|
Scot-Free
Rob McClure Smith
Rob McClure Smith won the 2004 Scotsman Orange Short Story Award.
His short fiction has appeared in Vestal Review, Chelsea, Barcelona Review,
Confrontation and other literary magazines. Rob teaches film at Knox College and lives in
Galesburg, Illinois, USA.
|
Some days are diamonds
and some days are stones. This dawn's crimson-dapple and brisk cross-breeze were intimations
of two carat gem, promise of jeweled remembrance. The creatures of the backwoods, the smarter
brothers, looked up, cursed the sky, and slunk back down their holes. But the main feature on
the salt lick's new trail cam was a platoon of spindly deer ambling aimlessly down the leaf-dark
wood path.
"Now that," laughed Tom, "would be your ultimate pornographic
video."
Will broke into his lispy routine. "We'll be breaking in that
new big knife of yourth." He pouted, wrist-limping it. "My, it'th tho big and tharp.
Thcary."
"How'd you mean we white man?"
"Lone Ranger jokes are so out, man. Offends our Native American
friends." Will struck a pose of mock solemnity. "Your wigwam boys got serious reservations
about that there stereotyping. Get your ass kicked out the casino every time."
Tom affected a thick drawl, hawking a gob of spittle in the leaf
bed. "Them new Tuscaloosa fads travel slow down the river. Last missionary visited these parts,
we barbecued the motherfucker's Birkenstocks."
Will wasn't listening, striding on ahead now, purposefully. His
hair, the colour of good wheat, was pulled back tight beneath the fluorescence of an orange cap
and his little ponytail lifted and flopped in the wind. His green and black face paint was
perfectly symmetrical. He most resembled a startled panda peeking through grass blades, thought
Tom, or maybe a sad-sack mime. No one likes a mime. He followed his brother off the path,
sweeping away trailing magnolia, briar branches that snapped back towards the curve of his
throat. On the cam screen behind them, pigeons broke and scattered on the edges of the
frame.
They didn't talk for a while, pretending their silence was
stealth. Down from the ridge, morning fog spilled thick. The woods winter-crackled around
their shadows. Finding a fresh set of tracks, they squabbled about meaning. Deer lodge their
back hooves, precise, in the track of the front. Tom claimed that if the second track fell to
the outside of the first it indicated a doe, hindquarters wider than her chest. If the second
leaned slightly inward, then was it a buck. Thus. Therefore. Consequently. These tracks here
signified doe. They'd best cut behind the old trestle there, push on further into the deep
sleeping woods.
"You hunting here or performing some intricate gender analysis?"
Will was a college boy and could get
| "Miriam laughed, enjoying Tom; the fact
that he didn't take her boyfriend as seriously as he liked to take himself. As the first born,
Tom assumed the right of derision. Esau's big mistake was not keeping junior in his
place." |
the tone down pat. "You find some deer mascara or a
compact on the trail, you be sure and let me know." He crouched low to the ground. "There's a
whole lot of overlapping and displacement here, see?" Sweeping his hands over the leaves, he
drew circles with his palms. "These fellows are walking Indian file. The does are stepping in
the buck's tracks. It's the same thing over."
"Huh?"
"Consistency, Leatherstocking. Another thing about which you
know jack."
Will wiped his fingers on the lapel of his camo shirt.
"I know jack?" He stared at his brother. "You better chill soon or this is going to be deadly,
O.K.?"
"I'm chilled. I know where I am."
* * *
They had hunted these
woods for years with their father but since his passing had both taken to perusing the latest
hunting manuals. Different manuals. Lore was fast being supplanted by text. This year,
Will's hobbyhorse was moon phases. He'd come across an especially informative website.
"Experts have observed," he'd declaimed the previous evening at
dinner, sloshing his wine, "that midday movement increases exponentially during the full moon
phase. Some experts claim that the only time a marked nocturnal buck has ever been seen in
daylight is between 10:30 am and 3:00 pm. Know what that means?"
Tom whistled the X-Files theme, pianoing his fingers.
Miriam laughed, enjoying Tom; the fact that he didn't take her
boyfriend as seriously as he liked to take himself. As the first born, Tom assumed the right
of derision. Esau's big mistake was not keeping junior in his place.
"I don't see how you two even give the deer a sporting chance,"
she said, bussing the plates. "Your father didn't hunt with a computer. No fair if you ask me."
