Weatherhead Read online

  He caught his breath, wrung out the legs of his trousers and felt syncopated horror, surrogate to his long-lost heartbeat, drumming up and down his spine as if bored fingers. She didn’t look at him, acted all prop to whatever farce he’d been forced into this Weatherhead day. She didn’t ask him anything, not what he’d found, not about her secreting herself above a literal bed of knives to woo him, nothing. Had he misinterpreted her intentions?

  She yawned and flung the knife into a corner where it stayed. She stood up and stretched. Her back was a bow for an arrow of filth. Again, he cast his eyes about. All those knives, glinting in the light of the room’s fireplace, glinting like rivers carving estuaries, glinting like half-dead neon tubing pointing the way to her, glinting the way her false-shatter never would. He got to his feet as well, still shaken by her gargling of him. She pretended he wasn’t there, which he wasn’t. He pretended she was, which she was. And the two of them danced anonymously around purposes and designs and she stretched out her bare leg and nudged a knife here, a scalpel there, making a square with them.

  He could stand no more, but dared not ask after the mouth of Marches and its black words. Who is that? Over there, he gestured with a shivering hand. The hospital’s sole occupant lay in a bed. Its metal frame, the bed, not the old woman, was twisted, fused, once unsolid, as if exposed to great heat. The only sound was the penultimate wheeze of death’s rosethorn-entangled lurch towards this anonymous creature. The room smelled like onions but instead of everyone weeping, everyone was laughing.

  She is, she snarled, the last law left in Weatherhead. She dressed quickly. She left him there as beautiful as she could, her reds an insult, her colonizing breaths sidecar to the arctic cheek she so turned to him by way of saying farewell.

  He stood there for a long time alone.

  It was still early when he finally left the hospital. He’d stood where she’d left him, covered in her spit instead of vice versa and he composed a history of prey and prayer while staring at the silent form sleeping in the bed nearby. The old woman was corpse-bloated, as if the body had lost its patience with the soul and went on ahead and began swelling and rotting, but the face retained enough reason to show him that it wasn’t her or anyone he’d ever met before.

  Faces, he thought, studying the form from afar: the forehead was puckered and pinched with screams and winces; the nose, hooked, what he’d associated Once as a ‘Jew-nose’, before he became the object of spite for the center of everything, bore fidelity and a persistence strength, honest to gods and scents; the mouth, though, was a liar’s mouth, twisted into a shipwreck’s mast-fall, half-smile, half-bile; the chin was near collapse, a dam foundering under the weight of words, drooping down onto the chest; the ears were distant from the rest of the face, deaf to depth, incorruptible, confounded only by the all-spring wellspring that made the world new, but not this dying thing. All else he could see were the feet sticking out of the edge of the bed, all gnarled and brown like somersaulting trees’ roots reaching up to swipe at the cloud-froth that the leaves had told it about while the hair on the head fell out all autumnal, curious about the ground the roots had whispered about all year. The woman was a year.

  He encountered the young rebels at the café with the caved-in roof several blocks from his hovel. They, fools that follow in the shadows of wolves, were drinking fog from tall thin glasses, some had chipped rims, he noticed. Sir Burn saw him shambling through the pre-dawn cereal lines and waved him over. A chancre formed between two pairs of women that Sir Burn introduced as part of the organizing committee for the revolution so he sank down into it. The rebels were rattling on about politics or something as young people do. The utmost limits of his tolerance of polemics was stretched pretty far even when listening to his friend Mal’s theories on art. But politics? Best left to the hand-jobbers in Washington who were ruining everything anyway and—

  Stop, he snorted. He looked to either side. One of the women flanking him was Machine Eel. Finding himself alongside her, he turned to her, coughed appropriately and, to make conversation (oh, he and even the dregs of women!) asked after her name. His convergence on her had already made her flush red because she knew how he could peel her apart in places, now she turned a crimson that made the heart smart. The other conversations stopped and all eyes turned with curiosity to this peculiarity. Hesitant at first since, as she warned him in a timid voice that selves are forbidden in Weatherhead, she told him in a tiny voice a story that went something like this:

