Elizabeth Hand - Black Light

She tossed her head back. “Isn’t it fucking great to be alive?”

“I dunno.” I shivered. I had on one of Hillary’s old corduroy jackets, too big for me but worn and comforting. “I do feel sort of weird. Maybe something is going to happen…”

Ali laughed. “I always feel like something’s gonna happen. And nothing ever does.”

She dropped her spent cigarette, veering from the tracks onto the overgrown path that would bring us to Mount Muscanth.

It wasn’t a real mountain, of course, just one of those outriders of the Catskills that straggle down from the northwestern part of New York State. But on its north face there was a bare stone outcropping where you could sit and look down upon the village, and it was as though you were in another world. The air smelled of dying leaves and earth, and as we walked there were birds everywhere, and tiny things moving underfoot.

“I’m beat,” Ali exclaimed. “Hang on a minute—”

We stopped before a stand of forsythia that had run wild. I was stooping to settle beneath it when the earth at its roots seemed suddenly to shiver.

“Fuckin’ A—” Ali gasped. “Look out!”

At her feet the ground was fuming with a gray cloud of shrews no bigger than my thumb, dozens of them scurrying about, utterly heedless of us. At first I thought something must have disturbed them. But as we watched I saw that no, they were all hunting —feverishly, lunging at black beetles and ants pouring up from beneath the rotting leaves, teeth slicing through shiny carapaces and the dull gray coils of millipedes, their white claws delicate as fronds of club moss. They tore at the leaf-mold in a fury, scrabbling over puffballs that sent up clouds of spores like minute bomb-bursts. I held my breath and lowered myself to within a foot of this seething world, watching as two shrews had a tug-of-war with an earthworm. After a minute they separated and ferociously attacked each other. I was so close I could see tiny droplets of blood spatter onto the forsythia and smell their faint foul musk.

And still the shrews raced on, fighting and hunting and eating. To them, I had no more being than a tree or stone. I was entranced, and would have remained there for the entire afternoon, maybe, if Ali hadn’t pulled me away.

“Enough with the fucking Wild Kingdom, Lit; it’s gonna rain. Come on, let’s go to Deer Park.”

About halfway down we emerged onto a narrow ridge of stone, slick with moss. A scant yard in front of us the ridge sheared away, so that we gazed down upon the tops of red oaks and huge lichen-stained boulders. If you knew where to look, this was where you could catch your first glimpse of the ruinous beauty that was Bolerium. I edged back until I could wrap my arm around a tree—I was wearing knee-high lace-up Frye boots, well broken in but a bad choice for climbing. Ali walked fearlessly to the lip of rock and looked out.

“I can’t see it,” she said, frowning.

I squinted, trying to distinguish between the mansion’s granite walls and the gray trees that stood between us. “It’s too rainy,” I said at last, feeling a vague disappointment.

Ali shook her head. “Uh-uh. It’s hiding. ”

We turned and scrambled on down the path. When we finally burst out of the woods onto Kinnicutt Road, it was into a world gone gold and white, yellow leaves covering the tarmac and birches ghostly in the mist. Ali shivered in her leotard and pulled her flannel shirt over her head like a hood. I pulled Hillary’s jacket tight around me, wincing as a black BMW raced past and sent water splashing over us.

“Asshole,” I shouted.

If there was a wrong side to Kamensic, that’s where we were now: Kinnicutt Road, a chopped-up remnant of the Old Post Road that a hundred years earlier had linked Boston to the fractured villages strung across New England. Ten miles or so along, Kinnicutt fed into Route 684, the new interstate that connected the city with the north. But here it was a scumble of cracked asphalt, broken glass winking from a shoulder overgrown with nightshade and fox grapes and jewelweed. There were no houses along this stretch of Kinnicutt, no other roads; only a defiant tributary of the Muscanth River threading alongside the tarmac.

Now it felt almost inutterably desolate. The air smelled faintly of diesel fuel. Ahead of us the road narrowed, unyielding to the woods that crowded to either side, and finally faded from sight. My dread intensified until I considered making up some excuse to head home—stomachache, homework, fever.

But then the trees fell back, revealing a drab patch of sky. In another minute I could make out the parking lot and dull mass of cinder block that was the Deer Park Inn.

“Hillary’s here,” remarked Ali. And yes, there was his Dodge Dart by the front door. That made me feel better, and the sight of Deer Park’s venerable sign: a huge Sweetheart of the Rodeo, suspended between two worm-riddled telephone poles. Years ago during a storm the sign had been cloven right down the middle. Now only half of the cowgirl remained, one eye, one arm holding a lariat, one foot in one frilled cowboy boot; and beneath her what remained of the bar’s legend:

RK INN

NTRY

TERN

NCING

LBILLY

USIC

We crossed a parking lot awash with cigarette butts and beer bottles. Once behind the squat building you found more ominous detritus: spent sets of works like crushed centipedes, crumpled cellophane envelopes, scorched spoons, empty matchbooks. Two bikers sat on the steps drinking Budweisers. They watched us pass, eyes glazed, but said nothing. Entering I felt the customary frisson of excitement and blind terror; and was relieved to spot Hillary standing by the jukebox, resplendent in an old military jacket and embroidered turquoise shirt.

“Jeez, it’s packed,” shouted Ali.

Deer Park was so small it never took much to make a crowd. High school kids mostly; a few more bikers playing pool in the corner; some older kids who’d moved on to college a few years earlier, and either graduated or drifted back to town. Beer lights flickered through the cigarette smoke—Budweiser, Rhinegold, Pabst Blue Ribbon—and the jukebox was roaring “Jailhouse Rock.” There were Halloween decorations on the walls, leering witches and black cats. Over the bar hung a mounted stag’s head with a pumpkin nestled between its antlers. As we crossed the room people yelled out to us, and somebody began chanting—

“I got to piss,” Ali announced, and made a beeline for the bathroom. I turned to wave at Hillary. He was talking to a boy perched on top of the jukebox, a wiry figure with unfashionably short hair, dressed completely in black.

Hillary raised his beer. “Lit! C’mere—”

“Hang on!” I shouted, and headed for the bar. “Hey, Jim. What’s the deal? It’s so crowded—”

“Tell me about it.” Jim Charterbury worked at the Lifesaver factory down in Portchester and moonlighted at Deer Park at night. He pointed at one of the cardboard witches and shook his head. “Fuckin’ Halloween, man. Got the bikers howling at the moon. What’s going on with you?”

“Not much. Who’s that with Hillary?”

“Dunno, some kid just moved here. You want the usual?” I nodded and stuck a few crumpled bills on the bar. Jim poured two drafts, filled a shot glass with rail whiskey and dropped it into one of the mugs. I downed this, grimacing, and shivered.

“You look like my dog when you do that.” Jim slid me the other mug, put a stack of quarters alongside it. “Go crank up something beside Elvis Goddam Presley, will you? These bikers are driving me nuts.”