Skin (10 page)

    Raelynne's bright voice, "Show's over, folks!" and somebody's laugh, and talk, motion, the doors closing and Bibi, there: hand on her arm, looking up into her face with eyes still not completely back: "What happened? That asshole grabbed you, or what?"

    "Nothing," hands in shameful jitter and Jerome there to take the control box from her, hairline cracks, was it damaged? Ruined? She would find out, put it on my worktable but Jerome shook his head.

    "Forget it-Tess, forget it, we'll take care of it." And gone, her three as well as the others, melting back-even Paul-to leave her beside draped Bibi, bloody back and guiding hands, come on. "C'mon," smiling, a little, little smiling teeth. "John Henry. Let's go home."

    Late sun, the welding panels strange orange like construction cones, too bright; melting ice heavy as leaded glass and Tess's frown, gaze on her work, solid skulls a-jingle against a stiff steel bone: "Are you sure?"

    "Linda Joy says he's okay, she's worked with him before.

    Andreas," leftover hint of scabs like a zipper up her spine, the cutting stringent and beautiful; shower steam incongruous in the burgeoning cold. "Anyway it'll only be little cuts this time. -So how's the triplets coming?"

    "Okay," and it was almost beginning to be so, stripped-down carcasses in the process of extreme modification, figures triumvirate and even harder than she thought but she had time, now, to make it look easy. No need for even pickup jobs; Jerome had picked up that slack, too, Rick's Auto Body three times a week and everything he got he plowed straight back into the Surgeons. The next show had nothing more concrete than a name-Actual Torque-and her trio of headless skeletal constructs, Bibi called them Deaths One, Two and Almost; and of course Bibi's plan for another cutting.

    Little cuts this time and each symbolic, she had explained it all at least three times to a silent Tess still privately appalled by her own outburst at the last show: she had let worry and rage control her as surely as she had turned the crab on that woman, as surely as she had turned on the man. Bibi's body was simply that, Bibi's body. Not hers. If cutting was what she needed, then she would be cut. Simple. If she wanted to amputate her legs and hang them on meat hooks from the ceiling, that was her prerogative, too. To think-or act-otherwise was foolish and worse; there was dissent enough without adding more.

    And Bibi as usual, uncanny in her thoughts: "-don't know what to do about Paul." Through the inverted V of bent legs, strange stretching lotus shape and her head-shake inverted: Paul was getting harder and harder to take, he was forever walking out of rehearsals, and Sandrine as well now suddenly temperamental, complaining that the Surgeons were becoming more than half machine shop, this was supposed to be about dance. Metal versus flesh, the engineered versus the organic, Tess had the same problems from the other side: Nicky most of all but even patient Jerome less so, we put in most of the grindwork, Tess, we do most of the work and you know it. Did she know it? The pure hot drip of solder, flat splash drying to thinnest chrome shine; she knew that.

    "I tell 'em they can all be replaced," and Bibi right side up, blood in her cheeks. "Fuck 'em. Especially Paul. This's the greatest thing any of them will ever do and they know it. -Listen, I'm going to a club tonight, there's this fou music thing I want to see. I forgot the name of it, but Andy says they're pretty good. Want to come?"

    Tapping Death Almost with the hilt of her soldering gun, jingling skulls as small as charms: "Can't. Besides I don't know what fou music is."

    " 'S like art brut, only music. Crazy people," and she bared her teeth, comical glare and uncoiling in one long reptile stretch, dressing backless and bright new piercing jewelry, shiny surgical steel: beautiful, Bibi, pale hair hacked shorter than ever, pale eyes now covered by heavy cataract shades even though the sun was down. Tess in the glow of her own sun, indoor burn and Andy at the door, immense in heavy leather: "Knock knock-hey, hi, Tess, how's it going? You ready, Bibi? Tess, you want to come?"

    "Not her," Bibi tapping tart and fond across her back, "you know Tess. Slave to the grind," and Tess's correcting smile, "No, slave to the burn, " and the door closing again on the dark coming on, stench of solder and singed plastic, the blood-quiet drip from the smoldering tip of the gun.

    "It won't work because you can't do it." Sickle-eyed through the mask in matte afternoon shadow; deep in a pleasing problem and here they were, in without knocking and ringing her worktable with another bright idea. Trio stare reminding of the Triple Deaths, she felt a dry smile that came nowhere near her mouth. "Do I have to pull rank? Is that what you want?"

    Nicky's ragdoll hair in sullen shake, Peter picking at a hangnail. Only Jerome met her head on, glare for glare, only Jerome bold enough, mad enough to say, "It's not fair."

