Skin (36 page)

    Michael out once and for all, out in the greedy bleakness of his own impotence;
I have your number now, fuckface. I know about you.

    Surety now, and simplicity: cube-shape, twiglike, sparrowboned and seemingly defenseless but here and there the twinkle of razor wire, snipped to fragments small as rosebuds, snipped by her own hands: she had cut herself, twice, three times, cut and bled and left the blood thoughtfully to dry like a rusty second skin. Inside the cube would be the figure, and in its contemplation she felt almost frightened, unsure if skill could fashion what love and pain had borne in mind, her mind, tired; and afraid of so many things.

    Working, in the burn and silence, telling no one, saying nothing; getting colder, nights and money going, soon it would be gone.
But don't think, of that or anything else, don't think at all but only work, the box and what you have to do to get there: don't cry. Don't think of Bibi as Bibi,
small and bloody and crazy, defiant as the ten-year-old with her skinny knife and gray-eyed stare; work, and if there are tears let them fall like alchemy's rain on the metal, fog the glass plate that hides your eyes from the glowing stare of the burn.

    And the figure, in the beauty of that pain, taking final shape: not a woman, not a human figure at all but an animal: a hedgehog. Small and stylized, back down and belly bent exposed, its tiny paws open and claws choked and strangled with blond hair made of perfect plastic; beautiful false hair; beautiful eyes as false, gray glass transfixed by needles in the centers of the wounded paws. The animal's own eyes were gone, smooth sockets; burrows, last safety when all defenses fail.

    Struggling, in a place where awareness of her own body had become remote as vision in eyes strained open for too long, where an arm can reach a mile, where the solder's tip is pinprick size. Working; unconscious of herself, of the physical hands that moved, opened, grasped, began the fire to burning; of the mouth that sucked tired air, over and over as if at the bottom of the sea.

    And the phone rang, once and twice, three and four and she did not even hear it, heard nothing past the fierce and empty silence of her own working mind, concentration as the consuming splendor of disease and finally knocking, Nicky stepping in and gingerly around the door her name: "Tess." Over and over, Tess until she answered, turned on him with such a face that he had to step back: but firmly: "Tess, it's Bibi. She's here, she's been knocking for ten minutes. She wants to see you."

    "Don't-wait, don't let her up here," trying to cover the piece, reaching wild for a fragment, something and Nicky turning away as if discreet before bodily nakedness; "Don't worry," his voice flat, speaking to the mad dog. "She's downstairs, she's waiting for you. But you have to hurry, Tess, I have to go."

    And not even thanking him, pushing past him to hurry down the stairs and he left behind to close her door; her clattering desperation rush and down to meet at the bottom, Bibi.

    Scarecrow, all in ragged blue: glasses and bandanna, blue fingerless gloves, ugly chipmunk swellings on either side of the cracked lips. Snot around her nostrils; black grommets in her earlobes, to let in the light. Medicinal smell; her hands were bandaged beneath the gloves. She looked like someone in the last stages of a killing disease.

    "Tess," whispering, as if in continuation of secrets, "I found out, I had to tell you. I know what to do now." Taking her hands, all bone, oh Jesus. Bruises under her eyes. "Bibi," trying to be calm. "Come inside, okay? I have to show you something, you have to see. Okay? Just come inside and-"

    Not listening, "You know what?" still in that strange whisper, her throat seeming to work oddly when she swallowed as if there was some impediment there; was there? "You know what? He said you wouldn't see me, he said go ahead and try. He thinks he can't be wrong. Like about Tasha," a name Tess didn't know, Bibi's slow repetitive headshake. "He was sure as hell wrong about her, wasn't he? But I wanted you to know," and now a nod as graceless, "it's going to happen pretty soon. Pretty pretty soon, we don't want anyone to know but I told him, I'm telling Tess, because I- I want you to know. That's why. I just want you to understand," and counterpoint, the grunt and bang of the service elevator as if the metal voice of her Surgeons' past called to her now and Tess saw that Bibi was weeping, did she herself know it, could her skin still feel the tears? Delicate wire skeleton strung limp from the chain across her cheek; tears passed it, touched it, laved it and Tess kissed her, kissed her tears, please Bibi, listen, it's important. I know about Michael. I tried to come and see you, they wouldn't let me in, but I had to tell you, you have to know. You have to come upstairs so I can show you-"

