Skin (35 page)

    Two mornings, three, lying mute in T-shirt and panties like a body washed up on a beach and, like driftwood, another Bibi-interview, this one in an oversize magazine left at her door like a love offering, a way to rouse her. Sitting up at last to read it, cross-legged on the bed, turning the pages as if she must by rote verify the presence of each. Slick pop culture pretensions, galleries she had never visited, shows of work she despised, when had she last done work of her own? When would she work again? teach? Never?

    And all at once the centerpiece, long article with small type, "Performance Art Ultima" and Bibi, there, even less presentable somehow though this was an earlier photo-; graph: an earlier time as the words were still all hers, her.‹white-hot rant, ramble and jumble and as Tess read she seemed to see, like palimpsests, the words Bibi might speak now, on this same subject, the way her eyes might look as she did; the probable cast of her smile. Less thought than pure knowledge, the contrast less immense than immensely skewed: as if the part of her that was still Bibi had had its last fling in these pages: the part that could still make a joke, take one, still slip from the hooked orbit of lesser passions and greeds called into service by the greater greeds and passions that were her, that made up Bibi as bricks make a wall; could still escape her guarding obsessions and be for moments free of the demands of that hunger now devouring her, dark yin to her yang. Were they still distinguishable, one from the other? or instead were they dominoes, grinless twins and each red-mouthed, hands out, hungry not for feeding but the flesh that hunger brings. She had been already crazy, in this article, but she was far beyond that now.

    
And I can't help her
.

    
I can't help her at all anymore
.

    Crying, from beneath that twisting pity, twisting like an ulcer giving birth and little tears, very hot, moving lines down her dry cheeks. On the page Bibi's face, gray eyes the color of metal, the color of brittle hooks through flesh shy with blood's embarrassment; she was crying onto the magazine, one smearing hand to wipe the tears away.

    Knocking, softly, at the door, two knocks and a pause; two knocks and no more.

    She rose, unsteady from her days of lying flat, pulled on a pair of knee-length shorts half-folded on the floor. Face to the door, "Who is it?" and in the summoning breath knew exactly who it was.

    A half smile, barely there: stepping in with that same grace, never less than beautiful; she had never hated anyone so much. Chains across his cheek, faint ceremonious scars beneath his gray Bibi-eyes. "I hear you're looking for me," he said, stepping past her; come inside.

    Her heart, whipping rhythm, beating as if she were dying; she wanted to strip the bed of its sheet and strangle him with it, garrote his cock, his neck, fill his lying mouth choking-full. All the lies, out there in swift black crouch, what else was there that she didn't know? Helpless through her teeth: "I'd like to kill you."

    His understanding instant; a small shrug. "Hey, I never forced anybody to do anything; they were a dissatisfied bunch. And anyway you're as much to blame as I am, you're the one who taught them how." Silence. "I don't lie to her, Tess. Like I never lied to you."

    That itself was such a lie there was no answering it; saying nothing, she watched him sit down, herself stayed standing as if she were the stranger come to him in his home. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but she had nothing. What should she say: I hate you? Why did you do that? Would the answers mean anything more than the air used to form them, the thoughtless motion of tongue and lips? Finally, "You did a lot of things," she said. "I bet I don't know the half of it."

    "I bet you don't either." Smiling wide but not in mockery, the way one old friend smiles to another over a successful practical joke: surely you're not still angry? About that? "I keep trying to tell you, there are more ways than one to perform. You didn't have one, and then you did, with Bibi. And now you don't have one again." Hands in pockets. He was not dirty, his hair was beautifully clean, soft messy strands escaping his braid. Thin chains shining like threads of metal, hardened veins. "But she does. She has one hell of a one, if that makes sense, and it should: you've seen the shows. Shit, half the shows are about you," and he laughed a little, shook his head very lightly. "You know, at first I wondered if you were sending them after all, those kids-you know, your girl, and that dumb beef-stick kid-"

    Gazing at him, almost without the urge to speak: as if at a hole, a chasm you had never guessed was there, you had almost stepped into it a thousand times, and finally you fell. Fell down. How had this happened? With effort, "What are-"

    "-call those things, those beef sticks?-jerky, right. A big beef jerky." He laughed again. "If you weren't so pissed off at me, you'd see it was true. You could see a lot of things, if you weren't so pissed off. Incidentally I was trying to show you a way, there, with those kids, who do you think put them on to you, huh? As a teacher. You don't think they came up with that stuff themselves, do you? Bibi set herself up, and I was trying to set you up, too."

