Люциус Шепард - The Best of Lucius Shepard

—Fuck y’all doing? Rickey had popped his head in and was gawking at the bed, where Squire and Ava hadn’t missed a beat.

—Notice how the entire school turns as one, Carl said happily.

—Hallelujah! I said. The single mind’s directing.

Rickey slid himself in past the stuck door. I could see he was hoping to get in on the act, but was all puffed up and ready to be outraged in case he couldn’t. Goddamn it! he said, and stepped over to the window,getting a side angle on the center ring. I don’t want no weird shit going on in my house!

—God, no! I said. There’s never been no weird shit like people fucking and people watching going on out here. Not in this holy temple.

Rickey might have said something back, but his mouth stopped working, because right then Ava opened her legs and Squire started wrestling off his jeans.

—That’s Ava there showing her rosy, I said to Rickey. Squire, he’s the boy ’bout to have some fun. Down there in the front row, that’s Carl.

—In concert, said Carl. In simple harmony and balance.

—Carl’s got this kinda religious thing going, I told Rickey.

This inspired Carl to point at me and say, Hands up! Who wants to die?

Rickey pricked up his ears at that, but again gave no response. Squire had climbed on board the Ava train and was making tracks for the station, giving out with chuffing noises. The springs backed him up with a jangly, crunchy rhythm and the rain kept drumming and Ava sang a lyric with a single breathy word. Carl nodded, smiled. Rickey’s eyes cut toward me—I expect he was wanting a sign it would be okay for him to mix in.

The floorboards creaked. Leeli had crept in and was nailing me with a .45 caliber stare. She said, You asshole!, and ducked back out. Catching a last glimpse of Ava’s heels and Squire’s pimply backside, I wheeled up from the chair and after her. I checked the porch and saw Leeli standing with her arms folded out in the rain. I didn’t think she was crying or nothing, just had a mad on. Rickey came up at my shoulder and said, Hey, man! Is that Ava, she doing everybody?

—Don’t be shy, boy. Ask her.

—You serious?

—She ain’t gonna screech and hold her knees together if you do. She’ll just tell you yes or no.

—Cool.

—You might wanna wait to ask ’til Squire’s finished, I said as he turned away.

—Oh…yeah. Okay.

—But you better go back on in now. You wanna be there so you can get next.

He set off again and I called to him, asked where the food was.

—Kitchen, he said and slipped into Ava’s room.

Eight Burger King take-out sacks were resting on the kitchen table. I found one full of double cheeseburgers and carried it onto the porch. Leeli! I shouted, and waggled the sack out through the hole in the screen door. I got burgers!

Her head twitched, but she didn’t turn. I sat on the porch steps under the porch overhang and unwrapped a cheeseburger and had a bite. Soaked through, Leeli’s yellowy white hair had the look of the down on a baby chick. She glared at me similar to how this drunk Seminole boy I’d met in the Panama Beach lock-up one fine morning had glared: sideways, his shoulders rolled forward, with his close eye wide and the other narrowed. I figured Leeli and that Seminole had about the same ambition toward me.

I finished the burger and Leeli stomped over, snatched the bag and switched past me into the lodge. Don’t you come after me! she said. I’m not talking to you.

—I hear you, sugar, I said. I’ll be right in.

With her belly full, Leeli’s mood improved. She was near to purring, curled up on the bed and looking out at the rain, but still it took me a few tries to drag her into a conversation. I was just sitting there, I said, when they started going at it. What you expect me to do? —Leave, she said. I know how Ava and Squire get. You had plenty of warning.

—That mean you watched ’em?

—She wants me to!

—Then why go beating on me about it?

She clammed up, so I worked another angle, and when that didn’t satisfy her, I said, ‘Member what you told me ’bout how you felt sometimes Ava was drowning you? I think I got a taste of what you were talking about.

A little something tweaked behind Leeli’s face, but she didn’t let it out.

—Yeah, it was strange, I said. It was like she was pulling on me. Maybe that’s why I kept setting there.

—She’s a witch, Leeli said. I swear she is.

—I don’t know ’bout that.

—That’s right! You don’t know fuck all! I’m telling you she’s got this power…it just eats away at you ’til you’re nothing. ‘Til you’re like Carl or Squire.

I spun this around and then said, That’s how come you think Carl and Squire are slow?

—Sometimes I think that. Leeli picked at a fray on the pillowcase. Sometimes I think she just wore ’em away.

The witchy woman had tried to draw me close and drown me in her power. This seemed crazier than what Ava had told me, but only a little. Thinking about Ava as someone who left you hollow inside but still walking around wasn’t that tough a chore. I’d known regular folks who could do the same sort of job on you and I said as much to Leeli.

—Naw, un-uh, it’s more’n that. It’s what you were saying. She pulls at you, but she’s not playing you. It’s who she is, know what I mean? It’s like that’s all she is…this force.

A lightning crack ran violet down the eastern sky, like we were inside a gray egg that was cracking open in the middle of hell. The thunder came a few seconds later.

—You pull at me, too, I said. Know that? You been pulling at me since New Smyrna.

Leeli’s face went little-girl serious and big-eyed.

I eased down beside her, laid a hand on her hip.

—I’m scared, she said. Ava wants to go to Mexico. I can’t think what to do.

—Let’s leave tonight. Let’s just go.

—Where? Where can we go?

—This old boy I got to know in Raiford runs with some bikers got land over ‘round Palatka. Cops never come near their place. We could stay ‘long as we want.

—Maybe you’d be comfortable with a buncha bikers, but I wouldn’t. She snuggled in closer. Maybe we should go with Ava and the second we get to Mexico, that’s it. Money or not.

—I don’t like the idea of traveling more miles with her.

—It’s the safest way. Won’t be no security to pass through with a charter. Leeli picked up my hand from her hip and moved it around so I was holding her. ‘Less you got something better’n bikers.

I considered Lauderdale, but Lauderdale was a hell of a drive and we couldn’t stay for long at my friend’s house.

—Ain’t you scared? Leeli asked. I can’t tell if you are or not.

—I’m past scared, I’m on into survive. That’s why I say get shut of ’em now.

We left it hanging that way and closed the door and got foolish on the bed. Desperate straits and the desire to forget them lit up our nerves and made us better lovers. Leeli like to have died in my arms and my heart was sprained and limping in my chest, I worked it so long and furious. I left her drowsing and went into the kitchen and had another burger and a purple milk shake that tasted like nothing purple and puddled like melted plastic in my stomach. The TV was playing in Rickey’s room. I figured Ava must have kicked him to the curb.

I returned to the bedroom and drifted beside Leeli. My flesh felt light and insubstantial and everything had the sharpness of an important memory, how you feel the thing remembered before you see and smell and taste it. It was like the world itself was forming a memory that used me how a pearl uses a sore spot, sealing me in so I could be dug out at some later date to be admired. The rain blew slanty, then straightened out, then it blew sideways and the lightning moved closer. The air darkened to an ashy color. Things bumped and clanked against some section of the lodge. You’d have thought the rain had turned to chains. The marsh grass rippled with pantherish fury, twisting and flowing in every direction. The storm smell was ozone and dank trouble.