Penny Dreadful (33 page)

I don’t know where he is, she said. I can’t see him clearly. But he’s cold, he’s shivering.

Phineas rolled his eyes. Do you think so? His clothes are all over your fucking living room.

Eve laughed, she giggled. Oh, she tried not to but it came spilling out of her.

I’m sorry, said Dizzy. That’s all I see.

I love this game, said Phineas. I love it.

Please stop, said Mingus. I want to stop.

Eve looked up and she felt bad for him. Mingus looked exhausted, he looked thin. Dark circles under his eyes. His hands trembling. Christian’s dried blood on his clothes. Eve wanted to close her eyes, to sleep. She heard Dizzy exhale heavily, as if she had been holding her breath. Eve wondered what Goo would do if this was but another scene from the game. And she had no idea, no idea. All she could do was put the pickles away and wait.

Dizzy hesitated, then returned the book to Phineas.

His face was pale, apologetic. Eve hated it when he said he was sorry and she hoped he wouldn’t do so.

I’m sorry, he said.

Dizzy stood up and she looked unsteady on her legs. She backed away from Phineas, from Christian’s body. She was really beautiful, Eve thought. She was dirty and speckled with blood and her braids were falling apart but she was beautiful. Her arms were thin and muscular and she had nice hands and Eve realized that she was attracted to her, to Dizzy.

Her mouth felt dry.

Dizzy held out her hand and Eve wanted to take it but she didn’t move. The hand was not reaching for her. Mingus hopped down from the counter. He kissed Dizzy’s neck and Eve shrugged. They did seem happy together, safe together.

Flesh was flesh and bodies needed other bodies.

Eve looked at Christian and she could admit to herself that a thin faraway part of her was glad that he was gone. Chrome was dead and Goo would have no one to come back to. She looked at Phineas and wondered what she would do with him. What did she feel. She stared at his sick blue eyes. At his thin, hard mouth. His unshaven jaw and bright crooked teeth. And she thought of the way he had taken her hand in his as they had approached this house.

Flutter. She felt the flutter.

It’s late, said Dizzy. It’s very late and I’m going to bed.

Okay, said Mingus.

Dizzy tried to smile but it was like the muscles in her face were rotten. Eve smiled back.

It’s not okay, said Dizzy.

No, she said. It isn’t.

You can sleep here, said Dizzy. If you want. There are several spare beds.

Do you have any paint thinner, said Phineas. Or bleach?

His voice was dry, unflinching. Eve felt something twitch in her spine. Her breath slipped away from her. Paint thinner, she thought. This seemed like such a gruesome question but Dizzy was fairly untouchable, she was cool and weightless as a sparrow. She glanced down at the body and nodded.

Look under the sink, she said.

The two Breathers retreated from the room and Eve was left alone with Phineas and the body. Phineas went to the sink and began to dig through the cabinet. Eve stared down at Christian and told herself to touch him, to say good-bye. To feel something. His eyes were closed, thank god. He had such long, black eyelashes and she wondered how many times she had watched him sleep and felt invisible beside him, completely invisible. How many times she had curled up beside him like a little frog changing colors and wished one of them was dead.

Funny, though.

Because she never thought it would feel quite like this. Empty and cold and sick from lack of sleep, with the taste of pickles in her mouth. Christian’s eyes were weirdly asymmetrical and she realized now that the left one was still swollen from the scratch that reached down the side of his jaw, where she had cut him with the sharpened doll. She touched the swollen eye, lightly. It felt rubbery and strange, it felt like a misplaced testicle and she was a little hysterical, perhaps. Can you see me, she said. Can you see me now.

Hand on her shoulder.

I need your help, said Phineas.

Her muscles were light and feathery. Yes, she said. I can help you.

Eve stood up and he handed her a metal jug of turpentine. Which made strange little echoes, like splashes at the bottom of a well. She watched as Phineas lifted Christian onto his shoulders, grunting with the effort.

He gave her dead lover the hug of a fireman.

Heavy footsteps. Out the back door, across Dizzy Bloom’s dark, wet grass.

Brick patio, then more grass. Eve looked up at the sky and wished they could sit down to identify their favorite stars. The jug of paint thinner against her knees. Jack and Jill went up the hill. She opened the back gate and held it open for him. To fetch a pail of water. Parked cars and stretch of gravel. It was too bright and she realized how bad it would be if they were seen. Eve took the lead. Jack fell down and broke his crown. She didn’t ask Phineas where he wanted to go.

Instinct.

She turned between a little red house and a vacant lot, she followed her feet along a dusty little path that might have struck her as charming under other conditions. Jill came tumbling after. The path curved through a gang of bushes and dumped them in a parking lot behind a fast-food place. Happy meals, she loved happy meals. Child-sized portions and always a prize. Every meal should include a prize. Two big blue Dumpsters like sleeping whales and she veered toward them without a thought. Is this far enough, she wondered. Is this far enough from the house and she could hear Phineas breathing hard and fast through his teeth. Between the Dumpsters and her eyes squeezed themselves shut as he shrugged Christian’s body down like a sack of gravel.

Now, he said. Breathing.

He took the turpentine from her and she had to ask.

What is it for? she said.

Fingerprints, he said. Hair and fibers. Don’t you watch television?

Not lately, she said.

Phineas sighed, hesitated. Then slowly and without ceremony, he dumped turpentine over the whole of her ex-boyfriend’s body.

Goo’s ex-boyfriend.

