, and formed more sturdy opinions about things. She could have actual conversations with him, thrilled at the new something behind his voice. Shaping it, forging it with character. Steadily, she saw a person developing, a fact which terrified Mickey to no end. It was easier to be cruel to a pet than it was to something that knew what you were saying, and might one day call you out on it.
She reserved hope that Mickey could still make an effort to be civil toward Basil. She felt that once he had accepted Basil into not only her life, but into his, their relationship might improve, and he would abandon his idea of her as a damsel in distress. By himself, independent of the deeper issue, he was the same brother she had always known. They laughed together, went out for pizza, and exchanged words regarding their station in life and the desire to rise above it. She found herself fighting with, and reconciling with Mickey in larger doses than ever before. She fought equally as hard to repel him as she did to keep him, which she knew to be because he was family and she could not lose him.
Genie could not remember the last time she had seen her father in person, nor gone out of her way to call Toby. She had not visited Toto in Branton, or heard a word from Mickey about their mother. She knew her family was being neglected, as Basil required so much attention from her. She worried they were drifting apart, and that worse, Mickey might use it against her.
Lola was no help, diplomatic to a fault. When she couldn't withdraw from the issue, and remain impartial, she was easily coerced into taking what she perceived to be the winning side, which, being Genie's friend and Basil's escort, worked in her favor. So long as Mickey continued to steal glances at her young freckled body, Lola would remain an important asset in more ways then one.
Whether it was her energy or artificial authority, Basil responded to Lola, and showed her things. Or, more likely, Lola had a greater capacity for detail than she did, identifying things that Genie could only gloss over between ashtrays and paystubs. Lola, in her leisure, was constantly looking for items of interest, while Genie only looked for damage. And so it was only natural that Lola should be the one to discover a note stuffed into the pocket of a sweatshirt Basil had left on the floor.
The note itself was written on a store receipt, its language difficult to discern, as Basil had written only on the busy side, as though he would never need the note for reference, and had only created it out of a severe desire to write. She held it up to the light, squinting, bringing it closer to her face. After short consideration, she decided to think nothing of it, feeling Basil might have only been practicing his words on the first piece of paper he could come across. She stuffed the note in her pocket, and continued to look for one of Basil's favorite CDs.
Over the next few days, once she actively began looking for them, Lola had come to find similar notes in strange places. At once she had discovered that the table-lamp was slightly crooked, this being because an abundance of these notes were put underneath the base in a short pile. Many of these notes were on unconventional sources of paper, regardless of whether it was already written on. Receipts, pieces of thin cardboard, match-boxes, and newspaper. Some were in scraps, some whole. They were never dated, and the handwriting often alternated between an uninhibited scribbling, and small, tight letters written in pen so deeply that the shape of them could be felt from the back of the paper.
Under the bed, she had found the motherload. She had felt underneath, curious, as this was the common hiding place for private items, where she might expect to find a shoebox full of answers. On the floor, she found nothing, but reaching up and into the frame of the bed itself, she had felt ruffles and jagged tufts. Dislodging even one brought down a torrent of others, all neatly tucked into place by a deliberate hand. She plucked, like the feathers of a chicken, unleashing hundreds upon hundreds of papers, finding even large notebook pages. All of them, scribbled upon and disregarded.
Lola sorted through them on the floor, astounded by the sheer amount of writing. She spent a significant amount of time with Basil, and though she had seen him dawdle through his workbooks and draw pictures on things, she couldn't recognize any of the things she saw here. Shredded paper plates and pages torn from books.
At this time, Basil was sleeping soundly on the couch in a warm square of sunlight. She felt she didn't have much time to linger on her discovery. In the above apartment, she could hear footsteps and grocery bags being dropped heavily onto the floor. Like a rabbit, she froze and glanced behind her. Basil could be very sensitive about his room. He didn't like people touching his things when he wasn't around.
Thankfully, he was not leering at her from the stairwell as she could have expected. By the sheer number of them, these things would not so easily be removed from the room as the letters had been. Could she take only a few of them, stuff them in her pockets? Would Basil notice if a few were gone? Could she chance it and take them all? Should she leave them under the bed and tell Genie what she found?
There was a thump that disturbed her. She felt it hadn't come from the apartment above her, she couldn't be sure. To a rational person, it was a common house noise like a board settling or a heater kicking on. Something mindless and harmless. To Lola, it was the sound of Basil coming to investigate.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 9:27 am
My Business
Genie kept watch over a bubbling stew-pot of eggs, the air faint with the smell of boiling water, and a dirty, dust-choked fan whirring loudly overhead.
Tomorrow, she was taking Basil to her brother Lionel's house for a Fourth of July barbecue, and deviled eggs were the easiest thing she could prepare on short notice.
Lola was perched on the counter, unscrewing the panel from an old beeper. She blurrily told Genie something about an Art-In-The-Park thing she wanted to enter a submission to and been disemboweling old tech for a week now.
As Genie lifted the lid to check the status of the eggs, tiny bubbles issuing from invisible fissures, there was a sting of hot water on her bare thigh that forced Lola from her seat, dropping her jeweler's screwdriver onto the floor.
"s**t." She hissed, dropping to her hands and knees. Without offering to help, Genie tucked the lid back onto the pot and brought the heat to a low flame. Nearby, Basil sprawled comfortably across a legless couch which had been sold to Lola as an "imported divan". In it were the smells of sweat, food, and incense, all of which Basil drew deep into his eager lungs.
Lola crawled, nearly on her stomach, looking for the glint of metal. She combed under the table with her fingers, and the floor nearest to the counter where the cabinets jutted out by several inches. Items and pieces of food were often lost in this space. Turning on her knees, she looked up to find that she was being watched by half of a head. A shaggy, line-riddled face peering from over the arm of the couch, then diving out of sight with a wheezy laugh.
Lola sat up quickly, wondering whether Basil was playing a game with her, or if he had just been caught peeking at her backside. She entertained the possibility that it was both, and her stomach curled unpleasantly. He surfaced again, and grinned with teeth, his smile filling his face and pinching his eyes into shiny pits.
He stiffly mouthed something. 'She's coming.'
"Hey," Genie said, distracting her.
Turning, Lola was instantly aware Genie had come across some envelopes on the rack above the stove, which she shuffled through like a sheaf of papers.
"Your name is Delores?"
Lola snatched them away, throwing them into a waste-paper basket underneath the sink. "Yeah, it's a family name."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah! So what?"