    As if from a distance, somewhere past the airless clamor of rage: "Why didn't you set yourself up? You were in that group, that fou music thing. Why didn't you just-" Impatiently, "Because they were stupid," as if she were as well. "You know that, you saw them. Why should I waste my time?"

    "Why waste it," feeling sicker, now, a special red sickness, feeling as if she would like to get close to him, close enough to reach his face. "Why not just keep it all for your-"

    "Fuck that," not looking at her, now, a point somewhere above her head. "I came here to talk, Tess, do you want to talk? I even have the password: Bibi sent me."

    "Why didn't you?" ignoring him, ignoring his deliberate use of Bibi's name even though she wanted to slap it right out of his mouth, wanted to scream into his face Don't you dare say her name, don't you dare say her name to me. "Why didn't you just make your own group, lead your own-"

    "She needs your help," too loud, too loud even for what he was trying to do; more than interruption, he wanted distraction, he wanted her to stop talking.
Why?
but still going on,
Bibi Bibi Bibi
until it worked, she wanted to scream again, she had to stop thinking, had to listen to make it stop. "What?" loathing him; showing it. "What did she send you to tell me that she couldn't tell me herself?"

    "I told you. She needs your help," and smoothly, unbelievably, his solicitation, there were effects they would like to achieve, things they would like to do if Tess would only lend her expertise; maybe, legs crossed now, jaunty again, maybe they could trade? or she could be paid in cash, if that was what she wanted, they were very flexible after all.

    Past disbelief, a moment's pause; then: "I want you to leave Bibi alone. That's what I want."

    Shrugging, "It's not what she wants," and that long sweet smile, chain of memories connected to it like roots to a hungry vein; "Come on, Tess. I can't do that. I'm her right-hand man, how can I leave her?"

    "You left me."

    "That was different. You wouldn't grow. Bibi, now," and actually grinning, "Bibi won't stop growing, she-"

    "Were you raised," measured, now, and almost close enough to touch, "by a wire monkey? Don't you care about anybody? Don't you care about anything at-"

    "I care about Bibi. I care about her art. I used to care about your art but you-"

    And she hit him, suckerpunch, he never saw it coming and in that instant of red surprise hit him again, in the face, in the mouth and this time he hit her back, tremendously hard, both of them two steps back and bleeding from the mouth: her ears were ringing.

    "Don't play that shit with me," his glare: no more insouciance, no more shrugs and smiles: all deep-voiced carnivore and strangely this relaxed her, just a little, muscles loose and wire-bright. Deeper still: "I'll break your fucking neck."

    "Get out of my house."

    Past her, not even wiping at his mouth, self-possessed again and turning at the door: "No telling what I'll tell her, now," and gone, Tess wanting to scream at the door
I wish I had killed you, I wish I had choked you when we were fucking, I wish...
little red marks, all over him, little scratches, little bites "Don't you remember? You did that last night-"

    -and how long? How long, playing one against the other?
I just want to work with you
, oh the sincerity of it, little fawn eyes, pretty little boy:
he tricked us both, Bibi, Bibi he made assholes out of us
: and the dawning thought, swollen lips in a tiny blank circle, idea come whole and complete as if a piece of sculpture had leapt, dry and perfect, from her forehead: we have what he wants, Bibi. We have it and he doesn't and he wants it because he can't work, that's what's wrong with him. That's why he doesn't want to talk about the fou group or why he didn't start his own group-because he's empty inside, because he can't. He can't, lips moving, aching, she had said it out loud. Out loud to an empty room.