She looked from one to the other. "Why does the stalker get off scot-free?"
This was the sore spot. Last Fall, Will had mounted a Garmin
GPS 45XL unit in the truck and, after three days mapping every accessible road through the
woods, they'd downloaded the tracklog data onto a laptop. Hunting animals with computer, G-70
ham radios, and GPS units wasn't your Field and Stream ideal, but it damn well worked.
Their anxiety was that the equipment made them, in some sense,
unmanly.
"It's evolution, hon. Is it our fault deer aren't naturally
selected for radar capability? You'd think by now them boys would be."
Tom nodded. "If deer had weapons, we'd be well fucked, Miriam."
Will gave him the mind-your-language look he cultivated around
the girlfriends.
"That would make it more interesting though," she said. "You
wouldn't be so cocky if the deer had a few sub-machine guns."
They both stared at her as she swept the crumbs to the middle of
the tablecloth and lifted from the corners.
"Do you think this is all a compensation for you two not being
in a war or something? You're left with . . . Bullwinkle."
"Bullwinkle is a moose. No way I'm hunting Bullwinkle." Will
was slightly drunk. "Bullwinkle was a cool dude."
"Bambi then. Guys like you orphaned Bambi."
"Bambi's probably an eight point now," Tom said dreamily.
"Tomorrow, we're on the trail of his skinny cartoon ass."
"Bambi's a doe," said Will.
"No she's not." Tom was tipsy himself.
"I'm turning in now, you guys."
Miriam leaned across the table and flicked Will's ponytail.
"Night, Miriam," said Tom. "Love you, girl."
"Why, Tom," she laughed. "You'll have me blushing here."
Neither brother spoke. Will ran the tip of his finger around the
rim of his glass while his girlfriend took an age to figure out the dishwasher.
"You guys don't stay up all night talking squirrel massacre
strategies now."
"Rats with tails," Tom sniffed.
Hearing the water run in the bathroom, Will stared hard at his
brother.
"Bambi's a fucking doe," he said, slowly.
* * *
They left the laptop
behind. It made no difference really. They had acquired so much knowledge in recent years
about the habits of the deer, were already humping so much top-notch technical equipment, that,
if Tom were honest with himself, which he rarely was about these trips, he'd have to admit
hunting just wasn't fun anymore. It was joyless sibling competition. Pleasure would leak
slowly out of their day, this helium sag. By dusk, without a kill, they'd be homicidal.
But they found a good rub line exiting a thicket of laurels. Will
dragged a scent-soaked rag around the perimeter and a batch of doe-in-heat gel on lower hanging
branches taut with full-moon frost. Then, shimmying up a red oak about 50 yards above the
thicket on the downwind side, he commenced assembling his new tree-stand contraption, using the
instruction sheet.
From below, it looked like Will was being throttled by a
tree-dwelling bicycle, strangling in its spokes.
Tom walked a half mile deeper into cold November's grey dissolve
and set his ladder stand against a mesquite in the gully between two narrow banks of hardwoods.
From higher elevations, coulees ran off the hills to the river bottoms, through scattered wheat
fields, woodlots of poplars. You couldn't see that from where he was: only an acre of bleak.
The breeze was cool and sharp, a chapping northwester licking skin dry through three hours of
nothing but woodpecker rat-a-tat and the carry of a brother's doe bleats, sad and keening.
Light filtering yellow through the overhang blurred the contour of wet black branches against
the sky and prismed out as an orange band across the lens of the Tasco 3-9X Rangefinder
scope.
| "It stared at him. You got me, the buck's
eyes said, unbelievable, never even saw you, and me a deer too. His father taught him
never stare directly into a buck's eyes because in a staring contest with a deer there's
only ever one winner." |
In no time flat he was thinking about his brother's girl. Even
his year up at State, he'd never met any Jewish girls, jingling only southern belles. There
was more chance of meeting ethnic types in Providence. Miriam was Will's second Shebrew
already. Tom found her a tad unattractive at first. The auburn hair framing her oval face
was carelessly curled. Her thick baggy sweaters and loose fitting jeans. Not his look at
all. In the lamplight, he noticed the fair hair on her arms and faint trace of shadow on her
upper lip, the nose that tilted the features slightly askew.