Basil yelled from the sofa, "My family name is Basil!"
Genie laughed, turning back towards the stove where she removed the eggs one by one with a pair of steel tongs. "I guess I just never thought Lola was short for anything."
Lola summoned a smile, "To you it still isn't."
"Isn't what?" Basil whined, a question which went ignored as Genie continued to fish out the eggs, steam coiling from the shells.
Lola took a seat at the table, legs crossed, her palm supporting the weight of her head. Since discovering the notes under Basil's bed, she had been at a total loss of what to do with the information. In the short amount of time they'd been in her possession, she hadn't learned much. But what she had learned... troubled her.
There was room to speculate on the identity of their author, or at least, one of them. She had quickly come to the conclusion that there were at least two, and that many of these notes were in fact correspondences between them. Basil's handwriting was obvious. He had poor control over his arm, no finesse at all. His letters were big, looping, and the size was inconsistent.
Then there was the second person's handwriting. It was smaller, more restrained, and usually written in pen, though she wasn't sure why. The reason being, the writer was most likely left-handed.
Left-handed people often find pens problematic, as it is difficult through a combination of ink-flow and posture to prevent their dominant hand from dragging through the drying ink, as was the case here. Legibility became an issue when entire words and phrases were lost in a blue smear. Frustration was natural. There were many scribbles. Lots of expletives.
She'd also been able to discern that this had been going on for some time now. She thought she could piece together some sort of timeline out of the dated receipts, which traveled all the way back to late February. Basil's birthday was in January. Until she found a different receipt from last year, which meant that Basil might have been pulling sources of paper from the garbage, or even Genie's purse. She then had to refer to his handwriting again.
Soon after birth Basil was deeply frustrated by his inability to communicate. He was eager to learn a language, any language. Before he could form full sentences, or identify things by their proper name, he frequently substituted nonsense. Meaningless noise and jibberish that to him, seemed to qualify as "speaking". When he had learned that words and noises could be translated into letters, a similar pattern followed, wherein he would write in a mixture of known letters, and "invented" letters. Thoughtful shapes and lopsided swirls, which appeared in many notes.
Genie would know at what point Basil abandoned this method and adapted to the standard alphabet, but she was not yet ready to approach the subject with her because thirdly: Genie was very sensitive in matters regarding Basil, and if Lola wanted to show her what she had found, she would need to arrange her information carefully.
"You shouldn't take them out yet. Dump out that water and pour in cold water. That way the middles won't be gray."
It was Genie's turn to scold, "That'll wreck your pot, dummy. You don't dump something ice cold in something that's still boiling hot. You can shatter coffee pots that way. And what does it matter if they're gray or not?"
Lola argued, "It tastes different. I like mine to still be yellow."
"I like them yellow too!" Basil announced.
Genie raised her voice at him, "Hush, goober. You never had a boiled egg in your life."
"They should still be yellow..." He protested.
Just then, they detected the sound of footsteps coming down the carpeted hallway, urgent. A silence crept over the apartment as Genie and Lola watched the door, waiting. Basil moaned, burying his head deeply into a calico pillow-cover. He'd known, sensitive to the vibrations. She had not yet grown accustomed to the fact that this incredible receptiveness to sensation was entirely possible for Basil's advanced sense of hearing, and not born of some eerie, otherwordly talent for premonitions.
The women exchanged glances. Hesitantly, Lola was the one to answer the door, peeking first through the spyhole. It was Harriet, worrying a crucifix in her short fingers, her face fish-eyed by the lens. Genie was not far behind, turning off the burner and tucking in her shirts.
Lola opened the door quickly. So quickly that the still-fastened chain lock on the door sling-shotted it back into place with a loud slam. Another swear from Lola, who hastily undid the lock, then opened the door more slowly. By this time, Harriet had relieved herself of the crucifix, a patient smile worn above a shrewish, judging portrait which made Genie instantly cagey of her. "Hello, girls. Are you busy by any chance?"
Lola answered first and for the both of them, "I guess not. What's wrong?"
She was visibly uneasy,"Well, I don't know. There's... something stinking up the elevator shaft. It's horrible, I think there's something dead up there. I need someone to get on a stepladder and investigate."
"Well sure, that'd be fine," Lola agreed.
Genie stifled her, grasping her shoulder, "No, Lola, not fine." Pushing Lola so that she could stand beside her, she squared herself against Harriet with a narrow, scrutinizing expression. "Isn't this what we've got a super for, Harry? Why isn't he up there to get his hands dirty? You don't come knocking around here when you need someone to check for rat turds behind the boiler, do you?"
Harriet's face reddened with small, spidery veins. "I actually tried your house first, Genevieve." She gave Lola an unfortunate glance. She'd stopped at Lola's apartment to ask if she might know where Genie was so that they could speak in private, but with the both of them there at the same time and it being Lola's apartment, good manners had given her little option but to include her in the conversation.
She added in a loud whisper, "Is he here with you too?"
She soon spotted Basil in the background, approaching the stove. She waved her hand to erase the topic before Genie could answer. Harriet stepped and turned from the doorway.
"Please hurry." As soon as that, she had left, going quickly down the hallway in the same urgent stride. Genie could now feel Basil's heavy, animal breathing on the back of her neck, her blood chilling. He squeezed between them to look down the hallway, curious about their guest, who had not taken the time to chat with him.
He shortly spotted the broad, wobbling shape of Harriet. He called out to her, "Hi!"
Surprised, she turned over her shoulder. Her face was too blurry from such a distance to discern her expression, but he could make out the cordial waving of her arm. He waved back before turning back into the kitchen and investigating the eggs.
Genie closed the door behind them, leaning against it and gathering her breath. Lola stayed near her, waiting for Genie to give her a sign of what to do. Genie understood better between them, that inside, they were asking themselves the same question. Nothing needed to be said, or affirmed, but it was Genie's campaign to lead.
Stirring her energy, she approached Basil, shooing him away from the stove in a stern, quiet voice. "Careful, baby. That's hot, you'll burn your hands."
He regarded her only momentarily, then tried to take one of the eggs to play with, which Genie also had to remove from him. "Basil, I just told you not to touch. These eggs are hot too, they've been in the water. Just... go back to the couch."
"I just want to see." He pleaded.
