Mercy, A Gargoyle Story (5 page)

"Are you blind?"
 
I ask, thinking of his stone eyes with the irises drilled through them.

But the lion answers, "Not at all."
 
His eyes rove the horizon, searching the sparks of lightening over the city.
 
"My faculties have been sharpened to perfection."

"Then what is there to improve?"

"I can not see what I must,"
 
The lion says and then with a growl, as if I doubt him,
 
"I assure you, I am as diligent in this life as I was in the last.
 
What I need to see was supposed to be as obvious as my human blood once was, to me.
 
The only clue the King has given me is that it is something which will make me bow my head.
 
I assume it is a certain brick or the curve of an archway, but I've studied the architecture, the color of the sky, the masonry, and I guarantee, what I've been assigned is a fool's game."

I peer out from the ledge to the neighboring structure in confusion.
 
Standing apart from the apartment building, almost as if it is leaning away in protest, is the next highest building in the neighborhood.
 
It is the one Trickle stares at, or over—I am not sure which.
 
Its rooftop is spread with an elaborate garden, as thick and reaching as peanut butter at the edges of a slice of toast, but the brick is black and there are no stone archways.
 
None of the buildings I can see have the blood red brick or archways Trickle speaks of.

I scan downward to the penthouse apartment, with its enormous windows, as big as God's eyes.
 
It is the only dwelling with windows that size and without curtains, it is easy to see inside.
 
The decor is expensive and the lights are dim.
 
No one is home.

 
"I'm thorough, I assure you," Trickle continues, "but whenever Moag returns to inquire what new I have seen, I have never impressed him with my answer."

"You know Moag?
 
How well do you know Truce?”
 
I lower my voice, afraid that the wind will hear the gossip and carry it back.

"How well?"
 
The lion seems to straighten out invisible creases in his posture, although somehow, there almost seems to be a smirk at the corner of his mouth.
 
"He is our king, after all."

"He sent you here?"

"Of course," Trickle says.
 
He lets a gush of rainwater splash out over the side of the building.
 
"You ask the most obvious questions."

Trickle makes a show of closing his mouth and swishing his accumulation of water inside it.
 
I decide to trade subjects rather than risk losing the friendship of the only other speaking thing on the rooftop.

"Are there a lot more of us?
 
Gargoyles?"

He snorts a laugh.
 
"Of course there are many more.
 
We are of a brethren."

"Do they come here?"

"Such as...to visit?"
 
The water dribbles from Trickle's unamused chin.
 
"Not without purpose.
 
We are not
living,
after all.
 
We have purposes to fulfill, to ourselves and to others.
 
We are not here to socialize."

"Truce said we have gifts,"
 
I say.

Pride seems to thrust his voice, rather than his chest, outward.
 
"Gargoyles have exchanged the beauty of living for the sorrows of the world.
 
We are here to trade our one last living hope, for the understanding we never acquired during our lives.
 
That's what I've been told."

"Who is your recipient, Trickle?"

The lion's mouth closes.
 
I hear the water welling up behind his teeth and his stone eyes glare.
 
I take a step back as the lion opens his jaws and the water gushes out, splattering violently off the building's edge.

"That is not your business," Trickle growls.
 
"Do I ask how you died?"

"I drowned..."

"That is not my business!”
 
Trickle's voice is its own crack of thunder.
 
I scuttle back from him even further and wait until the stones of the lion's body seem to relax.
 
He finally sniffs, blows out some rainwater, and begins again in a calmer voice.
 
"Gargoyles do not reveal, nor do they ask, who a human recipients are.
 
In life, I would never ask to see your bank statement or mention it, if I had noticed that you had soiled your pants.
 
Likewise, a Gargoyle doesn't ask another who their recipient is."

"I'm sorry," I say.
 
"I didn't know.
 
I only asked because I don't know who mine is and I don't know how to find out who it should be."

Trickle's mouth closes in a temporary frown.

"It is like falling in love...or vomiting.”
 
His tone is as stiff as his stone body.
 
"It's obvious when it happens.
 
When the time comes for bestowing your healing gift, nothing and no one will stand in your way.
 
Your instincts will take over.”
 

The lion's eyes grind upward, sliding his stone vision across the tarmac of breaking clouds.
 
"Oh, the pity.
 
The rain is coming to an end.
 
And that means it is the end of our discussion as well."

"You won't talk to me unless it's raining?"

"Cannot,"
 
the lion corrects.
 
"The rain whets my whistle, as humans say.
 
It runs through my head and loosens my dried tongue.
 
Without the drizzle, it seems I've nothing to say."

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I suppose, if you could captuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu."
 
Trickle's jaw locks in the same position as when I found him.
 
