Skin (11 page)

    
Shut up.

    Now black: except for lone deserted spots, the sound of the audience and everyone drifting into place, sullen Sandrine, Raelynne's friendly grimace as she passed trussed hard in thick radial black. Where was Paul? Bibi already stripped topless on the table, breasts half-covered with electrical tape; it would hurt like hell, coming off. The brownish smell of Betadine, at least he knew enough to clean up first, clean his scummy needles and his little cutting tools. Stop it. Concentrate on the show, on the triple dance of Triple Death. On your three stooges; where are they anyway? Peter had the camera on a tripod.

    A tripod. "What the fuck-" but it was too late, the music was already coming on, car-wreck harmonics, the rhythmic rattle of pounded metal and Bibi's recorded voice stretched sonorous and bleak, the voice that groans from the heart of the pit: "Torque, from the Latin torquere: to twist-"

    And the Triple Deaths in their own kind of motion, twisting, yes, the relentless systolic beat of the Claw Hammer against sheet metal, woundlike dents as big around as fists and the Guitar Pick's random strikes, toothed blade like the world's longest splinter, striking like lightning for the ground, for the watchers, for the dancers, for the spray-painted plywood constructs where the Drill was already in motion, groove upon gutter upon hole and Bibi's fresh cry, the needle at work and the box in Tess's hand sweaty, no room to look behind and the sound of a machine no sound she knew and turning, staring, to see a lumbering concoction of iron and wire, ragged caterpillar tread despoiling by motion everything it passed, passed over, coming on in drowning noise and behind it Jerome: and Nicky: and Peter. Their new toy.

    Fresh inexpert welds, half a look told her that and the second look told her it would probably burst from the stress of its own motion, shudder to pieces but no time, now, to really look it over, she had her own work to do. And anger, bright and inexplicable: a moment's black thought of turning the Triple Deaths in punishing combat on this secret toy, batter and drill and pick it to eternity and baby makes four; but it passed, inner shamed head-shake; she was angry at being left out, that was all: why hadn't they trusted her? Because she said no to the laser, because they felt overworked and overshadowed. Because it was theirs.

    But anger, still, and in response Triple Death more fierce, and faster;
I'll show you how to make a monster.
Swung battering Hammer again and again and the lurching grind of the Guitar Pick, music, hardcore, the whining drone of the Drill speed-splintering a plywood box twice its size, black needles of wood spitting everywhere and somebody's shriek, tough; her own hearing half-gone, blunted by the noise, the watchers scared and avid, staring; staring. Take a good look.

    Bibi up off the table, slow burlesque turn and the dancers loose at last from their webbing, Sandrine rolling past, strange acrobat and Raelynne's howling mask, throwing rubber to burn on the deep drum-fire-not much time left, the smoke would start to get bad very shortly though every window was open and the blowers on-she felt Andreas pass her, grinning white teeth and black gloves but not gone; why not?

    Paul passing her, too.

    And a moment's worth of motion, bending all at once to throw himself into a crouch before paused Andreas who raised up a scalpel like a spike, big blade, long arc-

    -all the way down his back-

    -sheared rubber, ripped skin; blood. Too much blood. Paul breathing hard, muscles clenched motionless, Andreas gone for good into darkness and Bibi was seeing, Bibi saw: bounding across the floor, still bleeding herself, black-taped breasts and a face contorted, past Deaths and nameless behemoth and the bleak internal surprise, so much to be surprised by, tonight: to leap hard upon his bloody back, jerk his head up by the hair, throat-tight victim ready for the knife and saying something in his ear- and then off, down, his head jerked sideways as if she would wrench it free with the power of her contempt. And now in new wild motion, mad primate bounce up and onto one of the constructs-the rubber smoke getting very bad, now, sickening smell and visibility down to dream shapes and the bright nightmare twinkle on the tip of the Drill- but Tess could still see, see Bibi jump, again, a monster leap upon the arched modified spine of the Triple Deaths: jarred in the landing instant by juggernaut twist but holding on, clenched hands and one arm suddenly bared to the relentless stroke of the Guitar Pick
oh Bibi don't "Don't!"-

    -and torn, blood, the Pick still striking and moving on and Bibi's grip ripped loose to fall, hard, forcibly to the splin-ter-strewn floor, facedown in the smoke and stink and the greasy smear of blood on her head, back at a bad angle, a broken twist; and did not move at all.