"Go." She said sternly. "I'll show you about eggs later." She paused, sighing through her teeth. "Actually," She went to the refrigerator, where she took out mayonnaise and mustard, squeezing them quickly into a Tupperware bowl. She groaned when the mustard came out in a watery sputter, having to close the lid, shake the bottle, and try again. She stared at the lumpy, semi-solid mass in front of her, then hastily pressed the bowl and a spoon into Basil's hands, "Make yourself useful. Mix that up with the spoon. You have to mix it up really good or else it'll taste bad. Don't stop mixing until me and Lola get back, okay?"
She enunciated the 'okay' with an open-palmed push of her hands. He seemed to respond better to gestures in congruence with words. Basil, exhilarated to be trusted with such an important task, shivered excitedly, then sat at the table to begin mixing.
Genie first splashed a little water on her face, then tied her hair back. She had a feeling she would want to see what she was doing. Together, she and Lola ambled down the hall, Genie walking slightly faster than Lola, who had been remarkably quiet up til now. She comfortingly touched Genie's shirt-sleeve, which Genie yanked away, eyes ahead.
Lola would not be so easily deterred, taking an elastic from her wrist to tie her hair back as well, "Hey, why did you want me to come with you? I could have stayed back to watch him."
They neared the elevator, where Harriet stood waiting for them. Using her maintenance key, she had already disabled the lift, her nose and mouth covered by her blouse. Assuming the matter would be taken care of shortly, she hadn't bothered to alert the other tenants that the lift would not be available. If they were frustrated enough, they would just use the stairs. Jesus preferred those who helped themselves over those who pestered a poor old woman.
Genie stopped in mid-step, turning to face Lola and lean in, "Because if what's happened up there what I think has happened, you've got to know too. I can't deal with this by myself. You understand?"
Lola nodded her head almost imperceptibly. "I understand."
Genie frowned and nodded more firmly. "Okay, then come on."
Though Harriet seemed initially relieved at their arrival, she had a grave, solemn quality about her, looking at Lola as if in disapproval, and then to Genie. "Oh, honey. I only needed one of you, and I'm not so sure this is the right job for her."
Genie shook her head, "Stop. We're all thinking the same thing, so let's just get this over with." Taking the step-ladder propped against the wall, she began to unfold it, "Thanks for keeping this quiet, Harry. Does Phil know?"
Harriet, stepping away from the rancorous odor, had been closing her nose with her fingers over the shirt, breathing deeply through her mouth.
Her voice was nasal, "No, dear. He's been on about the smell, but I told him I would take care of it. I first noticed it Friday, and a few people have already complained at the front desk, but I didn't know where it was coming from until now. I'm surprised you two didn't smell anything."
Genie shrugged, "Three day weekend for me, and Lola works mostly from home. I don't think either of us have had to leave the house for anything."
Harriet spoke more quietly, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Lola as Genie pulled back the screen and placed the stepladder inside. She tested her footing on the bottom step, her eyes flicking the weight-limit sticker.
"I would have gotten rid of it myself," She said pointedly, "with help from the super, but I thought... maybe you would want to see. Just in case."
Genie grunted in response, taking her first step up. She quickly lost her nerve, knowing she was not on solid ground, able to sense the empty void underneath the lift, and the legs of the ladder. She called out, "Lola, get in here and hold the ladder for me, okay?"
Lola went to her obediently. It was only a very small ladder with no risk of toppling, but she understood the significance of the gesture. Once at the top, she tried to force her hands, palms flat against the top of the elevator where a square panel was visible. She struggled with it for several minutes before stepping down again.
"Harriet, how do I get the top open? Is there a button or a lever or something...?"
Harriet, hesitant to enter the globe of stench again, only called out, "Just keep at it, dear. It'll open."
Under normal circumstances, the hatch at the top of an elevator may only be accessed from the outside, if at all. In many modern elevators, the hatch is either bolted down or secured by sliding latches. However, the lift of the Gregarious Arms had once been a popular target for elevator-surfing. Young people that had long since destroyed these latches with reckless machine tools, so that they would not have to go through the trouble of stopping it in between floors. Harriet and the super had known about the broken latches, but had not taken the time to repair them.
If Harriet's husband had a fatal flaw, it was his ability to cut corners, and she knew that one day, it would end badly for him, though she was content to allow people to suspect it was the blind leading the blind. All throughout the building she had spotted potential repairs and failing systems. Peeling wallpaper and broken lights. He was very traditional when it came to his decisions, and Harriet patiently allowed them.
Over time, she too began to make distinctions and judgments. Dividing "important" repairs from lesser ones with a practiced eye and precipitous judgment. When an apartment was broken into, or when a pipe burst, she had to admit that there was always money to handle them. A rainy-day fund that came at the expense of other things. Things like broken latches on elevator hatches. They weren't running the Hilton, he had rationalized with her, going on to say that the wiring had not been damaged, and the lift was still entirely functional. None of the tenants would know about the broken hatch unless they checked for themselves, and for what reason would they?
As she watched Genevieve push, red-faced against the panel, frozen with rust, she knew she had done the right thing to get her involved.
With a heavy groan, the hatch gave in, and Genie was able to push it up, then backwards where it fell heavily against the top. She recoiled as the fetid smell of flesh hit her in the face like a whip. There was no denying it now, something was definitely there. She began to feel especially nervous at this point. In all the years she had ridden elevators, it was difficult to see them in this light. As a series of compartments, levers, wires, and hatches, and to touch them hands-on. It had a dangerous quality to it, like the thrill of law-breaking. Beneath her, Lola made a gagging sound.
"Oh God and Jesus alive." She groaned. "Harry!"
She stepped hurriedly back down to the floor. Harriet laughed, not out of amusement, but in the nervous, inappropriate way that came from a situation in need of levity. "I know, it's awful. I'm hoping it's something small like a bird or a rat." She stepped aside for Lola.
"Birds are worse. Filthy things."
Genie went out into the hallway to recover. Hands on her hips, she leaned backwards, eyes closed, trying to gather herself in large, deep breaths. She then slowly turned around. "Did you bring a flashlight or a bag or anything?"
Harriet seemed surprised, approaching her. "Well, actually Genevieve,"
"Oh don't even..."
"I wasn't actually expecting you to... remove the problem. I just wanted you to see it."
"But what if it's something bad. I should be the one to get rid of it. I gotta handle my business, you know that, Harry."
"This is such an old elevator and I don't want anyone getting hurt. I don't think I should have you jumping up there to clean up the mess if you don't know what you're doing."
"How hard can it be?"