His tongue flounders behind his teeth to finish the word, but it is so horribly trapped, I cannot imagine it.
 
I wait for him to try again, but then his tongue freezes in place too, nothing but a ramp for the dry well in his head.

"Can you tell me in some other way, Trickle?"
 
I beg.
 
"I didn't understand."

But Trickle's eyes simply slide back across the city skyline and I release an exasperated sigh for us both.
 

***

I sit with Trickle a long time, watching the moon move across the sky.

"I'll pray for rain,"
 
I tell him, before I leave his side.
 
His eyes don't move, he doesn't answer me.

I cross the rooftop to the opposite side, perching on the ledge there for a different view, but I end up staring at my claws and my crackling, ashen skin.
 
How can I have any gift to give?
 
I look more demonic than angelic, and it seems like proof, that the angels let me fall through the cracks.
 
There must be a reason for that.
 
The more I reason through it, the more I am sure of exactly what I've done to deserve this.

It must be the little bean that I left behind.
 
Lullabied with
slut
and
whore,
by the men and women who littered the curb with fliers and blocked the clinic door.
 
Entrusted to, and cradled by, the empty armholes of the white paper robe the clinic gave me to wear.

I left that place, alone.

Alone, with all those men and women bleeding up around me, to say those things that must've kept God awake all night.
 
One threw her coffee cup at me, as if she could stain me more.

Moag should have left me to disintegrate among the fish.
 
Truce didn't need to make me more of a monster than I already was.
 
I should not be here.

Everything about this is wrong and therefore, I must learn how to fly.

***

Even stacked, the buckets are not high enough.
 
In the dark, I clamber atop them over and over again, wobble, and jump before they fall, but each time, I end up flat on the rooftop with the buckets rolling around me.
 
My skin is as scuffed as old leather.
 
My bones don't break, but they feel like they will.

I finally stack the two tar buckets beside the stairway door and heave myself up on top of the closet.
 
My eyeballs itch behind my bone mask.
 
Down
is too far.
 
I hear the traffic scurrying along even lower, at the very bottom of the building, and I sway with my claws scraping to hold me upright.
 
I wonder how I will ever fly over the top of it all when the fall is so far down.

I am paralyzed for five inches of time; I measure the moments it takes the moon to drop down from the sky.
 
It is no use.
 
I climb back down to the roof top and squat beside the stone edge of the building.
 
I can't even bring myself to go stand beside Trickle and have his big stone eyes grinding sideways to acknowledge my failure.

I lean against the raised lip, holding on, while I peer over the edge.
 
The mask over my face turns everything into a spec at the end of a deep corridor, but still my eyes drop and drop and drop, seven floors—until my vision splatters onto the street.
 
It is a dizzying height that requires deep breathing, licking my lips, and locating the horizon of the other rooftops again in order to feel balanced.

Maybe this is a test.
 
Just silliness to overcome.
 
Maybe these gelatinous wings are strong enough to support me after all and the real test is simply to allow them to do it.
 
Faith, I suppose.
 
Faith in me, rather than a god who let me fall through the cracks.

I step up onto the curled stone lip, my taloned toes scraping at the cement, my gray soles so thick that my feet barely register the coolness of the stone.
 
What I decide to do first is not look down.
 
To keep my eyes rooted on the roof of the neighboring apartment building that is at least four car lengths away from me.
 
It is too far to jump.
 
It is too far to get to by any other means than flight.
 
The wide windows of the neighboring seven floors taunt me; most of them with shades drawn against the dark.
 
Some wink with light, and tiny movements stir behind the glass corneas, living lives I may never see.

CHAPTER SIX

The sun comes up, pulling the humidity into a tight ponytail that will likely swing across the sky all day.
 
I huddle down, beside the building ledge, peeking over the side as I try to revive the excitement of life inside me.
 
Something, to overcome the self-pity that is filling up my soul.

In the first morning light, the road below is empty, and without the cars rushing by, it doesn't seem so far down.
 
It's not even as exciting or as dazzling.
 
I look out at the rooftops all around and then at the windows of the building across the street.
 
Most of the blinds are still drawn, but some are open and the lives behind them play like a store window full of TV screens.

In one, a young man hunches over a tiny kitchen table, scrawling on rectangles of paper.
 
There must be a million crumpled pieces at his feet.
 
I squint through my mask and the vision tunnels down to a pinpoint.
 
I can read the letters on the paper.
 
I open my eyes just a bit and see what he is doing.
 
There is a name on a sheet of paper above his fist.
 
With his other hand, he guides the pen, copying the name down onto the second rectangular sheet, his head so close to the paper, I am sure he is cross-eyed.
 