    The wiped blood on her hand smeared subtle as a smile; more blood, in her veins, in her ringing ears and now a new internal buzzing, rhythmic wet buzzing as if her heart had been replaced by a cheap alarm. A motorcycle went by outside; downstairs, the music came on. Dancing with Michael; kissing Bibi. Gray eyes. Blood.

    
I'll tell her myself
.

    And tried; oh God how she tried. Tried to get in, day after anxious day at the rehearsal space to see Bibi; tried to leave a letter, a note, something, tried to offer them bribes, face pushed against the crack in the door like some grotesque parody of Lazarus at the gates: "Please," begging, she was begging openly. "If she doesn't want to see me, will you give her this? Please," to bored dirty kids who barely saw her, who shook their heads in slow instructioned cadence:
She doesn't want to see you, she doesn't want to hear from you. Go away
, in identical flat tonalities.
Go away.

    And Matty for once had not lied, he refused to "step in," refused to say anything when Tess, in a fight begun by her attempt to force her way in, calling
Bibi Bibi Bibi, Bibi listen to me!
was beaten half-dizzy, rib-kicked and the boy who did it saying, cold, "Will you get the fuck out of here already? I don't wanna hurt you, you stupid bitch, but you got to get out of here. Now."

    

    

    And home, to hold her burning head, ice slippery behind bruised lips and thinking, thinking,
who can help me? Who owes me?
And finding, after rapid desperation calls, that no one was willing to take a message to Bibi; she had no real favors to call in, there was no one to help. But Nicky, who offered: and was refused.
They'll kick your head in, too, and worse
; but she didn't say that, it was too much like a challenge, instead said
Don't do it, don't worry; I'll find another way.

    And now the old engine, but with a fierce new speed: Tess was working again. Working on a box, for Bibi.

    Hair like fur and sweat under the helmet, smoke and burning fumes, feral glitter of fountain sparks behind the orange screens: she knew they heard her, downstairs, even past the scorch and clamor of their own work, heard but said nothing or at least nothing to her. Was her desperation that evident? Yes? No time to think, or care. Not now.

    And driven, ridden, by this urgency, she found beneath its goad a joy unlooked for, unexpected: she was glad, in the work, as glad as if risen from a sickbed, a wheelchair; a prison. In the making of this box, now, had come like an angel the old love for the melting metal, the wet running river of the burn: at first she thought it still the same but found it better: improved, in some way oblique and terrible, by her pain. A new surety, handling the metal as a surgeon handles the scalpel that cuts the flesh, and the flesh beneath; and surely a black new passion, rage and pity, love and hate and everything on fire.

    Time-lapse hours; working. No rhythm but one, sunlight's chase up and down, the moon came out, exhausted she stood to watch its rise, earlier now, summer's humid hand relaxed and the cool fingers of winter coming on. The moon was as white as an innocent eye. There had been another Skinbound show, a wild one, bad; she had read about it only this morning. In the daily newspaper, right between the lines: more cruel and pointed, as if Bibi had somehow abdicated not control but interest in anything beyond her own centerpiece role, torturer and tortured all in one. The paper quoted some of those who had attended, all of whom sounded half-stunned, past bemusement and more than half-afraid; a police spokesperson was quoted as saying the shows were under investigation. Bibi herself was not quoted; but Michael was, clever Michael, saying everything right, art and censorship, the responsibility of the artist to be true to her vision, all of it instantly negated by the photo they chose to run, a grainy screaming openmouthed Bibi with bound arms, there was no explaining that image away, not even by Michael, smart Michael, smart cruel Michael who rode Bibi, now, like a jockey rides a lathering horse. All the more important that Bibi see the box made for her, see it and know him for what he was. Please, Tess's own internal prayer, please let her see it, please let me make it right.

    And glad now, too, in the making, the burning, that she had not reached Bibi earlier, with her clumsy words, her badly written notes; she saw now that even had it reached Bibi it would have only made things worse; if they could get worse; anything can. Remember that.

    A hinging ache in her back like a broken bone, so tired but this box could not be misinterpreted, it had to be perfect, absolute. Bibi's box, to tell in metal what she could not in words; the key, to bring Bibi if not back then to a place where real awareness was possible; the lock, to keep