What does he see in this one, he'd thought. Now he found the
whole package more affecting. He liked the heft of Miriam's breasts. The nose, which would
never be pert, was downright cute. He took into account now her intelligence, confidence,
dimples. She exuded such easy comfort with her body, was probably a demon in the sack with
conversation worth listening to after. He'd begun to dream about her, these frantic erotic
couplings that, impinging on memory, left him embarrassed to be around her at breakfast. At
night, relegated to the futon, he prayed to get to sleep before a muffled cry split his
heart.
This reverie broken now by the trample-crunch of dry leaves.
Gingerly they came, brownish-grey shapes wavering into definition, nostrils quivering, up and
alert their tails. Two does and a gimpy, sick looking fork horn.
The other buck burst from the far side of the copse to begin
raking his antlers across the brush in his aggressive funk. An 8-point, 200lbs at least,
heavier than Tom, a 20-inch inside spread, ah, still in the velvet, majestic creature. The
buck's nose snuffed the ground where he'd dragged the scent earlier and the animal's lip
curled.
Tom straightened out the Bi-Fur-Pod sticks for a rest and dialled
in 150 yards on the scope, centering on the withers of the buck. The tension on the pivot screw
was low and he had trouble keeping the rotation straight. Now only the deer's shoulder was
visible between a triangulation of branches. It was enough. The sight picture on the Sako 243
framed as the animal wheeled to offer a quartering away shot. The bullet hit the midsection
under the spine, deep penetration ripping away a wad of flesh. The blood pumped red, two squirts,
as the deer flailed, fell, and then, to the shooter's surprise, got back up. It stared at him.
You got me, the buck's eyes said, unbelievable, never even saw you, and me a deer too. His
father taught him never stare directly into a buck's eyes because in a staring contest with a
deer there's only ever one winner. He turned away. When he looked back, the buck had melted into
the thick scrub.
* * *
He turned off the G-70,
would argue malfunction later, and followed the blood trail 40 yards up the ridge into a clump
of new pine, source of the woodpecker's dry hammering. The leaves were soaked wet with red
pools. He felt the pulsing in his chest. Here it was dark. The clack of hollow broken breathing
set him reaching for his Sharpfinger. Vaulting over the torso of an old dead cypress, termite
hollowed, encased in Spanish moss and twisting kudzu, his ankle turned and off he went, ass over
tits, the damp soil opening, leaving him sliding, endlessly it seemed, down an incline,
waterfalls of dirt cascading, streaming in his hair, groped by tangled roots, whiplashed by
ancient dead branches. Falling forever, this chaos of scattered limbs and dirt and wisteria
tangle ripping away his brand spanking new knife, he imagined only what his brother might say,
once he stopped laughing.
His was the hollow broken breathing. He was lying on a cold
concrete floor patterned with tiny black and white rectangles. The rectangles were defined
clearly because the room was bathed in fluorescent orange light. Something hard and metallic
dug into his ribs. Hospital, he thought. The metallic object was the barrel of his Win. He
was still wearing camo. Why did the nurses let him nap on the floor? He got to his feet, his
flesh a stiff ache, and stared at the mirror of a medicine cabinet lathered in thick
condensation, as if someone had recently showered. He turned. Behind him the open curtain,
droplets on the tiles. All showers look alike, he thought, but this one I have never seen.
He swept his hand across the mirror, the shower stall
re-clarifying behind him, and studied his reflection as if it were someone else's. Pressing his
palms into the corners of the sink, the plaster flaked at the corner joins. He swirled broken
chips with his fingertips. Shoddy workmanship. There were voices outside. He turned on the
tap, splashed his face as if to get awake, dried his hands on a wet blue towel. He picked up
his rifle from the floor and pulled the door towards him.
The living room wallpaper was green with a scaling white ivy
pattern. In places, it was misaligned. A dirt-brown sofa and an oval glass coffee table
rested on a thick-plied beige carpet. The carpet was frayed and scarred with deep black pinhole
burns. It was from the carpet that the two men leapt up.
"Whit the fuck?" said the older of the two. Short and stocky, he
was in his mid-30's Tom reckoned, with a cropped skull.
"Who'n fuck ur you?" asked the other man.
"Where is this?" Tom offered.
"Pit the fuckin' gun doon. Dinna shoot fur fuck's sake!"
