Gypsy Blood (12 page)

What if they’re mad cows?

Mario smiled. It was a good smile. Mario was honestly happy to see Carnival, not just as a customer but as a face he liked to see.

“Hey Gypsy. You tell my numbers today? Give me some luck at the races?”

Carnival smiled. It was the same old horseshit he heard from a lot of people but he didn’t mind it from old Mario.

“If I knew that,” he said. “Don’t you think I’d pick the numbers for myself?”

“It’s magic. It only works on the way out, like a one way valve. You can’t turn it in.”

Listen to the flower-man. He talks sense for someone who lives with dead cows.

“How’d you learn so much about magic?” Carnival asked. “Have you been studying?”

Mario smiled. It creased the corners of his eyes like overgrown flower roots.

“The flower-man knows things,” He said. “I stand outside all day and the birds tell me secrets.”

“Right Mario. You and the pigeons, counting the mysteries of the universe.”

Mario shrugged with a big happy grin. “You never know.”

Carnival laughed again.

“You don’t need any more luck, Mario. Are you still chasing the women?”

The flower vendor smiled like an old satyr.

“If you work it right the women chase you.”

“Tell me your secret Mario. I’ll sell it on E-Bay and we’ll both get rich.”

Mario let a giggle slip out, long and catchy and almost musical, like water running free.

“My secret is my borscht. I learned the recipe from on old Ukrainian. He taught me how to make it thick and creamy. The women are mad about the borscht. If you want to get laid, you need to make borscht.”

Fegh. Borscht makes you fart. Women don’t like farts, no matter how much we men pretend that they do.

“No, not for me Mario. Borscht makes your breath bad. Besides, I would not want to become competition.”

Mario looked at him seriously.

“Gypsy, you can steal my secret. You need a woman. Someone to keep you young. That’s how I do it. My wife, my kids. I got family.” He rearranged a bouquet of bright red roses, for what was probably the fifty-third time this morning. “Responsibility. It keeps a man young and strong.”

Carnival shook his head.

“Responsibility gives you lines on your face,” He said. “Responsibility makes you cry.”

“Ah,” Mario said. “But tears are the waters of the soul. If a man has a family to feed it gives him a reason to live. You need that. A man can’t drift forever, not even if he is a Gypsy.”

What does he know? He sells flowers and dead cows.

“I don’t drift. I’ve got a shop.”

“Ha.” Mario grinned. “I got a shop too. It’s got wheels, so I can take it with me. I’m talking more than shop. A man needs a family. A man needs flesh and blood.”

“That’s beautiful, Mario. You ought to write country music.”

Mario snorted derisively.

“You want a bouquet? I got some nice lilies, just fresh today.”

“No cut flowers today. Today I need a potted plant.”

“I got some ferns.”

“No. I need a flower. For a friend.”

More love, more lies. You’re going to talk to a woman, aren’t you boy?

“How about this geranium?” he asked.

He showed Carnival the flower. A soft pastel red, the color of faded blood.

“Beautiful,” Carnival said. “You got one of those little shovels?”

He had one.

“Are you starting a garden?” Mario asked.

Carnival could smell Borscht on Mario’s breath. Borscht and peppermint schnapps. It must be a bad year for extracurricular alcoholism. He looked at Mario’s cheeks, thickened with gristle, his nose a hawkish study in capillary and cartilage. He looked a little like a smiling Poppa.

Carnival smiled back. The geranium was pretty. Bright and cheerful.

“Just something for an old friend,” Carnival repeated.

“What did you do to your neck?” Mario asked.

Carnival touched it. For a moment he’d nearly forgotten the itch.

“I cut myself shaving,” he said.

Open your eyes, boy.

Carnival turned away. He walked down the street, carefully holding the potted geranium.

It was time to talk to the dead.

Barking Up the Family Tree

T
alking to the dead isn’t tough. Getting them to listen is a whole other kettle of
hotchkotchi
. That’s gypsy for hedgehog. A little animal that rolls into a ball and sticks its nose up its asshole at the first sign of trouble.

Which is what you should have done when this whole thing started.

Poppa was right. Instead, he was out here, walking into a city graveyard, aluminum trowel in one hand, potted geranium in the other.

He had to talk to his Momma.

Why talk your Momma? It is better you should listen to your Poppa.

“It would be easier if you would tell me where you buried her.”

Who says I buried her, Val my boy?

That’s all Poppa would ever tell Carnival. He kept his secrets well.

We Rom love our secrets, poshrat. I know what you would be up to, if you knew where she really slept.

Carnival didn’t have an answer to that. Maybe Poppa was right. Or maybe he was just scared. At least the weather was nice. Sunny enough to make Carnival forget about what’s waiting at home tonight. Maya, and another feeding.

You have a family now, boy. And a man must feed his family.

Shit. Nearly sunny enough.

Carnival kept on walking. There were five graveyards in this city. He picked the third oldest. The middle child, a cemetery old enough to be mostly full, yet not old enough to attract any tourists. He wasn’t the only one out here. He could see a cradle winch, straddling an open grave like a children’s swing set. There must be a burial or maybe an exhumation. It didn’t matter. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around for now.

He was safe.

Safe? In a graveyard? You were better off back among the mad cows.

Carnival was looking for a grave. It could be any grave but he liked to find an interesting epitaph, something that showed imagination, something that showed a little spirit.

