James Sallis - Eye of the Cricket

You reach down and find the rage, the frustration, defeat and despair, find that black pool just beneath the world's surface that never goes away. You find it, you bring it up, you use it. For a while it takes you over. You become its vehicle. What voodoo practitioners call a horse.

I turned onto my back, grunted with pain, gasped and held my breath. They all pulled back a moment, and when the one at my feet leaned in for a closer look, I kicked him between the legs. Then spun on my back and took another's legs out from under him as he was looking up to see what happened to his man. That left one standing-but only till I'd slammed my foot straight into the side of his knee. The others would get up, in time. He wouldn't. The second guy was already trying to get up. I gave the side of his head a light kick.

Afterwards, this strange serenity comes over you. The vessel's emptied, no more fright-or-fiight, but adrenaline's still got your senses racked up high. Everything's incredibly sharp, clear, intense. The world shimmers. You hear breathing from an upstairs apartment, a birdsong blocks away. You see patterns of sunlight in the air around you. You hear a cat moving, crouched down low, against the wall. Sirens screaming miles away in the CBD. Boat horns on the river.

That's how it was as I walked back up through the Marigny and Quarter towards Canal, senses ratcheting down like a car on a jack. In others' faces I saw the ordinary world returning. On a clock's face I saw it was almost two.

Morning had been narrative oatmeal: all expository lumps. I'd got home from the hospital planning on a few hours' sleep before I dropped by the school to patch things up and took another shot at tracking down Shon Delany. Never in my life had I wanted a drink more. I settled for coffee. No way caffeine was going to keep me awake. I'd have slept through the Inquisition.

But I only slept through thirty minutes. Fumbling for the phone. Seeing my coffee cup, still full, on the floor by the bed.

I'd been promising myself for some time that I was going to go buy furniture, a bureau or two maybe, bookshelves, some kind of table for beside the bed. A lifetime spent tucking belongings underarm and moving on leaves odd habits. I'd lived here now for over ten years. Chances were fair I'd stay awhile.

"Lew?"

I realized I hadn't said anything. I'd just picked up the phone and lay there with it to my ear, listening.

"Mmmmhn."

Much better. Civility rears its shaggy head.

"Want me to call back?"

"You at work?"

"Yeah. City's funny that way, likes me to show up on a more or less regular basis."

"Give me five minutes."

"They're yours."

I drank the cold, grayish coffee, splashed water on my face and stood at the window for a couple of minutes watching the world hunch its shoulders towards another day. Since it was Thursday, garbage was set out near the street for collection. A woman in a motorized wheelchair rolled from can to can, combing through each, pulling out select items that she dropped in a canvas bag strapped to the back of the chair.

Don, wonder of wonders, was actually at his desk and answered when I called back.

"Must be a slow day."

"Aren't they all. I just said the hell with it, I'm taking a break. Sit here and watch the goddamn storm go on happening."

"They still tiying to kill everybody in the city?"

New Orleans had clocked 421 murders for the year thus far. Even the folk out in Jefferson Parish were getting concerned, as violence spilled towards their precious suburbs. I kept expecting them to announce any day that they were putting up a wall.

Don grunted. "This rate, it'll take them what, ten, twelve years till no one's left? Hang on, Lew." He spoke brusquely to someone, then was back. "Wanted to let you know nothing's come in on the prints or photo. Not that I expected anything, this soon." His voice rose suddenly. "You want to wait a fucking minute? What, you think this is my lunch, I'm eating the fucking phone? No. 7*11find you.

"You still there, Lew?"

"Yeswr."

"Cute. Okay, I talked to the officer who took the call, but he couldn't tell me much of anything we don't already have. Call came in, nine-one-one, at nine-fourteen, from the driver of the sanitation truck. No real evidence of struggle-"

"How could you tell, our alleys."

"Right. Obvious that the truck hadn't been the first thing after him that night, though. No evidence that he, or anyone else, was living in the alley. Could have just wandered in there, or been dropped there afterwards. No sign of personal property or belongings, aside from what he had on him. I've got a copy of the report here for you, you want it."

"Thanks, Don."

"No problem. How'd it go at the hospital?"

Long and shallow. The man stuck resolutely to his story. He was Lewis Griffin, a novelist who wrote about what it was like on the streets, about the city's real, subterranean life. Self-taught A primitive. Working on a new one now. He'd done three chapters just that morning.

You mean yesterday morning, I said.

Whatever. He'dfixed himself a light lunch, some leftover roast pork with Creole mustard on pumpernickel. Had a couple of pickles and a Corona with it. Then he'd gone out for his usual afternoon walk and somebody must have jumped him, because that was all he remembered.

I asked him where he lived.

Uptown.

Been there long?

Ten, twelve years. He told me about LaVerne, how they'd once lived there together, but that was a long time ago. Some days everything seems a long time ago, he said.

I asked him to tell me about his books.

You haven't read them, then?

I'm afraid not.

He shook his head, sadly. Not many people have, I guess. But this new one could change all that.

He had some of the titles right, almost everything else, including the plot of The Old Man, dead wrong.

You wouldn't happen to have any paper, would you? he asked as Bailey and I were leaving. Thought I might take advantage of this, try to get some work done on the new book while I'm here.

I said I thought that was a good idea. Gave him the notebook and pen I always carried.

When I finishedtelling him about it, Walsh was silent.

"Damn, Lew," he finally said. "That's just plain creepy, any way you look at it."

I told him it definitely was, and he said he'd get back to me as soon as anything came in on the prints or photo.

I was lying on the bed, dipping in and out of dreams and thinking how any minute I was going to get up and put on coffee or maybe start a new career as a test pilot, when the phone rang again. Richard Garces, to tell me that, while the first responses to his request for information on the network were coming in, nothing thus far seemed to merit a closer look. I repeated my update on the hospital situation. He was appropriately incredulous.

"I have that list of local missions and community service centers you asked for. I don't suppose it's possible for me to just zap this over to you by modem."

"Not if you want it to get here."

"And still no fax, right?"

"Nope."

"Wouldn't you know it. And here I am fresh out of carrier pigeons."

"I'll swing by, pick it up."

After I'd done so, myfirst stop was on the stub end of Dryades, just before Howard breaks everything off into downtown streets. Forty years ago the building had probably been one of the big chain stores, a Montgomery Ward, a Sears; now, painted bright blue, it was the New Orleans Mission. Not without difficulty I found someone who finally admitted that well, yes, he did kind of look after things.

"You live here, then?"

He nodded. The only hair he still had was two thin patches, a couple of inches wide, above his ears. These hadn't been cut in recent memory and looked like limp wings. "Room downstairs, in the back, too small for much else. I sweep the place, clean toilets, lock up at night. They give me the room and meals."