The men edged nearer andTom realized that he was blocking the
only escape route from the room.
"It's not loaded," he said, reasonably.
The men continued to approach. They spoke gently as if placating
an angry mutt, tamping their hands all the while like orchestra conductors signalling
diminuendo.
"Gies the fuckin' weapon noo. Easy. Easy."
"Guid man. It wisnae us. Nice'n calm noo."
"It's not loaded," Tom repeated.
They were on him. The rifle was wrestled from his grasp. He
didn't resist. Not even when the shorter man, with quiet deliberation, slammed the butt end
underneath his eye. The impact jerked his head back and it smacked the corner of the doorframe.
The pain was acute. There was a sharp pricking sensation in his cheekbone and he could feel the
swelling balloon. Now the carpet pillowed fluffy against his eyelashes.
"It wasn't loaded," he said, sadly.
The room shimmered like ice. The orange leaf tint of the carpet
soaked into the green walls. He saw the girl standing in the doorway of the kitchenette. She
wore a belted white bathrobe that rippled like a flag. Tom began to cry. He was so
confused.
"He's a yank," she said. "Some kinda yank."
She walked barefoot towards him, toes splaying on the carpet, and
touched his shoulder. Her hair was wet and swept back. Her eyes were green and deeply pretty.
"Yir a yank, huh?" She turned to address the short man. "He wis
gonnae hand it tae ye, Jackie"
Jackie shrugged. "Aye, yir psycho's a Yank. Talks jist like Mel
Gibson."
The other man settled on the carpet again, pulling his legs tight
under him like a dreamy Buddha. His hair, long and darkly lank, hung low over his eyes. "Mel
Gibson's no' a yank," he noted. "The Mel man wid be an Aussie."
"Mel Gibson? Mel Gibson isnae frae Australia. He's. . ."
"He is tae. Sounds jist like Kylie Minogue. Same exact accent."
Longhair rocked as he spoke, swaying like a man underwater. He lit a candle and held a teaspoon
over its yellow lick, rolling a cotton ball in the fingers of his left hand. "Beardless Rolf
Harris, that's yir Mel," he muttered.
Jackie leaned in closer. "So? How'd oor man git in the winda?"
said Jackie. "Or wis he jist lurkin roon back oaf the crapper since this mornin?"
"Ah jist hud a shooer," the girl said. "There wis naebody back
there."
When Tom finally spoke, he broke his words into distinct phrases,
one for each of his captors. "I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here. Where is
this?"
Jackie kicked him hard in the gut and he doubled over, retching.
A streak of phlegm sprayed like a yellow web into the pattern of the carpet.
"Ugh," said the girl.
“Wur havin’ an interrogashun here, Jim. So the questions
ur oors.” Jackie gripped him by the hair. “How’d ye git in the bog?”
Tom couldn’t make his thoughts coalesce. His lungs
were seared and the pain came at him now from so many angles that his body’s
sensory apparatus was shutting down. He had the hiccups too.
“Hu. . . hunting,” he said.
“Ye wur huntin? Huntin fur whit? Aye, that wan takes the
biscuit.” Jackie looked at the others. “Oor man wis huntin in the bog. Whit fur?
Deodorant? Gonnae shoot a fuckin’ Speed Stick wur ye?” Jackie tapped his forehead
as he spoke. “This fucked up yank comes staggerin’ oot the bog wi’ a gun an tells ye
he disnae recall how he goat there. This wid be some serious dubious shite."
“I was hunting.”
His words were fragmented staccato bursts laced with
hurt, tinny and small and absurd, inappropriate for his current situation. Whatever
his current situation was.
Longhair looked at him now with renewed interest. “Whit
the fuck dis a body hunt in the Bluebell wids? Pijuns? Airdrie’s deid, man,” he said
disgustedly. “There’s nuthin left tae kill.”
Jackie nodded. “Aye, there isnae wan squirrul up the quarry.
Ah think the wee fucks aw committed hari-kiri.”
The acrid smell of roasting tinfoil permeated the room now.
“That cannae be right,” said Longhair. “Harry Keery wis
committed fur exposin’ his jimmy tae the Academy gurls.”
“See him?” Jackie jerked his head in the direction of his
companion. “He’s a fuckin’ comedian. Used tae perform oan the telly till he fell aff’n
fractured his anus oan a lampshade.”
