Jeff Jackson - Mira Corpora

A guard enters the room. His flashlight beam frisks the walls and corners of the back gallery. He could’ve sworn he sensed the hum of another presence. Someone staring at this painting. He checks the locks on the windows, inspects the pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, opens the recessed janitorial closet to study the assortment of frayed mops. His eyes rove the opposite wall and inevitably stall on the canvas of the orange tree. A mundane image, but if you look long enough the still-life starts to pulse with a sense of longing. The mysterious combination of pigments casually suggests not an idealized vista in this world but an imperfect pane into another. Of course maybe he’s just been on the job too long. That’s what happens when the only company is the ringing thump of your own footsteps.

The shift is almost over. Ralton arrives to replace him and they bullshit for several minutes about the college baseball playoffs. Then the guard gets in his car and drives through the few white-washed blocks that constitute downtown, past the flickering gas lamps and sleeping boutiques, toward the old highway. The usual routine. But he can’t shake the feeling that something is slightly off. His forearm lolls out the window while the truck bounces along the two-lane asphalt strip. The oil derricks loom out there in the darkness, a hot salty breeze carrying the creak of their repeating gyrations. The secret theme song of this vast nowhere. Tonight a watery red glow emanates from the scrub fields. Some kind of repair job, probably. Men with acetylene torches laboring under klieg lights. The guard thinks about his cousin who occasionally works on those massive steel structures and wonders what sort of life it might be. But enough of that. The truck turns into a half-vacant parking lot. The cantina calls.

The smoky room is lit solely with strands of blinking red and green lights, but it’s easy to spot Malcolm and Blundell at the bar. They’re the only gringos here. The guard strolls past a table of brooding Mexicans in cowboy hats and takes his customary stool next to Blundell. He orders a shot of whiskey as a doleful ranchero blares from the jukebox. Malcolm fills him in on the baseball game, the local kid who struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh then botched a double play the next inning. The guard lets out a bitter laugh, relieved not to have money riding on the outcome. They both wait for Blundell to chime in, but he seems strangely preoccupied. He ruts his fingers through his tight blond curls and keeps his eyes offhandedly pinned to the entrance.

When the skinny shadows of the skaters materialize at the back door, Blundell hops off his bar stool and breaks into a sloppy grin. He tries to play it cool as the boys greet him with a series of rhythmic palm slaps and finger snaps. These surly brats have been hanging round Blundell for weeks now. They’re probably just his errand boys in a small-time empire of pastel pills and powder-filled packets, but something about their interaction makes him uneasy. It’s the way Blundell continually taps their elbows like a third base coach, the earnestly disinterested tone he adopts when talking to them, the conspiratorial smiles he flashes when he assumes nobody’s watching. There’s a feeling here the guard isn’t ready to name.

The skaters sidle up to the bar. They jackknife their boards into the brass foot rail and strike low-wattage poses meant to signify a contempt not worth fully embodying. Several wear old Halloween masks perched atop their heads. Sometimes the guard forgets the skaters are so much younger than him. The little monsters act like they inhabit an alternate universe. Malcolm tries to make small talk about the ball game but the skaters just snigger, none of them having any fucking idea what he’s gibbering about. Blundell attempts to smooth things over by ordering them a round of drinks, but they only cackle harder. The blue-haired skater sneers that the thrill of underage alcohol consumption faded years ago and besides they’ve got a better buzz stashed behind the dumpsters. An awkward silence as the jukebox drops a needle on a sorrowful salsa number. For the first time, the guard notices a fresh face among the usual gallery of sullen stares: A pale boy with stringy black hair and sunken spaniel eyes who holds himself a few paces from the others.

Blundell announces there is business to transact and squeezes into an empty booth with the skaters. The boy stands behind them without joining the conversation, executing an awkward pose that flits between involvement and invisibility. The guard thinks the boy must be younger than the other skaters, his ripped jeans and ratty green sweater more genuinely haphazard than their expertly studied ragtag fashions. A runaway, maybe. Malcolm has seen enough and stomps out the exit without so much as a wave. The guard remains at the bar for several minutes, counting the colorful rows of liquor labels and humming along to the listless static of the television set. He’s contemplating leaving when the boy eases onto the stool beside him and asks him to order him a beer.

Hard to tell if this is some brand of provocation. The boy downs several swallows of alcohol before meeting the guard’s gaze. Hints of rough experience are etched in the margins of his smooth features but there’s also an unripe quality. The look of someone on a long trek who hasn’t traveled very far. The boy finishes his beer and peers over his shoulder. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asks. He arches his eyeballs meaning fully in the direction of the booth of skaters. “Your friend is in love with the blue-haired one,” he says. This is a dizzying thought and the guard doesn’t know how to respond. “That isn’t like him at all,” the guard murmurs. Before he can say anything else, Blundell and the gang of skaters walk toward the bathroom and disappear inside together. “But that wasn’t the secret,” the boy says. “The secret is they’re going to kill him.”

The guard orders another round. He’s not sure what else to do. It’s as if he’s been living inside a two-dimensional set whose walls have toppled, allowing him to survey the sprawling landscape for the first time. He feels lost. Maybe the boy is experiencing something similar. Maybe that’s why this peculiar child chose to confide in him so suddenly. There’s something simpatico about the way the boy’s hair shyly obscures his large eyes and the nervous way his fingers adjust the necklace of shells that encircles his delicate throat. The guard starts to ask about the skaters’ motives and timetable, but instead he says: “Why are you hanging with those assholes?”

The boy contemplates his beer, as if trying to divine an answer in the bottom of the glass. He says: “Everyone needs a place to crash.” The guard says: “My cousin has a spare room.” The boy looks surprised by the invitation and suddenly the guard isn’t sure why he made it. But then the boy says: “That could be okay.” They both let their sentences trail into the air, the better part of the conversation remaining unspoken and partially obscured, like crossword blanks waiting to be filled in.

The skaters reappear from the bathroom. They scope the cantina to see if they’re collecting suspicious looks, but the Mexicans remain indifferent. Blundell announces he’s departing with the teens. He barely manages to suppress the self-satisfied smirk that twitches across his lips. The guard stares at his friend, surprised to realize that he isn’t the least concerned about his safety. The threat is almost definitely overblown and besides the night’s revelations have suggested a new realm where everything is permitted, or possible, or something. The blue-haired skater locks eyes with the boy and jerks his head in the direction of the exit. “We’re going to check out this band at the Roxy,” he says. But the boy remains slouched on the bar stool in a way that indicates precisely nothing. He twirls his thumb at the guard. “I’m crashing with his cousin tonight,” he says.