"I don't know... I just--"
"Just nothing, Harry. I want to know what's up there. You brought me here because you wanted to keep this between us, and I appreciate that. I'm a big girl, I'm not going to go pressing a bunch of shiny buttons or sit up there makin' shadow puppets. Just get me a bag and a flashlight now."
Harriet considered her, pondering her options. Genie could be most ungovernable at times, and would not be spoken to in even the gentlest voice if she felt she were being short-changed. She had her reasons for discovering the source of the odor, a name she needed have cleared from the record.
Finally, Harriet yielded, indicating a heavy black flashlight near where the step-ladder had been. Genie tested the weight of it in her hand like a weapon, clicking the button twice to judge the brightness of the beam. It was a very good flashlight.
"Trash-bag?" Genie requested imperially.
"I didn't think to bring one, dear," Harriet explained patiently. "Why don't you ask your friend if she can spare one?"
Soon, Lola hurried down the hall in a trot, like the leggy canter of a foal, leaving Genie alone with Harriet. They looked formidable, side by side that way, Harriet with her undershirt hitched against her nose and Genie bravely enduring the stench, arms crossed. Like a police blockade, guarding the elevator. They spoke to each other without eye contact, as if regarding different people.
"Alright, what do you plan to do about this?"
"Can you be more specific?" She needed to know the best way to answer, without revealing more than she should.
"What do you plan to do if your fellow's done something he shouldn't have. Hurt some poor thing." Her voice slid into a whisper, "I know he's done it before."
Genie's nostrils flared, a dangerous flash in her eyes which Harriet intelligently noted, injecting tact, "Well, as I've heard."
"We don't know anything, yet. Not for sure. At this point we're just talking. "
"Well then, what's your best estimate? He's yours after all. You're the only one fit to judge his character."
This was a precarious situation she had found herself in. If she said that it was possible, word would eventually reach Phil about the transgressions of "her creature" as Harriet called him. And if she lied, Harriet wouldn't believe her, and try to fill in the blanks on her own, shoehorning unfounded assumptions and suspicions that might do more to harm her than the truth.
"I can't really answer that. It's Schroedinger's cat, Harry."
Harriet seemed alarmed at this, touching her fingers to her mouth through the shirt. "The poor man... How do you know?" Genie sighed exasperatingly as she babbled. "We don't even have a Mister Schroedinger in the building. That sounds German. Is it German?"
It was easier for her to believe the woman was being willfully ignorant. By that time, Lola rounded the corner, trash-bag billowing in her hand. "I got it!" She announced. She paused in front of Genie, handing over her burden. She took half a breath, raised her arms, and let them slap down again.
"I guess at some point he forgot to keep stirring. He ate a raw egg and puked in the sink, you should probably check it out."
Genie grumbled something incoherent, then instinctively snapped the bag to loosen it. "After this. Did you tell him to leave the rest of the stuff alone?"
"Yeah."
"Perfect."
Again they assumed their positions, though the second time, Lola did not so much stabilize the ladder as she did half-heartedly touch her hand against one of the legs. With the other hand, she cupped her face.
Genie stared up into the foreboding square of blackness, musty air spilling into the car from the shaft. She was relieved at least that by opening the hatch, the culprit had not dropped down onto the floor, or her unsuspecting face. They just didn't make water hot enough to purge her from that level of disgust. She tensed, bracing herself. She knew she would need to have somewhere to put her hand in order to hoist herself up. Trembling, she reached into the blackness.
She set her fingers down delicately, like a mosquito landing on the surface of a pond. Inside the bubble of tension, was the refreshing air of relief. She first felt cool metal with a downy layer of dust. She edged her fingers around, standing on her tiptoes. Even being inches closer to the stench brought a fresh pool of bile at the back of her throat which she needed to quickly swallow down. She tried not to breathe in the flurry of dust motes, seeing if she could manage to get her entire palm flat. Edging further, she gasped sharply and stepped down again when the feeling of metal became crunchy fur and skin, the contact almost electrifying.
Harriet poked her head inside the cab. Lola looked up at her with so witless an expression as to make Genie want to stomp down as hard as she could. She had felt a tail, she knew it. She had felt a semi-flat, narrow appendage that was the tail of an animal. Though she had laid hand on it for only seconds, she was sure she could judge the size of the creature in relation, and her best guess was that it was indeed, a cat.
She mustered up her courage again, now knowing the location of the thing, and that if she were going to lay her hand down, she would be free to put it on the opposite side of the roof. Grunting, she hoisted herself up, emerging completely into the darkness with only the flashlight to guide her.
The light from the hallway filled the elevator, which provided some sense of semi-darkness in the shaft. She would be able to quickly lower herself back down through the opening if she needed to. She looked around.
To her immediate right was a motor of some kind. There were cases which housed buttons and switches. She turned to see the famous cables which allowed the elevator transport, quickly wishing she hadn't. They could have been twice-reinforced steel, they could have been brand new and each the diameter of a roll of quarters, but no matter the case, they would never appear large enough, abundant enough, or reassuring enough to carry the weight of a dozen people.
She sighed, Lola calling up to her to see that she was alright. She grumbled a reply and turned the flashlight towards a terrible sight. The corpse of a small animal, still shiny with flies. She gagged loudly and cupped her face with her shirt. "I found it!" She cried.
"What is it?" Harriet implored before quietly asking Lola if she knew a Mr. Schroedinger.
"It's hard to tell, it's so eaten up."
"Do you need help?" Lola gave falsely. She didn't want to help. She might if Genie insisted, but she wouldn't call her bluff.
"No! Just get ready to take the bag. I'm gonna... try to peel it off I guess."
"You don't have to do that!" Harriet said quickly, "If it doesn't seem strange to you, then it's all the same, I can just get the super to do it. You could get a disease!"
"Just give me a goddamned second, okay?"
After that there was a speculative murmuring below.
Examining it under her flashlight, it occurred to Genie that she didn't know what she was looking for. How would she be able to distinguish between a natural and unnatural death, much less one that implicated Basil? The flesh was too rotted and fly-eaten to tell between what was decay, and what was a deliberate mauling. The mouth of the thing was parted slightly, lips drawn back into a stiff sneer revealing small sharp teeth. The head was an amorphous lump, with no visible ears. The body, specifically the stomach region, contributed largely to the odor, various things voiding and putrefying in a sheath of gray meat. It was not curled around itself as would incriminate disease, but splayed out in all directions, limbs crooked. She could find bones that were broken and misaligned, such as would be from an incredible drop.
