Elizabeth Hand - Black Light

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. There was some show at the Mercer Arts Center, the Dolls and someone else, I dunno. They blew that off, but I guess something’s going on afterward down on the Bowery, Jamie says he knows the band and he wants to get some people together and head down for it.”

“What about Ali?”

Duncan wrinkled his nose. “Man, she’s out of it. I tell you, I think Jamie Casson is bad news. He’s got her shooting smack or some such shit—” He shook his head. “I just don’t get it. All this pot and booze and great acid floating around, what’s she doing messing with her head like that?”

“Chacun à son goût.” As I started to walk away Duncan called after me plaintively.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s French for ‘Mind your own beeswax.’”

I sauntered off. The Tanqueray made me feel indestructible once more, but when I caught a glimpse of myself in an ormulu mirror in the hall I decided I’d better clean up. I found a bathroom, a cedar-paneled cubicle occupying what had once been a linen closet. That night it had obviously seen a lot of traffic despite its size. There was a pair of women’s red silk underwear wrapped around the light and a pile of shoes alongside the toilet. A joint was still smoldering on the sink, the porcelain beneath it amber with resin. Across the mirror, someone had scrawled TERRY TAKES IT UP THE ASS in hot-pink lipstick. I found a sock and cleaned off the mirror, smoked the rest of the joint, and did my best to make myself more presentable.

It was tough. I kicked among the shoes on the floor, searching for a comb or hairbrush, but found only a baggie that held a fine sifting of cannabis seeds and stems along with a pair of manicure scissors. I decided to save this, then tried to do something about my hair. All I could manage was dragging my fingers through the tangled copper mass.

“Ouch—”

I gave up. My dress was a lost cause as well. I plucked off as many twigs as I could, and scraped clumps of mud from the hem. One sleeve was hanging loosely. I tore it off, but then I had to tear off the other one, too. My bare arms were covered with scratches and insect bites. I examined them carefully, thinking of Ali and wondering if Dunc was right, if she actually had mainlined heroin. If so, is this what trackmarks looked like? My finger touched a small gash in the crook of my elbow. I winced, and glanced into the mirror above the sink. A mad girl stared back at me, ragged hair flaming around her mud-stained face, orange peasant dress in tatters, lips bitten and bloody-looking, pupils huge and very, very obviously stoned.

“Well, it’s a look,” I said.

I began to wash up. A few minutes later my face and arms were relatively clean and the sink was clogged with dirt and floating leaves. I was trying to get the drain to work when the door behind me flew open.

“Oh, hey man, sorry, I didn’t know anyone was—”

I turned too fast, and bumped into Jamie Casson.

“Jamie!”

“Huh? Hey— ow! what the—”

He drew up, staring at me. “Lit? Is that you?”

“Afraid so.”

He took in my ruined dress and hair, the mess on the bathroom floor. “Huh. I guess I must’ve missed something.”

“I guess you did.”

I made room as he edged inside, closing the door behind him. He looked tired and unhappy, shirt untucked and trousers hanging loosely from his hips. “I gotta get out of this fucking monkey suit,” he said. He held up a jumble of clothes. “You mind if I get changed?”

“Uh-uh.”

Immediately he started to undress. I wasn’t going to be so uncool as to leave, or deliberately look away. I busied myself again at the mirror, dabbing my face with water and doing my best not to spy on Jamie.

But it was impossible not to see him. In the mirror his thin pale form moved like a wraith, shrugging off the white shirt, trousers sliding from his legs so that I had a glimpse of his underwear and the silver-blonde hair on his thighs. Then he was pulling on black jeans and a T-shirt that said RAW POWER, and fumbling with the laces of his black high-tops.

“Hey, thanks.” He straightened, shoving a wisp of hair from his eyes, and balled up the clothes he’d just removed. “Guess I can just dump these here, huh? Boy, you really look bad, Lit.”

I flushed, glancing at the wadded clothes in his hand. “Hey”— I looked back at Jamie. —“are those your clothes? I mean, would you mind if I wore them?”

He shrugged. “Hell no. They’re not mine anyway— Kern gave ’em to me to wear tonight. He has, like, a whole closet full of these things, extras that he keeps around for the help. He wanted me in a fucking uniform, man, can you believe it? Like a fucking waiter. Here—” He tossed them at me. I grinned, and he shot a tired grin back. “—you’ll look better in ’em than I did, anyway.”

I took off my Frye boots and pulled the trousers on under my dress, then tucked the pants into the boots; made a half-assed attempt at modesty by turning sideways and tugging the dress over my head, and finally put on the white dress shirt. Jamie was insultingly indifferent, yawning and lighting a cigarette and leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. The trousers fit perfectly, soft wool and smelling of mothballs. I grabbed the baggie with the pot seeds and manicure scissors and stuck it in a pocket, along with a pack of matches. The shirt was much too big. I tucked it in, catching a breath of Jamie’s sweat and a smell like burnt sugar, the harsh odor of car exhaust.

“Ta da,” I said. I started rolling up the sleeves.

“Looks good,” said Jamie. “A lot better than it did on me.”

I tossed the dress into a corner and inspected my reflection in the mirror. It was a definite improvement on the madwoman who’d stared out at me before, even with the patina of grime that clung to the shirt, not to mention several cigarette holes. I still couldn’t do anything about my hair, though. I ran a hand through it, sighing, and turned back to Jamie.

“Well, thanks. Are Ali and Hillary still upstairs?”

“She passed out. And Hillary took off—”

“He left the party?”

“I don’t know. No, I don’t think so—I think he was going to find you first. I’m taking off—going down to the Pit. You want to come?”

“The Pit?”

“Yeah, man. These guys I know are playing, a fucking great guitarist, it’ll blow your mind.” He began swaying, eyes half-closed, cigarette weaving figure eights in the air. “This amazing scene…”

Abruptly he leaned forward. His turquoise eyes were huge, their expression so intense it was like rage. “You hate it here, too, don’t you. I know you do, Lit. And I know why. I know what goes on…”

“Wh-what—”

“This place—” He waved his cigarette, let it fall to the floor. “This fucking madhouse—”

The little room was filling with smoke, but as Jamie moved his hand the smoke directly in front of him disappeared. Not as though dispersed by the motion, but forming in a pattern. The reddish wood of the bathroom walls suddenly seeming to glow through the haze. He spread his fingers, turning them in a deliberate way that was both odd and oddly familiar. As I watched him, my own hands clenched. In the air between us the pattern grew darker, more apparent. The smoke took on a harsh metallic color, like the singed blade of a steel knife. There was a soft crackling sound of leaves burning, the acrid smell of incense. Another moment and a face hung in the air before me.

I gasped. It was not a face, but the image of a mask, one of those gaping terra-cotta masks that adorned the houses of Kamensic in the autumn. Its eyes were oblique, the mouth wide, upturned in a malicious smile; the high cheekbones two slanted bars of steely light. It was a cruel visage; and unmistakably that of Axel Kern.