    "Of course it's not fair." Flipping up her mask to point from one to another with the burnt flux tip, "It doesn't have to be fair, remember? And you don't have to stay." The limits of dominion were her limits, as far as such could be prosecuted, and she knew it; what authority she had they gave her and she knew that, too. "Now either help me with this, or leave me alone," and turning back, ticking off seconds and Jerome's sigh, angry hands taking the work from her, the others silent on the other side.

    And Bibi breezing in, handful of flyers and new jacket jingling with zippers, "Hey," and the three in one collective motion removing the slippery jumble of cable, fragile as an intubated body, off the worktable and out the door. Staring after them, "What's their problem?" and Tess careful not to speak until the finite sound of the service elevator.

    "Oh, they're pissed off at me, they want to try this new effect with the laser and I won't let them."

    "Why not?"

    "Too dangerous." Brief mind's-eye glimpse of the first show, the girl stumbling back behind the shielding panels. Crane's voice: How about the kid who got all cut up? No more of that, please, and thank you very much. "Where've you been?"

    "Back to the Asylum. Look," new flyer in hand: actual torque in heavy black sans serif on a background of pure arc flash, a woman's-Bibi's-bare back defined by lash marks and behind her a tall masked figure clenching a stylized joystick, connected by sparking cables to something angular and metallic just barely in frame. Tess stared at it with a vague discomfort; it seemed unnecessarily lurid, and it was so big; almost poster-size.

    "That's you," Bibi's chewed nail on the figure. "I already put some up, at Greco's, and the Bar H, and Asylum's, somebody at Asylum's already asked where he could get tickets." Standing over Tess, now, hands on her shoulders: "Come with me tonight," and intercepting her shrug, "There's always work to do, that's what we do. Come on, you can take one night off. Besides you ought to see this guy, he's in that fou music thing, remember I told you? Just come on," dragging her arm like a little kid and Tess's long rare smile, briefest nod in counterpoint to the fresh-begun banging, big and hollow, from the three downstairs; for once, she thought,
let someone else work while I play.

    

    

    Asylum's smelled like a gym, mold and old sweat and the hundred secret stinks of working bodies. Rows of cheap folding chairs, some broken, some incongruous-new against the tired laminate of the floor, the stage where various instruments were being manipulated with varying degrees of violence and success.

    A sawed-off cello. A drum kit played with the body. Two wildly out-of-tune bass guitars used inexpertly by a pair of blond women who looked like mother and daughter. And a long glittering stream of bells, silver, gold, cracked, split open to show clappers huge and bare as swollen knobs of flesh, the protruding tongues of the dead: played by a man, young man, eyes closed, lips pliant in choirboy half smile, the bells' dirty tethers hooked horse-collar and winding around his bare chest to hang down past his thighs as if extruded anew by each deliberate motion, each quick and shuddering jounce.

    "His name is Michael," Bibi in her ear, warm breath and Tess barely nodded, caught by his motion, he was so obviously the only thing worth watching. The performance was as badly done as the lighting, cheap gelatinous primaries, it was all pretty worthless.

    But not him, the bell ringer; see him now in his spastic crouch amidst the shrill tribal ring, sweat, he was sweating, the muscles of his legs bunched in effort and the bells in his hands like the jingling scales of lizards, descending sounds as the guitar-flogging women rolled like cannonballs ("Hedgehogs," Tess in Bibi's ear) and the body-drummer used his elbows to thump to a flat finale.

    No applause, but de rigueur comment, instant and earnest and Bibi pushing past it all, Tess a step behind to follow her over the stage. To corner the bell ringer, hand out, smiling: "I'm Bibi Bloss," shaking his hand and Tess remembered Bibi's hand in hers back in her party-store workspace: first hard handshake, the one that did not seem to test. "And this is Tess Bajac. We-"

    "I know who you are." Close up he was very beautiful, strange haughty overbite in the long shy smile, long hair pulled back in messy plait, half-curled, half-straight, bright tarnished color of the silent bells. "You're the Surgeons. I've seen one of your shows-it was incredible." His hand hot on Tess's, fingers blunt and strong. "I'm Michael Hispard."

    Bibi invited him out for coffee, a drink, but he declined, he had to clean up, there was work to do. Nodding to the Surgeons flyer, already scrolling at the edges: "I'll see you there," speaking carefully to both, diffident good-bye and gone, faint trickling jingle in his wake and Bibi's grin: "Pretty, huh?"