When he is finished, he sits back, holds up both sheets, and studies them, held up to the light of the window.
 
I duck down a little lower when he holds the sheet to the window, but he has no eyes for me.
 
I see him sigh and crumple his copy, letting it drop from his fist as he slumps back a moment in his hard backed chair.
 
Then he begins again, on a fresh sheet.

Another window houses a fat woman, with her ample bottom hanging out from behind her fridge door.
 
She gnaws a chicken leg behind the door, as her three children, one teen, and two little ones, ask her what is for dinner.
 
She growls, with her greasy jaw pumping, that there's hardly anything to eat, and to not expect much.
 
I skim the windows and see an older man, in boxers and white undershirt, sweating into his couch as he sleeps.
 
There is a young girl in another window, draped in a short dress, turning from side to side to study herself with an angry face.
 
She pinches the skin of her thighs.

I scan up to another window, four across, and two up.
 
It dangles open a few inches like a fascinated mouth.
 
A boxcar apartment, with several windows, it's easy to see a boy, standing in his bathroom.
 
His back is to me.
 
He has hair the color of dried driftwood, and his faded jeans cling low on his hips like a desperate woman.
 
He is studying his face in the mirror.
 
I study his body.

There is something about his straight, boyish hair, layered to the sides, or maybe it is the way he stands, like a curved stem.
 
My interest is immediately tethered.
 
His hips are narrow, his muscles are seeds.
 
As he bows his head over the sink, I catch a small glint of his face that sends me staggering backward.
 
He has a slight under—bite, acne scars dimpling both cheeks, and against even his own odds, he is impossibly attractive.

And I was the girl who once loved his flaws more than I loved myself.

I watch The Boy watch himself in his bathroom mirror.
 
I watch him inspect his own back from over one shoulder.
 
I watch him apply deodorant, choose a shirt, and slide a watchband over his long fingers.
 
I watch him leave the bathroom and I lose him behind a wall.
 
I panic for the moment before he resurfaces in his living room, carrying his honey-colored, acoustic guitar.

He sits on his couch and balances the guitar on his right knee.

I watch, mouth open and soul draining out.
 
How can he be here?
 
Why isn't he a hundred miles away, on fraternity row, asleep in his frat house?
 
Dead as I am, why can't I look away and bury the feelings that come along with the memories I have of him?

Instead, I wish for my life as a girl again.
 
A girl, balanced in his lap.

He cracks his knuckles and cradles the neck of his instrument in his palm so tenderly that I can nearly feel his fingers on the bones of my neck.
 
His fingertips brush the cords and I rise up my wings, desperate to absorb his familiar sound through his opened windows.

His music pours from the sill like a smooth drink.
 
I lean closer to the edge, trying to scoop up every note before it drops to the street below.
 
The Boy presses, thrums, and loses consciousness of how his bottom lip moves with the deep cords and how his hair falls over his ear and how his low-hanging jeans brush the arches of his feet.
 
He is no longer in the room with himself as he caresses the strings and pats the flat wood waist of the guitar with his eyes closed.
 
His head sways and nods, agreeing with the melody as he plays it.
 
He draws the music up gently from the hole beneath the strings and then he opens his mouth to it and lays his voice down beside it.

His symphony spills into my wings all at once, running down the sharp points, like beads of acoustic mercury.
 
My ribs are tuning forks.
 
My stomach vibrates with his sound.
 
I am paralyzed.
 
The memory of the first time I saw The Boy comes rushing back.

He had his guitar then too.

What had happened was that my father had made one of his rare visits home and he'd brought a woman.
 
A tall one, with long brown hair.
 
Her hair was what made her look like my mother, but the woman smiled at me like she was stoned, too many teeth showing as she called me
Sweet pea
in her southern drawl.
 
Every time my father said anything to her, she'd giggle.
 
Anything.

“Do you wanna watch TV?”
 
Giggle

“How about a little something to eat?”
 
Giggle

“This is my daughter, Madeline.”
 
Giggle...How are ya, sweet pea?

The whole thing made me sick.
 
I heard my father, behind the closed kitchen door, scuffling closer to her, liking her.
 
I heard the slurpy lip noises, the little moans.

*Giggle*

I left.
 
I tiptoed away, so my father wouldn't stop me.
 
I locked the door behind me and once I got just past my mother's pear tree, I ran.
 
The rotted lawn-pears mashed under my shoes and I slipped, slid, fell, got up again, and ran.

I ran all the way to the coffee shop, where the doors always seemed open, and where the kids from school hung out.
 
It was the only place to go since we were caught in our awkward age, too old for the mall and too young for bars.
 
There were always voices swirling through the shop and it made me feel like I was part of the conversation, even if I never said one word.