She looked up into the shaft, suddenly feeling a great, overwhelming sense of smallness. Her eyes were too weak to gauge where it ended and it was too dark to see the ceiling. She could only assume that through whatever crevice it had entered, from whatever floor, and from whatever quirk of fate that had led its small, deliberate feet to stumble, it had plummeted all the way down. At the very least, she was assured that its death had been a quick one. Far quicker than anything Basil might have done to it.
From below, Lola had let go of the ladder completely, now able only to see the stark, white stalks of Genie's ankles as she hunkered onto the ground. She had turned the bag inside out, and was now attempting to pick up the cat the way a dog-walker would pick up droppings. The rustling of the bag and the heavy sound of something falling into it only made Lola feel more queasy. Soon, Genie made several of the most evil swears Lola was sure she'd ever heard.
"This bag's got a little hole in the bottom." Less of an announcement, and more an accusation, as if Lola had brought a damaged bag to her on purpose.
"Want me to get another one?"
Genie snarled testily, "That would be the thing to do, yes!"
Lola turned swiftly down the hall, her stiffness of carriage suggesting a new, foul temper that had not been immediately evident. Clearly she felt she was being taken advantage of, and that her patience was going unappreciated. It was here that Harriet became intrigued. She would say nothing to Genie, but could not resist a small, peculiar smile. Lola quickly returned, an uneasiness about her as she handed Genie the new bag. There was a conspicuousness in the way she did not allow herself to mention Basil, as if frightened that Genie would lash out at her.
When she was done, Genie held the bag down for Lola to hold while she carefully eased out onto the stepladder. Veiled by two layers of white plastic, a dark, putrid shape was seen within, drooping like low-hanging fruit on a tree of Satan's design. Lola tried to hold it by two fingers. She was eager to refer the bag back to Genie, who held up her hands, refusing it, "Hey, pass that nasty thing to Harriet. It's still her responsibility to get rid of it."
Harriet became grim, her face paling. Genie added, "I didn't see anything weird about it. As far as I can figure, it just dropped from a higher floor."
Having no other alternative, Harriet accepted her burden. It was then that a young, male voice railed out from the shaft, "Hey, anybody down there?" Someone from the level above their own was shouting through the iron gate, clearly able to glimpse the top of the lift from where he stood. Though everyone was momentarily alarmed, Genie was the first to recover, stepping into the elevator and shouting into the square, "Yeah! What do you want, buddy?"
"What's with the elevator, I've been standing here like an a*****e for ten minutes and it's not moving!"
"Sorry, out of order! It should be back up and running here in a little while if you want to hold on!"
There was a contemplative silence, then, "What, and nobody decided to put up a sign?"
"What's wrong with the stairs?"
"This is bullshit!"
"Oh go suck it!"
At that time, Harriet intervened, pulling Genie out of the lift by her arm and nudging her back in the direction of their units, assuring her (and the gentleman above them) that things would be taken care of. With that, Lola and Genie returned together in silence, both exhausted from an irregular and wholly unpleasant duty. Turning the knob, Lola pushed the door open with an outstretched finger, waving her arms, as if to present the damage ahead of them.
Genie numbly took inventory, her eyes first drawn to the kitchen chair, which had been thrown on its side. She glimpsed the tupperware bowl upset onto the floor and a long brown-gold stain dripping off the far wall. There appeared to be some mild, surface damage as turned-over photo frames and of course, missing silverware. All of the hard-boiled eggs had been scattered on the dirty floor, some half-eaten.
Strangest of all however, a detail which had even escaped the notice of Lola, were several long, disrupted finger-nail marks entrenched in the paint of the refrigerator door, as if one had dragged their hand across it walking past. Basil had retreated into the bathroom, making terrible, animal sounds of fury and pain. Genie had grown accustomed to these outbursts, and knew that her work was not yet done.
Continued Here
Quote: Genie didn't know what she was going to do about Basil. Carefully, she began to ease her car into the serviceway behind the Gregarious Arms, peripherally aware of the bulky shape not beside her. Since coaxing him from the bathroom where he had retreated from an especially ugly outburst, Basil had been sullen, and far from conversational. Presently he lay facing from her in the back-seat, rumpled, like a pile of clothes being taken to the dry-cleaner. The business street behind her building was an abrupt one; a single vein in a lump sum of unremarkable businesses quartered by alleys and single-lane streets. A card shop here, a second-cut camera store there, with narrow town-houses crammed hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder in all the spaces in between. It had been a very long time since she had taken the parkway into the outer regions of Durem where the trendier businesses had lifted like dandelion seeds and settled so carefully. So confident of their taste and intrigue that they would employ any exclusionist policy necessary to push their product into the laps of an elite clientele, to say nothing of the products and services themselves, but of the padded address-book required to pursue them. The rolling, cultivated lawnscapes where unlisted phone numbers became like easter eggs hunted and sifted through by the starving middle class, and there was nothing so gaudy as a sign viewable from the highway. Genie would not be stopping here, but rather, the sleepy village just beyond it, cultivated by a fresh crop of trust-fund babies dying to define and inhabit a superficial counter-culture, funded by the beliefs and methods of the tax-bracket that they claimed to despise. Modern-day hippies with obscure religions and adolescent foghorns that sounded with every new political development, however trivial. As a veteran of the seventies and the years adjacent, Genie had very little patience for these people, but found that their constant outreach towards the unconventional tilled the ground for very affordable, and very interesting shopping opportunities. Purses were functional and roomy. Every second-floor had a record store in it. Wallets were made of duct tape. And the food? Natural, holistic, and divine. At this time, Genie made a hasty departure into the turn-lane. The rumble-strips running the center of the road growled angrily at her, arousing an irritable groan from her companion. She sighed, gripping the steering wheel one clenched knuckle at a time as she prepared to toss her vehicle hap-hazardly across the swerving stretch of road that ran the length of the craggy Barton Trench. He had tried to make it clear to her in a series of dispassionate mumbles that he would have preferred to stay at home, expressing a hint of a desire to enjoy a light meal of radio static to settle his non-stomach, at which point he would put himself to bed early and start the next day fresh. Things being what they were, she couldn't say she trusted him to be left alone, and insisted quite stubbornly he come with her. He accepted then with a foggy hesitance, as though he did not feel strongly enough of himself to argue with her, but in any other case, would have gladly done so. She could feel the buried resentment in him, and frankly, the feeling was mutual. Through the wholly labor-intensive process of educating him, Genie had come to feel something reminiscent of betrayal when these things should happen. She knew it was not in the least magnanimous of her to place that kind of blame on him, but these things naturally seemed to stem from a situation in which she was urged to cooperate with Basil as a team, and felt that he was failing to do his part. It made her feel helpless to drag his weight like a dead branch as he stumbled and fell through a three-legged race of awkward encounters, frequent apologies, and broken furniture. It was exhausting to acknowledge that he was simply not developing at the rate of other Raevans, and how badly it reflected upon her. In the late evenings as she picked at what remained of her dinner, the tv muted, her head in her hand, she did know better. She knew fully well that it was hardly his fault, or a situation he was intentionally bringing about. Something was holding him back, and she simply dreaded the possibility that it might have been her. She didn't like the thought that she was hurting him. He had been either unwilling or unable to provide an explanation for his behavior at the time, short of some incoherent babbling about flies and such, in other words, very little that allowed her to understand how she might help him. She supposed it could wait. Whatever he needed from her, it certainly couldn't be achieved in less time than it would to find a dish to bring to her family's fourth of July cookout.