    Very pretty. Tess glanced once more in the direction he had gone to see him, bells gathered careless against his bare chest, watching them leave. And then caught, abashed, ducking away this time for good and they both smiled, at him, at each other.

    Out into the dark, moist wind and Bibi, nudging her: "Well? Aren't you glad you came?"

    The only one worth watching; hair like summer and hot fingers, strong on her own. I'll see you there; will you? I'll see you, if you do. "Yeah," Tess said. "I think I am."

    Spring heat, again unseasonable, sweating first thing in the morning and Paul's dramatic curse, bounding naked out of bed-he had a muscular ass, Paul, and shiny gold piercings newer than Bibi's-tearing on clothes while shrieking at Bibi who shrieked back, threw something; missed, and Tess hunched-still-at the worktable, yelling red-eyed
Shut the fuck up!
to the banging door, Paul's shouts in the street and Bibi slamming the window, hard; then with a shrug, apology, opening it wide again for Tess who socketed her gun, rubbed her eyes hard with the burned heels of her hands.

    "You want coffee?"

    Tess's nod, stepping to the shower and Bibi's commentary, half to herself and half-unheard in the shivering burn of the water. Full day's work ahead, Actual Torque actually on schedule but no thanks to Paul, or even Tess's three, all of whom seemed to have more pressing work elsewhere; true, they had pickup jobs but still their time seemed oddly fragmented; there when she needed them most, but only then. Maybe they were going to quit to form their own group.

    

    

    The time between shows had lengthened in proportion to the planned complexities; maybe time was the key to all the bickering. Bibi looking, bringing coffee, half smile pale as a little ghoul, scratches across her breasts and neck, one long and arrow-straight directing the eye down. Tess, gesturing with her own cup to the answering-machine light: blinking; it was always blinking these days.

    "That guy called again, from
AntiTrust
. He said you were going to give him an interview before the-"

    "I know, I know." Frowning, unconscious fingers rubbing the reddest of the scratches. "I don't have time, this time. Shit! There's too much to do."

    There was too much to do: the Triple Deaths first and foremost, and almost done: the Claw Hammer, the Drill, and the Guitar Pick, they could not walk but they could move; motion so distorted it became ultimately hateful to the eye, like the long-ago tape played at that first dance, a rhythmless rhythm that put teeth on edge, made the heartbeat feel miscadenced, the breathing too fast or too slow. Optimum distortion, Jerome called it; when he was there. Which was seldom. "I think," Tess said, "Jerome's going to quit on me."

    "What? No," shaking that pale head, positive. "Not Jerome. He thinks you're God."

    "Well, something's going on." Too tired to work, too much to do; no time to waste. A week and a half, tickets sold, supplies bought; strobes and smoke and the Triple Deaths through their paces, everyone in black and stretched rubber, rubber to burn, nauseating smoke another facet of discomfort: this time let's fuck them up, Bibi's mantra and Tess agreed. The Surgeons were about more than plain performance; or should be. Would be.

    So: coffee drunk like medicine, Tess's head hung low and Bibi toweling her dry, "Your hair's so long," rubbing vigorous to the point of pain: "There. If you're still asleep now, you're dead," and into the shower herself as at the door Paul, silent hands full of pastries, yellow crust and fat red fruit filling like split innards; bags down to strip and join Bibi in the wet and Tess back to the worktable, back-hinge hurting, solder smoke like the rising funnel of incense in the church of the endless burn.

    His name was Andreas, long hair and long fingernails and he was late, almost time for the performance before he came with his needles, his scalpels, his black rubber gloves. Unnecessarily deferential to Tess, jokey and fey with Bibi, who seemed to find him funny. Or something. Tess perched, vulture, atop one of the heavy black-sprayed crates, sore-eyed watch as one trio set up another: Nicky and Peter and Jerome, the Drill, the Claw Hammer, the Guitar Pick. Even she had to admit she was pleased: long ropy cables like necrotic veins, slippery oil and they moved as they were meant to: around the rusty drums meant for the rubber and the fire, around the splintered plywood table on which Bibi would be cut. More cabling from the ceiling, long U-shaped loops where the dancers would hang as frenzied as webbed flies until escape. Peter, as always, camera; Nicky and Jerome were music, smoke, backup for her with the constructs, ready to ready the portable welding gear if necessary, run patchup, fix cables. Turn on the fire extinguisher. Break windows. "Crowd control," and now she was talking out loud, "crowbars. Napalm. Paramedics. Paralegals. What the fuck are you looking at, dipshit?" and Andreas's placating shrug, moving off;
I know right where you can stick those needles, asshole.
And why be angry at him, when it's her blood they're spilling?