    "Oh yeah, I know about him, too," and incredibly a grin, all teeth, still crying; still whispering. "He said you guys had a fight. We fight, too," and the grin more luminous still, teeth like hunger's avatars, sharp and slim and brittle and then as suddenly no smile at all, hot serious hands on Tess's hands and throbbing, as if twinned hearts lay captured in her clasp. "You know I really think I found it this time, it's the very last door, it's the key. I just wish," with a wistfulness unconscious that broke Tess's listening heart, "you were there, so we could've found it together. But I was mad at you," and looking up, sideways, half a child's smile. "I wanted to kill you. I hated you. Sometimes I still-"

    And Tess took her, bones and sticks and needles, into her arms, holding her against her breast, hummingbird heart and Bibi wriggling free, "I have to go, I just, I wanted to show him. Fucker thinks he's so smart. But you come, okay? I'll tell you when… John Henry," kissing her, now, kissing her lips, blood and a smell like infection, the gassy overlay of antibiotics, too many pills. "Come see me go," and out the door, Tess pushing after saying Wait Bibi wait and a car in front, red car she didn't recognize.

    And Michael at the wheel: staring only at Bibi: "You had to come anyway, didn't you?" and Bibi all at once like an animal, scrambling in to hit him, hard, ineffectual, on the side of his head, hit him again as Tess grabbed for the door and the car accelerated, jerked her sideways and off like crack the whip and someone's head rising like a backseat jack-in-the-box, someone else in the car and now too far to see anything whole, even Bibi, blue and red. John Henry.
You come, okay?

    Not even crying. John Henry, all the way up the stairs, leaden, dying woman's walk through the haze of frustration monstrous, she was here, she was so close. John Henry; opening her unlocked door.

    Everything as she had left it, tools and screens and torches, everything in place.

    Except the box.

    The room now in shambles, waiting, breathing through her open mouth, breathing like an ox; she had looked everywhere, everywhere, sat now, impatience turned to stone before Nicky's door, and he returning to the instant grab, her hands on his shoulders, grabbing and squeezing like fear itself:
where is it, Nicky, tell me, the box. The new box, where did-

    "I don't- Tess, calm down, okay, I don't even know what you're talking about," and still her hands on him, hauling him upstairs to debris: tables upended, scrap rifled, tarps and tools and fragments scattered hectic as body parts after a bomb: "I can't find it," the voice of panic, "Nicky, I can't find it anywhere. Are you sure you didn't-"

    "Tess, I swear to God, I never touched anything." Sweating. "I shut the door and then I left. Right when you went downstairs."

    "No, you-no, it was a little while after," her mind as if a brushfire, here and there, the flash and tangle of thoughts, blurring, blowing. "You were packing stuff, or something, I-"

    "No I didn't, I left when-"

    "Nicky, I heard you, I heard the service elevator. When Bibi was-"

    "I didn't use the elevator."

    "But I heard-"

    Elevator's grumble; red car. The same old easy locks. "I'll kill him," and then she was running, pounding down the stairs to trip halfway and hit her knee so it bled, hot grind of pain in the moving bones but she ran and Nicky ran behind her, belated, yelling her name: Tess Tess Tess like the cry of carrion birds, dead feasting; Tess! all the way down to the street.

    To realize she did not even know where they were, had gone, red car, backseat unknown. The rehearsal space? and now Nicky Was beside her, panting, Tess what the fuck and she grabbed him by the elbow: "Get your car. Now."

    "Will you just-"

    "Get your car!"

    As she was, barefoot, bleeding, Fury's stare through the nicotined windows, as if all she saw was red; Nicky driving, still panting, running lights and "What the hell happened? Tell me what-"

    "The box, the one I made for Bibi. I was almost done," churn behind her breastbone, whirlpool of blood and the chemicals of rage, "and he took it. Just went up there and took it," and one fist against the dashboard, hitting hard then curling, instant, to her mouth, screams or tears, cry inarticulate; her muscles were on fire.