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:17 pm
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:19 pm
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:20 pm
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:21 pm
Quote: Today had been full of interesting developments. When Genie had woken up that morning, it had been with the expectation (and promise) that there would be no rush to get them both ready and presentable for an afternoon out. She needed to allow plenty of time in the likely event of an accident, so the night before she had set her alarm for 5:30AM. Dread sat heavy in her stomach. She could only assume that Basil would be as happy about the arrangement as she was. But, as she had stumbled into the kitchen to prepare coffee, to her great surprise and relief, Basil was already dressed and ready to leave. Sitting at the table with a coffee mug clutched between his hands. It had scared her out of her wits. Not that Basil didn't already keep an erratic sleep schedule and wake up at all hours of the day, but it was so unlike him to have been clean and pressed and ready for the car while she was still in her nightie. Also, he had been sitting alone. In the dark. After taking a moment to calm down, she had approached him, as though to ask if everything were... alright, and was suddenly made aware of an unfamiliar smell. "Good morning." She'd said suspiciously, leaning close to him. He leaned away from her, disgusted, as though she were approaching him with a wet finger. She inhaled, her eyes popping open. She whispered incredulously, "Shampoo!" He'd already showered and dried. After a long swig Basil then irritably told her to get ready. He had set his mug on the counter and went into the family room to watch a bit of TV in the meantime. Also unlike him. Basil was notoriously impatient with people that kept him waiting, especially if they were going to leave somewhere. Now, he acted as though he had all the time in the world. She nodded slowly, fazed by his calm, deliberate manner. She rubbed her eyes. She definitely needed coffee. She didn't mind eating or drinking after Basil, and so had gone to rinse out his old mug. Before running the tap, she blinked, looking inside. The bottom wasn't shiny. The sides were bone-dry. It was empty... She smelled it. There hadn't been anything in it all. --- As they entered the garden together, they actually made a handsome pair. Genie had gotten her hair to lay flat, and it was the first time she had made a serious attempt at wearing makeup since her senior prom. A touch of eyeliner, a bit of rouge. As always, she preferred sensible shoes, and a drab gray sundress. To add a bit of color, she borrowed several wool-wrapped bracelets from Lola. Holding her arm was Basil, making his first splendorous debut in a collared shirt. Ordinarily Basil hated anything having to do with buttons or zippers, but when he had already made the "necessary alterations" with a pair of scissors, his bladed wings held high above him like swords, Genie couldn't find it in her to suggest anything else. It had been a very good fit. In the car, he had left Mickey's old leather racer, for later in the evening when the temperature cooled. Although everything that could have gone wrong, had not gone wrong, Genie still couldn't curb a certain uneasiness, and it showed. Basil held her arm stiffly, with small regard or affection. He led her, walking her along like a dog on a short leash as though with a very specific destination in mind. He held his elbows in so closely that by the time they made it to the buffet, her hand and forearm felt numb. It was here that he released her, brushing off his sleeve. Genie made a small noise of discomfort, flexing her fingers while the blood rushed back into them. She tried to look into his eyes, but he was fast to turn his head, as though scanning the guests. She cleared her throat to get his attention, "Okay, this is just like that Halloween thing. You don't have to stay next to me all day, you can go ahead and—""It's warm." He said acidly. She knit her brows, confused, "Yeah, it's summer. But you like it when it's warm.""Of course I do, but that means everyone else is going to be a sweaty hog by two-thirty."She said nothing in reply, fussing with a cloth napkin. He turned back to her, "Speaking of which, you should probably take your own advice. Go out and meet people. If nobody told you, you'd just stand here eating all day, like you did at that 'Halloween thing.' ""Now you hold it right there, you can't—!"He snorted and shook his head, handing her a plate, "Obviously I can, because I did. Don't work a nerve about it. I'm only saying, as convenient as it would be, I don't want to find you standing where I left you when the party's over." Presumptuously, he began gathering utensils and setting them on her plate. There was a sizable pause before he gave her the spoon. He sighed patiently, "I didn't mean to offend you. If you want to eat, eat. Just try to have fun?"She was absolutely dumbstruck, but recovered with a huff of righteous anger, pulling out a chair. Basil bent to look at her, and she looked back from the corner of her eye. Lowering his chin and raising his eyebrows, he seemed to say, "Well?" He allowed a small, ambiguous smile. The smile broke her, and she laughed once. She admitted the possibility that he was only having a bit of fun at her, and that she was being much too stuffy about it. She held her forehead in her hand, "I don't know what's gotten into you."