Tom moaned like a desolation.
“Yir in Holehills, pal. Armpit oaf the universe. That there’s
Maggie. That’s Shug. This here is Buckfast.” He held up a green bottle. Tom didn’t
recall seeing him pick it up. “ Buckie is the wan whit delivers oan its promises.” He
took a deep swig, wiping his lips on his sleeve. “And who ur we conversin’ with?”
Tom couldn’t remember. He had to think. “I’m Tom . . . Tom.”
“Pleased tae meet ye TomTom,” Shug yelled from across
the room. “Ah think ah ken yir brither Drumkit."
Shug drum-rolled his palms on the tabletop, causing his
paraphernalia to clatter, the candle to sputter.
“Ah’m very musical maself. When ah wis three ma mither
tells me ah awready played oan the linoleum.”
Jackie jerked Tom up in a fireman’s lift and dragged him
across the floor towards a window. He rested his jaw on the sill. Tom felt flecks of
peeling paint prick his chin.
“Wisnae Tomtom whit the last oaf the Mohicans wis called?”
asked Shug.
Tom could see an expanse of grey apartment complexes
with curtainless windows. Splashes of red stone-blasted chips flashed beneath the
flap and crack of laundry. Two women rolled a clothesline between two red metal
poles. He was on the third or fourth floor of one building. The estate huddled around
a twenty storey high-rise hugging the skyline like a bleak grey sentinel that, if not for
the drizzle, might have cast its shadow to the edge of the visible horizon.
Jackie began differentiating between identical parts of
the landscape. “That there’s Thrashbush, Rawyards’n Rochsoles, ower yonder Whinhall,
Coatdyke. By the cemetery is Glenmavis. That’s whaur Sons oaf William, best orange
band in toon, is frae. Oot there, Cairnhill, whaur the toffs reside. See that? That’s
the cobbled road the monks built hunners a years back. Take that and ye’ll pass
oot by the mines. Jist bings noo. Mah great-grandfaither wis squished in a cave-in.”
He waited for a reaction. “This is aw news tae ye? Wur no’ ringin’ a bell here?”
Tom's cheek was fractured. He knew that much. The
sharp edge of bone pierced and tore the skin.
“American men can be very attractive,” said Maggie.
“This wan here looks like a slimmed-doon beat-up Russell Crowe.”
“Russell Crowe is a fucking Aussie tae,” said Shug.
“That’s right, he is,” added Jackie.
Shug leaned with his back to the sofa, tapping up a vein.
“Why dae Yanks huv tae import convicts frae doon under tae represent masculinity
tae themselves?” He looked at Tom. “This wid be a question.” He looked at Jackie.
“Ah’m seriously startin’ tae think oor man’s goat that memory thing where ye cannae
remember nuthin’.”
“Narcoleprosy,” offered Jackie.
“Narcoleprosy is somethin’ different. Daft eegit.”
“It’s narcolepsy,” Maggie said. “It’s whit River Phoenix
hud in Private Idaho.” She mused for a moment then asked, querulously, “Is Keanu
Reeves Australian?”
“Keanu is many things,” said Jackie, “but I don't
believe he buggers koalas.”
“Actually,” muttered Shug, “ That there wid be a
distinct possibility.”
Maggie looked at Tom. “Ma brither disnae like Keanu
Reeves,” she said.
They sat him in a wooden chair with broken slats
and tied him to it with extension cords, a glob of criss-crossing elastoplast
across his lips.
“Ah’ve aye wanted tae go tae the States,” Jackie
said dreamily. “Ever since Miami Vice wis oan the Tube. Nuthin stunts upward
mobility. That’s whit yir attracshun is. America’s a dream place. Dae ye know
Walker, Texas Ranger?” He paused, looked into Tom’s eyes appealingly. “The
t.v. show, ah mean. Chuck Norris is yir man. Naebody fucks wi’ Chuck. Big
man’s goat the kung-fu jive.”
Jackie balanced on one leg and jerked the other
out at waist height, much as he’d done when he’d kicked Tom earlier.
“He cannae act,” offered Shug. “Terrible actor.”
“Chuck is a fuckin' excellent fuckin' actor. Missin’
in Action is a great film.”
“Big wanker’s only goat two expressions and
they’re the same wan.”