    The crowd loved it.

    "Just a tooth," trying to smile, mouth grotesquely swollen, "cracked a molar or something. And my arm, that's all." The cutting on her shoulders smaller than Tess had imagined, little red diagonals, they were nothing compared to the rich gore on her arm, she was lucky to have an arm,

    Tess felt like beating the shit out of her. Abrasions on her cheek, the side of her throat; she said nothing felt broken.

    "Is Triple Death okay?" the slurred mouth frowning now, trying to look around. "I didn't think I-"

    Before Tess could speak, Jerome; amends: "It's fine. We checked it over, no problem," not meeting Tess's eyes but she had no particular eyes for him anyway, not yet. All the Surgeons there, clustered around Tess's couch-bed where Bibi lay in groggy antic state; except Paul. Who was still missing, had been since the end of the show, Tess's three instead bearing the unconscious Bibi through a rapturous crowd, Tess in the lead forcing a path and for one distracting moment the sight of unsmiling overbite, long summer hair. They took her upstairs, Sandrine all for calling the paramedics but Bibi waking on her own, no, no, I'm fine. I just need to lie down for a while. Peter with black tape and gauze from somewhere, Raelynne covering the bleeding gap and quiet in Tess's ear, " 'S okay, she's gonna be okay." Then louder, to Bibi, "Hey stupid-you want to ride bronco, get a job in a rodeo." Ripping more tape. "Or a whorehouse."

    And late, later, with everyone gone and the mythos, the ethos, growing on the street with the indelible shimmer of virus, the two of them: sitting up, Bibi medicated to painlessness and content, floppy lips and butterfly stitches and Tess beside her, the cold anger of relief like a moving tumor in her belly, the cobra dance of rage: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

    One-shoulder shrug. "Lots," then darker, without the swollen smile, "but tonight I was mad."

    Harshly, "At Paul."

    Darker still, "Yeah. You saw what he did."

    "You saw what Jerome and those guys did, that stupid machine, and I didn't do-"

    Pulling sideways, half a smile: "You sure you didn't know about that beforehand?"

    "What?" Momentarily distracted from her anger: another surprise in this night of endless surprises. "No, I didn't. I didn't know anything about it until I saw it out there tonight, and when I did I felt like running it over with Triple Death."

    "Then why didn't you?"

    "Because," and silence, unused to explaining herself and especially to Bibi sitting now patient in the long sorting minute, broken face waiting it out. Then, slow: "Because it would be wrong, that's why. It's their machine, they worked on it, they built it. Even though they were assholes to spring it on me that way, I still couldn't just destroy it, right in front of them."

    "Really?" Turning a little on the couch-bed and the long distorted grin, matte abrasion garish as some new tattoo and eyes as bright and sure as the oncoming tip of the needle, the striking arm of the Pick: "I could. I would have, too."

    Late morning and Bibi in pain now, no more pills: mouth heavily ballooned and the bruises a festive smear, dried blood on her lips, her pillow, her tom forearm a warm festering color beyond the moist black-and-white square of taped gauze. Tess's red eyes dry; shaking keys, out for pills and something to eat even though Bibi did not want to eat, "My fucking mouth hurts," and Tess inexorable, "Live with it." Still angry: at Bibi's gratuitous injuries, at being disbelieved: You sure you didn't know about that beforehand? Yes, I'm sure. Partners were partners, no secrets; what secrets did Bibi have from her?

    No talk between them, out to the car in the half rain, Bibi slumped sullen in the damp-smelling seat, head against the window and somebody's knock sudden to startle them both: green insect sunglasses, tentative overbite smile. "Hi," Michael Hispard's voice up close and soft unto whisper, sunglasses down to show the beautiful eyes, darker than Bibi's but still so pale, even in this uncertain light. "I just now quit my group."

    Both staring, then Bibi's flat "Oh yeah," and Tess reaching behind to flip up the lock: "Hop in."

    First the drugstore, over the counter and short of change, Michael there with a handful, silver still warm with his touch. On the way back to the car, diffident: "Is she gonna-is she okay?"

    "She's never okay."

    Next stop Javahouse, two brick stories and scrollwork balcony empty in the fitful rain above an awning bleached by pigeon shit and sun; the ironwork was pretty but unsound. Tess said, "That's going to crack one day," and Michael stopped at once, Tess almost ran into him, stopped to stare up.