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:22 pm
Quote: With every helping of savory BBQ she dropped onto her plate, Genie felt increasingly self-conscious. Basil had definitely touched a sore point, and the worst part was, he hadn't been entirely off the mark. Although it happened very rarely, it was not unheard of for Basil to say something that surprised her that way. Something truthful and direct. Something she didn't like to acknowledge. She supposed he wasn't completely lacking in common sense, and maybe he did pay more attention than she gave him credit for. She should have done more to encourage that. Keep him curious. ...But did he have to be such an a*****e about it? She grumbled. If she was eating too much at parties, it was only because eating was the only thing keeping her from lighting up a cigarette. She was quitting for his benefit, you'd think he'd be more appreciative. She looked at her plate. Two spare ribs and some baby carrots. She felt a dark pit in her stomach and sighed. She was determined to pace herself, but only because she wanted to. Staring at those baby carrots, she pursed her lips. She was being so childish about this. She added a piece of chicken, and ambled towards the drink table. She considered her options. There was beer in a steel basin that looked awfully refreshing, but she refrained. It wasn't even half-past-noon. She settled for lemonade, filling her glass under the spigot. The glass quickly became sweaty, and it was one of the few times that she was cognizant of lacking a little finger. She quickly put her other hand under the bottom of the glass to support it. Turning, she was taken aback by the sight of what could only be described as a tall, exciting looking stranger. She nearly bumped into him, "Oh sh--!" She stopped mid-word, hissing on it. Her drink had sloshed slightly over her hands, which she did not become aware of until she went to touch her chest. "Sorry," She offered, taking a moment to examine the stranger, and his piebald hair. Shaking the lemonade off her fingers, she laughingly added, "Hey, nice shades."--- So this is what the daytime felt like. The Other had seen the sun and green grass before. He had seen it through Basil's blurry lens, and had since been filled with the desire to walk in it. This One had perfect vision, a clear 20-20, which didn't see much use in the dark hours. He could only ever breathe in the evenings. It was only when he could not be seen, that he felt secure, like a little shadow merging into a big one. He smiled softly. The colors were so saturated, and the sun felt so nice against his skin. Why had he waited so long to do this? Well, he knew the answer, but guiltily enjoyed his rhetoric. He didn't get to come to many parties. He didn't get to meet very many people in person. It was partly his choice. After all, Basil was the perfect surveillance system. The perfect tool to judge the people he interacted with, and keep a tidy file of those he felt comfortable trusting. Trust was a very major concern. Showing himself to Genie alone had been a huge gamble, and although she showed signs of suspicion, there was no question that she wasn't any closer to the truth than before. As far as she knew, Basil was just having a very strange turn of mood. Energy had been another concern. The more they fought for control, the more sapped they felt. It was clear that Basil was like a battery that needed to be charged, otherwise the both of them could end up shiftless and sluggish. They'd get sloppy. Mistakes would be made. And so, he had been sure to have him sleep for two extra days. Occupy him with nightmares and visions. Make him anxious and energized, so that if the need arose, he could swap him out in a heartbeat. Personally he himself felt fresh as a daisy, and his appearance reflected this. He had prepared well in advance. Now, it was time to see what this was all about. He needed a vantage point. There was a tent in the center of the garden. There, he would have a panoramic view of the guests. He would sweep his eyes from left to right, and when he could look no further, subtly turn his body and begin again. He recognized the Frenchwoman, but only vaguely remembered her. That day Basil had been in an awful state. There was a cat. Some cakes and cookies. An accent he had never heard before. That was all he knew. He noticed she was with another Raevan, one he didn't recognize. Hair in a hilarious shade of pink. Somehow, that detail seemed important. He continued looking. There was a redhead beneath a tree, shady-looking. He remembered that one quite well. The little glutton for attention, who had come with promises of food and excitement. A freezing-cold boxcar. Probably on the lookout for someone else it could scam into its devious antics. Flash those baby blues, stick out the bottom lip. He couldn't help a chuckle. Not him. Not today. He kept looking. Suddenly, he felt his pulse quicken. Cordelia... When Basil slept at night and The Other was wide awake, there was very little for him to do to stave off boredom until sunrise. He didn't always use it as an opportunity to switch. The Other was like anyone else in that sometimes, he preferred a cozy evening at home. To pass the time, he enjoyed sorting through memories. It kept him organized. It was just a matter of gathering them together, setting up the reels, sitting back, and watching their lives roll by, projected on the back of Basil's sleeping eyelids. Sometimes Basil felt them. Sometimes he saw his own life in his dreams, and woke up feeling restless. But that night... That night had been a personal favorite. The Other could have watched it a thousand times over. It was the stuff box-office hits were made of. The tenderness. The insecurity. That single, stolen kiss. Today she wore a breezy sundress, the most feminine he had ever seen her. White, like moonlight. If that wasn't a sign, he didn't know what was. Did she think of it? Did she miss them? Her hair was down today... Who was she trying to impress? His blood ran cold at the sight. (Well, colder.) If she could only have noticed him. Seen the look on his face, sharp and burning. Almost horrified. The way she touched the chest of some stony behemoth he had never seen before. Playing with his tie. Being so coy. Did she think she was being cute? For only a moment, he lost control. At the sight of it, his heart was beating thickly. It felt as if it were lodged in his throat. The sound of it started to emanate. A deep thumping, amplified as though somebody held a megaphone to his chest. It was loud. Distracting. He quickly clutched the front of his shirt, and it the sound of it faded away. Had he drawn attention? He grit his teeth. As much pleasure as it would have given him, he wouldn't make a fool of himself by marching over. He wouldn't give her that satisfaction, and he certainly wouldn't let Basil see her treachery. He wouldn't have jumped to the same conclusions he did. Basil would have tried to bargain with him, and tell him that it was just in Cordelia's nature to be friendly. Touchy-feely. Basil was a moron. He went away from the tent, fuming. He had nearly stormed right past a stately podium. Curiosity stopped him. What was this? He idled beside a purple-haired woman in mid-conversation. He would easily have recognized her as Cordelia's own guardian, but couldn't have cared less at the moment. There was a sign-up sheet for some kind of maze? A maze? What was he, a lab-rat? Well, he was from a lab. He was certainly a lab- something.He sighed in exasperation and began reading off of a rule-card. He then looked from side to side. This maze appeared to be the only thing for him to do here, short of finding someone to talk to, and he was not feeling very sociable at the moment. Was it a competition, maybe? If so desired, it was a team event. He could find someone to partner with him. Was the maze so difficult that it was encouraged for a pair to enter? He scoffed. Anyone would have been wise to choose him for a partner, but he for one did not need the dead weight. And after all, didn't he always have a team-mate handy? Yes. He was determined now. In a quick, jagged line, Basil's name stood alone on the sheet. He clenched his jaw. They didn't need anyone.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:25 pm