Jackie stared at his friend. “Yir cruisin’ fur a
bruisin’ the day, Shuggie boy.”
Back from a place of sweet dreams, blissful
Technicolor escape, Tom found himself still tied to the chair. He could make
loose teeth sway with the tip of his tongue around the sore spot. Above him,
the cracks in the ceiling spelt HELL.
“I’m in hell,” he said aloud. His captors had
removed the plaster mess from his mouth, although he could still lick the
imprint of the adhesive.
“The assosiashun of Airdrie and yir infernal regions
has often bin noted.” Shug was in the corner of the room, clipping his nails.
“It’s no an originul observation."
On the wall hung a poster of a uniformed sports
team. Tom squinted at it. The players smiled in rows of blue. He didn’t believe
the poster was there. This room wasn’t here. He wasn't really here either.
“By the way, if short man’s complex asks ‘Rangers
or Celtic?’ say Rangers, O.K.? He hates Tims. Claimed wan wi’ a beerglass
in a pub last Hogmanay. Near smashed the bastard’s face tae smithereens.”
Shug sighed. “Ah didnae realize Catholics wurnae vermin maself till ah went
tae the Uni fur a year. Opens yir eyes. A few ur awright. Ah didnae go back
fur mah second year. Too fuck’d up oan skag." He looked at Tom. “Want tae
hear a joke?”
“No.” Tom tried to turn his head towards the wall,
but the chair wouldn’t move.
“Yir a real anti-social cunt fur a body lives in folks’
bathrooms. See, this punter, a hunter noo ah think aboot it, is chattin’ up this
gurl in a bar. ‘What's yir name?’ he asks her. ‘Carmen,’ she says. ‘That’s a
magic name,’ he says. ‘Did your mither or faither name ye that?’ ‘Actually,’
she says, ‘I changed it frae Sharon tae Carmen maself. See, ah’m really intae
cars and ah’m really intae men.’” Shug smiled at Tom, ready for his punchline.
“So yir hunter says: ‘Pleased tae meet ye hen, mah name’s Beerpussy.’”
Maggie materialized in the doorway.
“Yir a sexist pig, Hugh,” she said, slinking towards
the chair. Tom felt her breath warm on his eyelids. “Dearie me,” she said “Yir
no lookin’ so hot. Ur ye wearin’ make-up? Foundation?” She chucked him
under the chin. “This green scribbly-black stuff aw ran doon yir face. Ye look
like a circus cloon.”
She was breathtakingly lovely, a delicate and
pretty creature and he didn’t, for the life of him, know why she was mixed
up in all this insanity.
She tossed a Canongate paperback towards Shug.
“Ah brung something fur ye tae read. You like his stuff?”
She addressed the last question to Tom.
“I don’t know who he is.”
“Yir kiddin.” She looked surprised. “Ah doan’t
like whit he dis maself. Disnae seem like fiction tae me. Whit dae ye read?“
“I dunno.”
“Think fur a minute.” She was no longer smiling.
He thought. “Rick Bass.”
“Niver heard oaf him. American is he? No like Bass
pale ale, eh?“
“Nuthin’ like the Bass Rock either? Rock Bass?”
Shug laughed. “This book is totully fuck’d. The pages are pasted. Wee Morag
wis at it wi’ the superglue.”
He threw the book back at Maggie.
“Och, the pages ur aw stuck thegither.”
“Ah tried tae read it the ither night but turn a page’n
ye end up in a different story.” Shug shrugged. “Nuthin makes any sense.
Guid thing she didnae git the superglue oan the toilet seat, ah’m thinkin.’”
“You cut your hair,” Tom said. He didn’t know what
he meant.
She looped a strand behind her ear with her
forefinger and stroked it down. “It’s the identical do Cameron Diaz hud in
Mission Impossible.”
“Cameron Diaz wisnae in Mission Impossible,
Margaret.”
“That’s richt.” She seemed puzzled for a second.
“It wis Vanilla Sky. That’s whit it wis.” She looked at Tom. “Did ye see that
picture?”
“No.”
“Yir no’ a film buff, eh? Chungking Express is mah favorite
picture.” She stroked his arm. “Whit ye dae fur a livin’ besides rocketin’ through space
and time?”
