James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

Paul mouthed a silent fuck and flopped back on the bed. On the TV screen the Born Free lions sprawled across a rock in the African sun, their fat tongues lolling between their enormous canines. On top of the TV Charlotte sprawled in exactly the same attitude, her front paws pushed forward, her head sunk between them, eyes half open. Her back legs were splayed off the edge of the set, and her tail strobed slowly back and forth across the screen. Paul glanced at Callie to see if she had noticed, but she was buttoning her shirt with her back to him. Paul let his head drop onto the pillow, and he watched the TV’s light flicker across the ceiling.

“Callie,” he said, “without you. .”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Without me, what?” she said.

“Without you. .,” Paul began. He had no idea how to finish the sentence.

Callie turned and stooped for her sandals, dangling them by their straps, and to Paul’s surprise she dropped to her knees next to the bed. She set the sandals neatly to one side, and she leaned over Paul, her hand lightly on the sheet over his chest.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Okay,” murmured Paul, and he pushed himself up to kiss her. But she pushed him back.

“That’s not what I mean.” Her eyes were clear, and she watched him calmly. “I mean, let’s go . Let’s git. Let’s get out of this town and not come back.”

“What?” Paul said.

She met his gaze with her own; wherever he tried to look, she was looking back at him. “You hate Texas, you hate the heat, you hate your job, you hate the folks you work with.”

“Yeah, but. .,” breathed Paul. All his muscles were pulling tight under the sheet. His stomach was clenching.

“Well, me too, cowboy.” Her hand was warm and firm against his chest. “Don’t let it go to your head, ’cause it ain’t saying much, but you’re the best thing to happen to me in this whole goddamn state.”

“Really?” said Paul.

“There’s nothing in this shitty little apartment that’s yours, ‘cept your clothes, right? So let’s toss ’em in my truck and take off. We could be in Mexico by sunup.”

“Mexico?” He felt his stomach clench.

“Or wherever. We could be in California the day after tomorrow.”

Finally Paul managed to lift himself on his elbows. Her hand pressed lightly on his chest. “Are you serious?” he said.

“Serious as a heart attack, lover.” She slid her hand over his shoulder and curled her fingers around the back of his neck. “I followed one boy to Tulsa, and another boy here, but I never asked a boy to follow me before.”

“Wow,” said Paul.

Callie moved her face close to his, her eyes half shut. “C’mon, Paul,” she breathed. “Let’s. Just. Go .”

She kissed him very tenderly, and Paul stopped breathing. He could feel his blood pulsing in his lips. Callie pulled away, and he couldn’t help himself: He turned his gaze away from hers and looked down the bed at black-eyed Charlotte on top of the TV, her tail swishing metronomically across the screen. Callie half turned to see what he was looking at, but caught herself. She pushed back from the bed and stood; she stubbed her feet into her sandals.

“She ain’t there, Paul,” she said quietly, as if to a sleepless child.

“Yes she is,” said Paul, unable to take his eyes off the cat. “Turn around and look.”

“I don’t have to. She ain’t there.” Callie bent over the bed and kissed Paul on the forehead. “She’s in here.” Then she turned and crossed to the door, swinging her hips.

“Callie,” Paul said.

She hesitated with the door half open, but she didn’t look back.

“See ya,” she said, and then she was gone.

Paul lay on his elbows, gasping. He could still feel the imprint of her kiss on his forehead and on his lips. On top of the TV Charlotte split her flat head in a vast, black, jagged yawn.

“Fucking bitch!” Paul shouted, and he flung his pillow at her. She vanished and the pillow swept the jerry-rigged rabbit ears off the set and onto the floor; Born Free vanished in a blizzard of static. Outside, Paul heard the starting grumble of Callie’s truck, heard the whine of reverse gear, heard the rattle of the drainage grate in the middle of the parking lot as Callie backed over it. Paul propelled himself from the bed towards the door, tangled his legs in the sheets, and fell to his knees. Snarling in frustration he stripped the sheet away and lunged for the door. He wrenched it open and stood there, breathless and naked and semi-aroused, and saw only his battered Colt and the dusty wrecks of his neighbors’ ancient automobiles and, printed in silhouette against a yellow doorway, a single, slouching Snopes dangling a beer at his hip. Callie was gone, and Paul could only hear the rising gulp of her truck, climbing through its gears, away from him. Paul looked down at himself, and he stepped back and slammed his door.

“Paul?” said a voice behind him, and Paul started violently. He whirled and flattened his back against the inside of his apartment door.

Bob Wier stood rubbing his hands in the middle of Paul’s room, while behind him a couple of pale homeless guys in white shirts and ties were peeking out of Paul’s bathroom. The lower half of another guy hung from a gap in the suspended ceiling over Paul’s bed, his shirt pulled tight over his soft torso. He dropped to the bed, landing on his feet and making the springs twang, and as he bounced he adjusted his glasses. The glare in his lenses from the TV obscured his eyes.

Bob Wier inclined his head solicitously towards Paul. “Is this a bad time?” he said.

THIS ISN’T HAPPENING, Paul told himself. This is a dream.

“We have to hurry,” said Bob Wier nervously, as the pale men hovered around Paul, handing him his shorts, his trousers, his shirt. “You don’t want to be late.”

One bloodless pair of hands lifted his shirt from behind so that Paul could slip his arms through the sleeves, while another pair of hands worked the buttons. “Late for what?” said Paul.

But Bob Wier wasn’t listening. He had cracked Paul’s front door and was peering watchfully into the parking lot. Through the door Paul heard the distant rumble of late-night traffic on the interstate.

“What’s going on?” asked Paul numbly. He felt sapped, drained, which only served to convince him further that this wasn’t really happening, that someone hadn’t just tugged up his trousers and zipped his fly and buckled his belt, that someone else hadn’t just lifted his right foot, and then the left, to put on his sandals.

“Let’s go,” Bob Wier said, and he slipped out the door. Paul felt the soft grip of several pairs of hands urging him out into the hot night.

The parking lot of the Angry Loner Motel was as still as Paul had ever seen it. No one stood along the balconies; no open doorway threw a wedge of yellow light onto the pavement; not one shabby curtain twitched. Even Mrs. Prettyman’s windows were dark. Apart from the distant roar of the highway, the only sound was the soft scrape of feet against the asphalt and Paul’s own shallow breathing. Bob Wier wrung his hands again near the storm drain at the center of the lot, while another pair of pale men in shirt and tie and glasses hovered near him. How many of these guys are there? Paul wondered, and he tried to glance over his shoulder at the ghostly men hustling him across the asphalt, but they only pushed harder, making him dash along on his toes.

“Hurry,” whispered Bob Wier, nervously scanning the balconies on either side, and the two pale men next to him stooped and hauled up the drainage grate without a sound.