That night, I sat in a corner, with my heels on the seat and my knees on my chest.
 
All the high schoolers had cleared out- it was a school night- and the college kids had taken over.
 
There were three boys sitting on the couch and chairs in the middle of the room.
 
One had a backwards baseball cap, one had a tee shirt that said,
this is not my first rodeo
,
and one had a guitar.

The one with the guitar was the least attractive.
 
He was a string bean with acne scars and an awkward laugh, but the guitar tilted in his lap made me feel like I could trust him.

"So what if you're flunking out?”
 
I heard Backwards Baseball tell him.
 
"You've got a car.
 
You could live in it and be the boy version of Jewel...if you weren't so damned ugly.
 
You got to get rid of all the zits, man."

"Don't know if that'd be enough," Rodeo agreed, swinging his coffee cup in The Boy's direction as he agreed with Backwards Baseball.
 
"Have you ever even had a haircut that made you look like a guy, Cooter?"

Rodeo and Backwards Baseball howled with laughter.
 
The Boy laughed, kind of.
 
He really was kind of ugly.
 
Calling someone ugly, when they are, is like calling a retarded kid retarded.
 
It's not funny, when it's true at all.
 
Then, it's just mean.
 
Since Rodeo and Backwards Baseball were both attractive, it was even meaner.

The coffee guy, cleaning his urns, yelled over the counter, "Let's hear one, Adam!
 
Play something!"

The Boy took a drink before tilting the neck of the guitar into his hand.
 
He didn't clear his throat or anything.
 
He just began to play and sing, all at once.
 
It was a
screw you
kind of song, his tone hollow and dark as a gun barrel, accompanied by an acceptable rage in the chords.
 
But his actual voice was this beautiful, golden rod—sharp and pointed so that it speared the air and lit it up and made it hum with his electricity.
 
It might as well have been magic.
 
I think the other boys mistook the song as just being cool.
 
I heard it as The Boy's finger in the air to both of them.

When he was done, I drifted across the shop to get a refill.
 
Rodeo made a noise when I passed, so his friends would look up.
 
I was never the kind of girl that wanted to be spotted.
 
I didn't want any conversations that led to asking why I wasn't home at this hour.
 
Nothing that would make me wonder what my mother would think of what I was doing.
 
But, this one time, as Backwards Baseball made some muffled murmur about how Cooter shouldn't even bother looking, I turned my eyes on The Boy and saw how the little scars on his face grew a little paler as the skin around them flushed pink.
 
He wasn't ugly to me at all.

"That was an awesome song," I said.
 
The words just fell out, the only ones in a usually word-crowded room, and I snapped my mouth shut.
 
The Boy tipped down the neck of his guitar and his blush drained away.
 
He smiled.

"Thanks," he said.

I went back to my table and tried not to pay attention to the boys huddling and laughing and slapping The Boy on the back.
 
I tried not to notice them looking in my direction.
 
They finally all got up to leave, and The Boy let Backwards Baseball and Rodeo go out the door, while he stayed back, dumping cups in the trash, while he tried to catch my eye.

One glance was all it took and he smiled at me again.
 
I smiled back.
 
He came over and asked if he could sit down.
 
It’s funny how an ugly person can become the most handsome, just by how he looked at me and listened and smiled when I spoke.

He is even thinner now and he's living in a strange apartment across the street.
 
He was once The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice.
 
We're both different now.
 
Neither of us is who we were before, but he is still the boy I once knew.

And by that, I mean, a demon.

***

I scuttle backward, dropping my wings flat to my back, gaping.
 
The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice is in the building across the street.

Once he'd asked me, "Do you love me?" while my hair was draped over the edges of the toilet seat.
 
I'd glanced up at him, his arms knotted over his chest, his lips as empty as old inner tubes.

"You don't know?”
 
I'd asked, but the retching seized me again.
 
I meant to say
of course, more than life, you're everything to me, I'm nothing without you, and I think I love you more than people can love each other.
 
But I couldn't say any of it with my muscles squeezing my throat shut.
 
Even my body seemed to know that such a confession was like poison in the air.
 
It would drive him away with its stench.
 
And then it would kill me.

"Then you have to go,” he said.
 
"Quick.
 
Before it's too late and we can't do anything about it."

I wiped my mouth with one hand.
 
"Why can't we just have it?
 
People do.
 
People get by."

He let his shoulders drop against the bathroom wall, shook his head and stared at the floor.
 
"Because I don't want to just
get by
, Madeline.
 
I don't want to be a loser all my life.
 
I've got to finish college and you...well, you're not going to be anything at all if you can't even graduate high school.
 
Don't you see how selfish it is?"