Her nostrils burned and Eve sat down abruptly on a wooden box that stank of tomatoes. She looked around and around. The air was bright and gray, the air was the color of metal under the pale winter sun. Phineas carefully wiped down the sides and handle of the empty jug, then tossed it into one of the Dumpsters.

That’s it, she said. Do you want to say anything?

Eve looked at the body. Christian was deflated, he was much smaller than before. He was wet.

I can’t, she said.

Phineas reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of tobacco shreds and lint and coins and scraps of paper. He picked through and selected two dimes, which he placed on Christian’s eyelids.

The dead suffer no laughter, he said.

What does that mean, exactly?

Phineas shrugged. Tell him a joke, if you can think of one.

Okay, she said. How many serial killers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Unwavering silence and shards of color now in the sky.

How many? he said finally.

One, she said. But it takes him a long time.

Phineas looked at Christian, then at her. Why?

Because he first has to dismember the old one, she said. Then masturbate on its remains.

Phineas nodded and she laughed to herself, brief and manic. He held out his hand and she took it and they walked back across the parking lot and along the twisting path, through the gate across Dizzy’s dark garden. Phineas steered her around to the front of the house so they might avoid the kitchen and she was glad, she was warm. As they climbed the front steps she caught a flash of pink movement above. Thought she saw a fat pale gargoyle on the roof and was amazed that she had not noticed it before. Now she blinked, looked again.

But the gargoyle was gone.

Through the front door and Phineas still held her hand. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t once try to let go of her hand. He glanced around at the crumpled clothes on the floor and took a long shuddering breath. Eve lowered her eyes, she frowned at her own wet feet. There were bits of yellow grass between her toes and she wasn’t going to let go of him. Of Phineas. She took him up the stairs and down the hall to the guest bedroom with the cloudlike white comforter.

Dead gray morning light.

But it was dark enough that his mouth and eyes were vague and shadowy as unfinished sketches and Eve wasn’t quite breathing. The pillows were cool and grotesquely soft and she slapped at them, half expecting them to disappear. Phineas took off his hooded jacket and sat down on the bed, slowly took off his boots. He unbuckled his belt and he seemed terribly calm. He opened his mouth but Eve didn’t want to talk and she pushed him down onto his back. And she pulled his socks off, his pants. Her fingers never quite touched his skin but she was sure that she could hear his heartbeat. Or her own. Eve dropped the wool jacket to the floor and now wore only underpants. White underpants and she wondered how white her skin must be. How thin she was. Her breasts felt heavy and cold and too large which was funny and unfamiliar but she folded her arms across them and when she moved she felt the deep bruise from the Scavenger’s Daughter that circled her back and thighs and belly, an endless figure eight in her flesh. It would be purple tomorrow. Phineas still wore his shirt, a white polyester shirt with a red stain on the chest and a woman in a bikini down one sleeve. The faint smell of mothballs and he was naked from the waist down, he was apparently speechless but unashamed and she could see he had an erection. And she lowered her arms, she unbuttoned his shirt and lay on top of his chest with her legs drawn up like a grasshopper and at first thought that she only wanted his skin against hers but soon she was kissing him, she was kissing him. His tongue was slow and shy and she was absurdly wet but it was a long time before his cock was inside her, before he entered her. And when he did, he just held her. His face was pressed to her throat and she wondered if he could even breathe, his arms were heavy around her and he didn’t rock or pound or thrust at her. They barely moved at all and after what seemed like an hour she began to rise and fall against him and over his shoulder she again saw the face of a fat pink gargoyle peeking at her through blackened window but that was impossible and she closed her eyes as Phineas said her name once or twice in a sweet faraway disbelieving voice and now he seemed to get bigger inside her and she began to shake and come apart and vaguely hating herself she kissed his ear and said please, don’t come inside me.

Dear Jude.

The truth is that I don’t know what I’m doing.

It might look like I’m trying to save somebody from something but I’m not. How can you save anybody when everything is reflex, everything is a muscular spasm. I saw a movie once where two guys are standing at the end of a tunnel, two guys named Frank and Joe. Frank is very cool, he’s James Bond with long hair. He gets all the women and he can disarm a bomb while hanging upside down. He quotes poetry ever so casual. Frank is a gourmet cook, in fact. And Joe is a fuck-up. Every friendship has one. Joe is Barney Fife on speed. He shuts his hand in the car door and ejaculates prematurely and prefers cheap American beer. Meanwhile. There’s a bad guy with a gun at the other end of the tunnel and I don’t remember why he wants to kill Frank and Joe but that’s not the point. At the precise moment that the bad guy pulls the trigger, Joe flinches. He lunges sideways, he throws himself between Frank and the gun and takes one in the shoulder. Frank is amazed. The audience is amazed. Because Joe was trying to save his life or something. But upon closer examination, the bullet was a ricochet and if Joe had never moved, the bullet would have missed them both. Joe couldn’t deny it and he didn’t want to. He wasn’t thinking about Frank, he wasn’t thinking anything at all. He just jumped. And that’s what I’m talking about.

Now I stole my first sour breath. Eve beside me, soft naked thin with a surreal childish glow to her cheeks but then she was just twenty, still a girl. I had a feeling she would laugh at me if I let myself feel bad about fucking her. She would laugh and laugh. My eyes were not yet open. Yesterday I had felt like her brother, her big clumsy brother. But what had I really wanted.

I had wanted to adore her, to protect her.

Which was funny, wasn’t it. I was so poisoned by Hollywood. I would open my eyes, soon.

Saturday.