    "You think so?"

    "I know so."

    And Bibi, pushing rudely past them: "Then let's not sit there," and inside to warmth, dark wood, dark booths. Bibi took a table, changed her mind when the farthest booth became suddenly available. From there they could see the street through windows green like aquarium glass, like Michael's sunglasses; his hesitation, one long moment between sides before sliding in next to Tess; near enough to touch and smelling faintly of sweat, of damp denim, in his hair a sweet soap odor as if he had just shampooed. He sat with fingers linked around the sugar decanter, old-fashioned glass with a scratched chrome spout.

    Bibi loudly impatient for the pills to start working, drinking her coffee through a straw and cursing when it slipped and spurted, brown dribble down her shirt; Michael adding lots of cream from a tiny metal jigger, ice-cold sweat down its silver sides. Tess rubbed her eyes, again, hard, stars against the itching lids. "So." Coffee hot in her mouth; someone's barking laugh loud and hard across the room. "Why'd you quit your band?"

    "Because I want to be in the Surgeons." Looking first at Bibi, then Tess, earnest face and that strange mouth in appeal, "Any way you want to use me, any capacity. I can do a lot more than just play the bells, you know," and Tess felt her lips in sudden rubber twitch, the laugh unexpected and saw that it had tickled Bibi, too, both of them laughing out loud so people turned to look and Michael seemingly unruffled, his own smile slow and curious and small, and very unsurprised.

    "Muybridge," Bibi said, "are you familiar with him?"

    "His motion studies, sure," hunched still on Tess's couch-bed, quart bottle of beer untouched between his sneakered feet. Around them nearly night, the sculpted shadows cast by Archangel, Mme Lazarus, the Triple Deaths newly cleaned and oiled in Tess's absence; her three buying goodwill with scutwork. They needed no passport back into her good graces, but she did not mean to tell them so, not yet. Now she would simply sit, swiveled at the worktable to watch: Bibi's rainbow-face raising painful eyebrows, Michael's answering nods and half smiles, dandelion hair, explaining why he left his old group; he was already calling it his old group.

    "They had some good ideas," finally drinking some of the beer, it must be flat by now. "Like the whole fou basis, that's a terrific idea. They had this whole library of tapes, of brain-damaged kids, and people with autism, hebephrenics, sociopaths, people who'd had all these various kinds of strokes and brain injuries that destroyed different parts of their consciousness, like they had this one guy who could only hear certain instruments, he could hear a guitar but not a trumpet, or any kind of keyboard or drum, only string instruments, he-"

    "So how come," Bibi's interested slur, fingers blind on her strawed bottle of juice, "how come you left?"

    Palms up like a suffering saint. "You have to do something with ideas, or they rot. You guys," his warm gaze including Tess, "are doing stuff."

    "Yeah, we're doing all kinds of stuff," and Bibi laughed, mouth immobile as a stroke patient's. "It's not always scripted, but we do it anyway. Right, John Henry?"

    "Oh right," her own smile turned down, slow and dry. "Michael," curiously, "what do you want to do, with the Surgeons?"

    "Whatever you-"

    "No. What do you want to do?"

    Answer immediate as his smile: "The music. For now." They talked, the three of them, into the night, the first warm night and windows left open, cars and radios and radios in cars the counterpoint to Michael's questions about the Surgeons, the first shows. They talked about theory, about motion, Tess's bright passion and Bibi's litany of the knife, of the power of the body, it's an area we're just getting into; did Michael see Tess's stillness? No way to know. Tess changing the subject back to sheer motion, talking about dance, about Bibi's kamikaze choreography and making half light of her lunatic leaps; Michael smiled, then, but did not laugh; Bibi laughed.

    Almost dawn, Bibi's doubled dose of pain pills and curling like a child on the couch-bed, "I'm not really sleepy," and out, sore mouth falling open as if weighted by heavy bruises, injured arm stretched as far as pain would allow.

    Michael carefully setting the beer bottle aside, standing to take Tess's hand in a careful clasp.

    "Thanks," long lids suddenly down, his fingers rough at the tips, blunt hands, warm. "Tell Bibi thanks, too, when she wakes up." Picking up his jacket, old cuffiess white denim worn at the seams, a rusted Sisters of Darkness button on the lapel. Again the earnest smile, strange overlay on that bent aristocratic bite. "You really won't be sorry."