Spirit was very important when dealing with the dead. Like “Here lies an atheist. All dressed up with no place to go.” or “Here lies Mary, enroute to roots.” Sometimes it’s the name he went for. It was like buying a car. It’s no guarantee you’ll get a good one, but it’s still smarter to buy a Ford instead of a Lada. You want a name like Teller. Or Spreck. Serendipity was as important to magic as faith.

Listen to the expert. The shuvano. Such a wizard. I am entranced. You could give Merlin lessons.

The date of death was important too. It had to be old enough to guarantee no mourners would arrive in mid-ceremony. A necromancer learns to watch for anniversaries. But today Carnival was in a hurry so he played the percentages. Thirteen gravestones in, and thirteen over and to the left.

There’s nothing like leftovers, eh boy?

The name on the stone said Eva Miller. It sounded harmless enough. It sounded like the kind of name that made Carnival think of a dumpy little old lady, hot when she was younger. Germanic roots, only a little crazy. The epitaph was classy. “As you pass by and cast an eye, as you are now so once was I, as I am now you soon shall be, prepare yourself to follow me.”

Right on, Eva. Omar Khayam would’ve been proud of a line like that. Carnival knelt. A little respect never hurt anyone, especially when you’re raising the dead. Besides, it was easier on the back. He tipped the geranium out of its pot. He shook the pot a little to get the flower to come out cleanly. It popped out, spraying dirt.

It reminds me of hedgehogs. We wrapped them in clay and buried them beneath the embers of a slow burning fire. When the clay cracked, you peeled it away cleanly. The spines came off like a drunken virgin’s dress.

Carnival dug a little hole and laid the unpotted geranium beside it like he was getting set to do a little gardening. Then he drew a magic circle with the graveyard dirt he removed. It had to be perfect. Magic’s fussy that way, especially the summoning kind. When you opened a door, there was no telling what’ll step through.

He kept his movements nice and simple. If anyone saw they’d figure Carnival was just paying his respects and doing a little gardening. That’s the secret behind illusion. Show them just what they want to see.

You’d make a good liar, boy. You should try your hand at fortune telling.

“Very funny Poppa.”

He lit three small candles – one, two, three. He beat time on the bottom of the flowerpot with the trowel. A drum would be nice but drums draw attention in most well kept graveyards. If anyone asked, he was tapping the last of the dirt from out of the pot.

That’s my boy. Frugal, and a green thumb to boot.

Carnival stared into the grave. He cast his thoughts deeper down, deeper down, waiting for some kind of answer. He had to think about swimming. Time was a river and life was a stream and death was just a deeper hole in the ocean. He looked down. Down and down, deeper and deeper,

You have company, boy. Open your eyes.

“She always did like flowers.”

Carnival looked up, startled. A little old man stood above him. Carnival hadn’t heard his approach. He was that deep into his trance. For a moment he thought it was Olaf. The guy he’d just wheel-chaired into infinity.

Not Olaf. This one’s alive. He wants to tell you something.

Carnival stammered a few words about paying respects.

Listen to him. He wants to tell you a bad love story.

“You’re awfully young to be a friend of Eva’s. Are you a relative?”

Think up your own story fast, boy, and tell it back to him.

“Neither,” Carnival stammered. “It’s, um, a hobby of mine. Gardening. I like to share the flowers, you know?”

Ha. Like a racing snail, nailed fast to a frozen rock. Truly, I am dazzled.

Carnival knelt in the grave dirt, waiting for the old guy to begin yelling for a policeman. The old guy smiled back, a study in pensive thought, like a constipated Grandpa Walton. I’ve fooled him, Carnival thought.

You couldn’t fool a three week old kitten with a spool of thread and a bowl of warm cream.

The old guy kept smiling. Maybe he did a little gardening himself. He even looks a little like a garden gnome – a short little teapot of a man, with a set of big made-for-grinning cheeks.

“That’s real nice of you. Eva would sure appreciate it. She always liked flowers, especially when they came with young men.”

He spat on the dirt. “The old slut.”

Carnival began stammering again. “Uh-uh-uh, she a friend of yours?”

Ho. Silver tongued devil. Mischief maker Loki should take notes from you in invisible ink.

The old guy snorted. “She was my wife. I loved her like anything, but I wouldn’t call her a friend.”

Let him talk. Let him tell you his story. Your tongue could use the rest. So could your brain.

“My name’s Jim. I was a trucker back then. Long haul. On the road most of the time.” He shook his head slowly. “Eva was my life line. No matter how far I traveled, she always waited at the end of the road. It was love, you know? I would have done anything for her.”

“So what happened?”

“She got lonely, I guess. I came home one night. Early. I found her and my best friend. Fucking Eddie Brown.”

Carnival couldn’t tell if the old man was using the f-word as an adjective or a verb or maybe both.

“The two of them, dead in a fire. Faulty wiring. Whole place went up like a dry cigarette. They never woke up.”

You see. I told you. Another bad love story.

There was something wrong. The old man wasn’t telling it like a memory. He was telling it like an eye witness.

“She cheated on you?”

Jim shrugged.“Her and Eddie died in the bedroom. The way they burnt, they weren’t wearing too many clothes.”

“And you killed them?”

Another shrug.

What else would you to a cuckolding wife? You slit their tongue. You notch their ears. You open their throat and piss down their lungs. See if all that blood makes the flavor of betrayal taste any less bitter.

“They burnt up. Like I said.”

“So why are you telling me?”

“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? Don’t know you from Moses, yet I can’t help myself. It’s like somebody else is doing the steering.” He smiled ruefully.