    At the rehearsal space, Nicky's skirling stop before two girls, black jeans, black jackets, drinking from paper cups: the smaller one was chopped blond, pierced like Bibi. Tess out at once, trembling hands and when she spoke her voice was the growl of gears unmeshed, flesh caught in the bindings; the glimmer of bone like the glimmer of steel and both vulnerable, lost before such a rage as this.

    "Where's Michael Hispard?"

    The blonde opened her mouth, glanced at her friend. "He's not here now," drink forgotten, eyes the special blank of wariness. "Maybe he'll be back later." The friend, silent, then chiming forward, "You want to leave a message or something?"

    "No." Forgetting them in the turning instant, back to the car and Nicky, half out of his seat, half out of her mind and she slammed the door to sit in the red silence, watching it turn internally black, blacker until everything was less than color, less than thought at all. They could be anywhere now, Bibi and the box, Michael serpentine and there to explain it all, explain it all away. It had been too late the minute she went downstairs; poor stupid self, poor decoy Bibi. Poor all of them.

    "Forget it." Empty. "Take me home."

    "Are you sure?"

    Warm nausea, the spill and dribble of sickness in her mouth; jerking open the door to vomit, purling retch and leaning in, leaning back to sit quiet against the seat, eyes closed. Smell on the backs of her hands.

    "I'm not going to find him," she said, and Nicky at a loss now, "But what about the box? What're you going to-"

    "I don't know. Maybe make another one," but even in the speaking knew the enormity of the thought; there would be no replacement; she was incapable and it was so too late.

    Nicky put the car in gear, acceleration gentle as if Tess were a china doll, a chrysalis cased in brittle membrane that could break without warning or hope. Back home, he helped her right the flush and scatter, tools on hooks, materials regathered and set in place. Halfway through she began to weep, slow animal tears and with great courtesy he did not notice them, kept working, silent, steady, hands in motion and as quietly gone, leaving her to sit at her worktable, methodically melting solder into pools as bright as the false blood of robots, the tricksy shine of crocodile tears.

    

    

    In the morning, tacked to the door: elegance black and red and lettered in a script like flowing bones: skin unbound-by invitation only; and a handwritten date, and a time. The subdued matte gleam of a black carpet nail, and not the door facing the street but her own door, the door to her room: special as a bite, the scratch minute of a needle on which is inscribed your secret name; the one word written bitter on the landscape of your heart.

    Paper folded slow beneath her fingers, and creased. And creased. And creased so tight it split the holding skin, paper cut and blood on the paper; blood on the dirt on the floor; and closing the door, slowly, never thinking to bother to turn the useless lock.

    Nicky, angry, wanted to go, bodyguard, something; arguing in the hallway, "For fuck's sake at least take Nita, or some body, Tess, shit," but she kept shaking her head, shaking her head, knee-cut jeans and long black T-shirt, heavy socks and welder's boots; dressed for a battle; was she? Was she afraid? Nicky was, kept after her and down the stairs, refusing to drive: arms crossed in the early darkness, lavender sundown smeared with black like oil.

    "Nicky, come on. I have to go, don't do this."

    Silence.

    "I said don't do this, all right?"

    "All right," sullen. "I'll get the fucking car."

    Wordless in the car beside him, Tess as if wrapped in a membrane of building energy, the state beyond tension: so angry for so long it was as if anger, distilled to pass like goblins' blood beneath her skin, had worked changes subtle, alchemical, irrevocable in the shift and torque of her muscles and bones, in the process of breath; in thought itself. Hands and neurons, eyes and memories and rage; and she sat by Nicky as he cut corners, ran blind past wavering caution lights and in edgy monotony cursed every car he passed. She sat still as a contemplative in a garden's funeral dust: and thought of Michael: and Bibi: and the box.

    All the way past the warehouse district, past storefronts, past even the shacktowns to a zone unremarkable, a place where that left standing seemed in error, not even decay but the process that comes after. Burned buildings, flat gray lots, a party store still viable; what had been an apartment building, housing something now that was not commerce, drugs or fucking; there were people outside.

    "Stop there," Tess said.

    "There isn't-"

    "Just stop," and he did, rolling slow and she got out, some brief half-curious looks, maybe thirty people; no one she recognized. Closing the car door, no number on the building and the people in loose queue, moving toward the alcove, the door inside. By invitation only. Her hands, felt at a distance, were moist and very cold.