Shug whistled the theme to Dr Who. “Wee Jackie
thinks yir a psycho escaped frae the nuthoose," he said. "And ye’d think he'd
know tae, him being a loonie oaf the furst watter.”
“I believe I’m having a dream,” Tom said, suddenly.
“I don’t believe any of this is happening, is really real.”
They both looked at him with considerable interest.
“This room. You all. Part of my imagination. Figments.
I’m sleeping. Quietly. There.” Tom was looking into Maggie’s gorgeous green eyes.
A man might drown himself willingly in such eyes. “Women as beautiful as you,” he
added, “don’t exist.”
It was the most coherent statement he’d made since
his arrival, and the most bizarre. He closed his eyes, willed himself awake.
Maggie kissed his cheek. “Aw, that’s awfu’ sweet,” she
said.
He opened his eyes to find her grinning at him still,
moistening her lips.
“This hurt?” She reached her hand to his crotch and,
seizing his testicles, gripped hard. She turned her wrist in an anti-clockwise direction,
a swift twist. Tom writhed against the chair, phlegm rising hot in his mouth.
“Noo, if this is a dream, it wid be a sorry specimen. Mair
like a nasty nightmare.” She pouted, unclenching. “So, whit dae ye think oaf Julia
Roberts?”
Never had he known such pain. He couldn’t catch his
breath, couldn’t buckle his body the way it needed to buckle. His teeth clenched so
hard he felt a white splitting in his mouth, grains of enamel sucking in his throat.
“Ouchie,” said Shug, crossing his legs.
Her hand was again poised above his groin. She spoke
more slowly. “Ah said, dae ye like Julia Roberts?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” She dropped her hand. “Did ye know they
use a body double fur her? Did ye know that? “
He didn’t say anything. He wanted to spew on the mattress.
“She wisnae in the Pelican Brief. That wis some ither dame
that wis the spittin’ image. It wisnae her eyes. It wis somebody else’s. These ur things
ah notice.” She stroked his hair. “Aye, it wisnae Julia’s legs either. They wis some
other biddy’s. Whit dae ye hunt?”
“What?” The word spat between his teeth like a gunshot.
“Ah said, whit dae ye hunt oot in the wids? Yir no deif ur ye?”
“Deer,” he said, hoarsely.
“Ah cannae imagine hurtin’ wan oaf God’s creatures.”
“In yir eyes," said Shug, "if ah’m understandin’ correctly, we’d
be chimera. That’s the wurd. But wid it no’ make mair sense if we wur dreamin’ aboot yirself,
Tomtom? Fact is, ah’ve hallucinated far weirder stuff. Mah workin’ assumption’s bin that
yir some kind oaf whiny flashback. Ur oor fantasy aboot the states. We picked it up in
waves o’ radiation frae oot the Tube and it’s reactin’ wi’ the smack. Yir a symbol oaf the
aw-American male, that whit ye ur. Ye belang tae us noo. Yir oors.”
Jackie came ambling in on the balls of his feet. He was
wearing a skin-colored kagoul that was too large for him. Shug looked at his feet and
smirked.
“Whit’s wi the poofy shoes?”
“These urnae poofy shoes. These ur Hush Puppies.
These ur classy.”
He handed Maggie what looked like a bicycle chain.
After the men left, Maggie wrapped the chain around both
wrists. Tom watched her. She flexed it tightly, pushing the links with her thumbs. Then
she sat in his lap.
“It’s hard tae believe that the gruesome twosome
didnae git ye oot the chair."
He felt the warmth of her thighs and was, despite everything,
desperately aroused. Her skin shone pearl white, a light sprinkle of freckles,
diamond-hard angel.
“Men. Aw they dae is chew the rag. Ah think youse ur
pathetic.”
Tom's eyes danced like frightened beads.
This is gonnae hurt a wee bit bad, sweetie,” she said,
smiling, perfectly symmetrical teeth burning like ivory. “But it’ll be ower directly.”
He felt the cold metal links against his throat and knew
he was in trouble now. Fighting for breath on another continent, a western ocean
distant, exile passage of the Clearances, one among other trails of tears, he saw
that it just wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair at all.
‘Tell yirself it’s jist an awfu dream, boy-lover” Maggie
whispered, nibbling at his earlobe as he writhed. “Hush noo. It’s jist this bad, bad
dream.”
* * *
|
|
|