Quote: Genie had been talking to Jezabroux at the time— Luka's guardian. It had been a picturesque summer afternoon the day the Lab had graciously arranged a garden party for the Raevans and their conservators. While uncomfortable in the heat and sweat trickling down the small of her back, Genie had been showing Jezabroux a photograph of Basil she kept in her wallet, as he was not at hand to introduce personally. She remembered having stood by this man, who as of that moment was a complete stranger to her, her fingernail resting just underneath Basil's face when she had sensed a ripple of energy from the other guests. Heads that turned in unison, and voices raised in happy tones. Having not traveled farther than the drink table all afternoon, Genie had been late to realize that an event had been taking place in which all the guests were invited to participate. Alarmed by Basil's absence among them, she had learned from those still present (with the help of Jezabroux) that over the course of two hours, Raevans had been introduced into the mysterious greenery that lay beyond the boundaries of the garden— A formidable, enchanted labyrinth in which the contestants would be subjected to trials, puzzles, riddles, and dangerous encounters, each tiredly returning to their friends and guardians once their journey had been decided complete. Some Raevans had traveled alone, but many had gone in pairs. Genie stood anxiously with Jezabroux on the sidelines waiting for the cobra to emerge —as she had gathered from his frenetic signature on the sign-up sheet— alone. Paralyzed with panic, she could not help but grip the man's hand as tightly as she could physically allow, barring him from moving any farther than six inches in any direction. He was unnaturally forgiving of her frenzied tones and the clamminess of her hand, which posed the constant threat of wrenching his arm from the socket. At all sides of them, the crowd was uproarious with the thrill of competition as if making a mockery of her frozen terror. She recognized some familiar faces among the assembled. Vivi, the Frenchwoman. Dr. Kyou, their famous benefactor. Ebony Shade, with an aura of confidence to match her outrageous hair-color. All of them held in common by a complete lack of the apprehension she felt now. As each Raevan emerged, it was with a similar sense of amused satisfaction that chipped away little by little at what she was beginning to feel were unjustified fears. Some of the Raevans had come out dripping wet. Some of them soiled, and others a little bruised, but nothing quite so distressing as the picture she had imagined for her own boy. With each arrival of a smiling, floating being, she had felt her grasp on Jezabroux's hand lessen into what eventually became a friendly, platonic meshing of the fingers, which too fell away when his luminous Satyr appeared from behind the hedges. Their parting was amicable, and Genie now felt comfortable waiting for Basil's return alone among the congratulatory masses. She stood tall and straight, her hands clasped in front of her and a light, welcome breeze riffling through her short, if unstylish hair. She hoped he had enjoyed himself. The others seemed to have had a wonderful time of it, standing around in groups of three or four to each tell their own miniature epic. She frowned. Was there a reason Basil had chosen to go alone? She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was he not able to find a partner, or had his reputation simply preceded him? Under the deepening shade of a perfumy tree, Genie held onto the quiet prayer that he would be as overjoyed to see her as she would undoubtedly be to see him. Would he be discouraged about coming in fifth place? Or sixth? Seventh—? By this time, the crowd had started to disperse, and it had been two hours since the winner of the maze had been awarded, with still no sign of Basil. She felt a chill creep up her spine, her skin prickling with static. The event was practically over and the party had resumed its natural rhythm. It frustrated her that no-one seemed to be very concerned for the Raevans still inside... Why should they be? Their charges had already been returned to them! At that moment, Genie had wanted desperately to shut her eyes and pray, but something was determined to keep her from so much as blinking. It was a quarter after five before she finally glimpsed a shadow on the grass. She took a step forward. Someone was approaching the archway. It was him! That was Basil! Browning bloodstains streaked the front of his ravaged dress shirt, two buttons hanging barely by a thread. His wings, which had once been held high behind him like swords, now hung shattered and twinkling in the dim, orangey haze. His hair stuck out in all directions, stiffly peaked and tangled with bits of long-grass and bruised flowers, and on his face, he wore the dreamy, faraway expression that characterizes great trauma, with eyes large and unwinking. With each Raevan that emerged, a diminishing group of people had turned to cheer or clap as if to give the entrant their own personal celebration. The excitement and novelty of the event had long since worn off however, and only a small handful turned away from their conversations to give weak and unconvincing applause to Basil's return. Most of them clapped only once at the sight of him, before a whisper spread quickly, infectiously through the crowd with patches of hushed, anticipatory silence. There was Basil, dragging along with the heaviness of a sandbag, his hands outstretched as if to meet whosoever's arms would open for him. Those he sought to fall in might very well have belonged to Genie, had he not been sent floating undeterred into a covered table closer-by. He was pale and unnaturally still with a sort of fragile calmness, because no sooner had he made contact with the table did he erupt into a savage and terrified frenzy, bringing his fists to meet an enemy he could not see or defend against. Genie cried out as she ran to him, trying to penetrate the veil of swinging limbs. Others raced out to help subdue him, as Genie pleaded with them to keep their distance. Their combined efforts made Basil only more desperate to escape. For a moment, she was certain that he had responded to the sound of her voice, his eyes darting to find hers, but when she had tried to draw him closer to her, his efforts to pull away redoubled. He broke through her arms, sending his full weight crashing down upon the wicker table below him. The centerpiece of wildflowers practically exploded. Silverware jumped into the air, and a bread-basket went sailing overhead into a decorative fountain. Basil's hand tried to find purchase on the patterned tablecloth, which slipped effortlessly from the table and fell in a fluttering heap on top of him. Seizing an opportunity, three or four men raced to hold him down, using the tablecloth to secure his arms, and all the while, Basil's hoarse and injured cries had reached a fever-pitch that bordered on unbearable to human ears. He had no legs to kick with, and no lower back that he could use to buck or twist away, leaving him to struggle unavailingly with his shoulders until forcibly pacified. Genie was there while the men scuttled him to the medical tent, looking not unlike a large, swollen maggot in his wrappings. She had rested her cheek to his icy forehead to soothe him while they cleaned and sutured the slash they found in his palm, which had become almost black with encrusted blood. Fourteen stitches. His breath had come out of him in short, jerky cries as Genie assured them that he wasn't a danger. Not to anyone, even the men that sat nearby being treated for the bites and scratches Basil had inflicted on them in the struggle. He wasn't violent, and if he was, it was in the forgivable capacity that an animal becomes violent when it is scared. Basil was very scared, and needed to go home. That was the best thing for him, Genie decided, because she always knew best. Genie knew best, because that's what Basil had been raised to believe. Even when Genie didn't believe it herself. They had given him something to make him drowsy. Something to help him sleep on the drive. As Genie and one of the nurses carried him out to the car, Genie had encouraged Basil to place his face against her shoulder, cupping the back of his head in her warm, human palm. Concerned and curious bystanders followed the trio as they walked hurriedly towards the parking-lot, their eyes wide and scorching. Something that would have been terribly humiliating for the boy— if it had mattered. He couldn't see them staring. He couldn't see much of anything. He was completely blind.
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