  Before death sniffed with anticipation at the base of her umbilical cord, for, you wouldn’t think it, but death loves births and nuzzling infants with its dirty snout, just before the last doctor in Weatherhead snipped it, Machine Eel had been born. She’d been the last birth in Weatherhead. No, this was after she came. Weatherhead, Gympie reminded him, had always been conquered. No one knew how long ago that had been. There were no calendars in Weatherhead, no watches, no clocks, no sundials, no sun, no weather, no numeracy, no tickings-off on walls or paper to mark the passing or scrambling of their arched-back prison yawns, no almanacs, no routines, no ceremonies, rituals stuffed into certain days or hours, no hours—

  I get it, he interjected. Someone handed him a glass of fog. He politely sipped at it. Not bad, but it made a fine cold drizzle down his throat that made his lungs feel frail and asthmatic.

  And no metronomes, Machine Eel added quickly while he drank. He wasn’t even sure what that was. The last metronome in Weatherhead had been the instrument by which her father made her mother heavy with child: sliding the weight down had increased the length of the pendulous metal in which swam could-bes and its movements had increased faster and faster until the entire apparatus flew apart under the weight of its momentum sending colonizing oscillations and shrapnel into the brass sex-passage of her mother. The shattered metal, vibrating at such a pitch-forward rate, fused to the sperm and with a knife-dive womb-wound, she’d gummed up her mother for the better part of a year, a wound that’d never heal. Then she, the daughter, had been banished.

  Thus, Machine Eel. But the metal urges of her father’s metallurgies had a cost. When she came of age, Machine Eel underwent what all women in Weatherhead were obligated to do, per the writ, contract, and bequeasementions that carried over from the last batch of live births in the city: poisonous flowers were to be sewn into her sex, a caul of the wild, a perfumery woven into the alien carnivore’s redness, the lie of a land ploughed in rustic, dangerous tones—

  What is a flower? someone asked from down the table. No one knew, but they shushed the speaker whose face eluded him, blocked by the waitress’s arm filling his glass. They were eager to listen: stories were so rare nowadays, especially ones of the anti-exoduses that occur between man and woman, for city-approved rape was the only assignation allowed.

  But there’d be no future, Machine Eel went on, ignoring the others, for her toxic orchard. The metals of her father had lodged themselves firmly in various spots around her body one of which happened to be the major and minor chords which fashioned both prelude and coda to the pastoral symphony between her legs. The needles of the sowers broke and there was much consternation and she was designated a slot in one of the mass graves that dotted Weatherhead’s outskirts. But other attentions and imaginations saw furtive potential in the blushing shrapnel down there, unsentimental as it was.

  The metal petals of her imperishable sex were, for the greater good of the state, reforged and retempered into the shape that it now bore, that of the branded cable of Man, with which she hunted down by way of deceit and disfunction the transgressors of the laws of rape in Weatherhead. Steel internal had been plucked outwards, abscess had become process, her wound turned inside out had become inflictor, her indistinct throat which spoke in ancient, hushed tones had become the bleating, newsun microphone of Man. The song of her eden had been turned outward into the hell of the grunting array of Man.

  Everyone laughed and clapped. Save him.

  He stared with revul
sion at this once-woman, her dazed brown eyes, the uncomfortable way her hair grew out of her temples, the faint, fine dark down on her upper lip. They forced you to do that? His head reeled.

  No. I volunteered. It is how I came to be in a position of loyalty for the Cause. She asked him if he wanted to see it. He did not.

  The others were absorbed in the non-miracle of their sermons. He could see all this talk of musics, ticks, tocks, and sexes made them all decidedly nervous, yet excited. Forbidden subjects all in the Weatherhead of her. Yet their mugs were all bruised with slavish, delirious amusement at the tale of this tall, ugly girl’s wrong-tail that grew out of her once-space. They cried out for more, one rebel banged on the table demanding magnets, condoms, and fresh napkins and Machine Eel ducked her head and blushed, but good sense trumped desire. For a moment she wanted to go on, but.

  Careful, Machine, Gymie cautioned, for remember: there are no histories in Weatherhead, there are no reminiscences in Weatherhead, there is no fondness in Weatherhead, no nostalgia, turnings-back, no leafing through books of what’s-beens, no operas on our tongues, no amnesties for waltzes, no haunting wistfulnesses, no staring into fires, no hearths, no hearts—

  He listened to this litany of all that Weatherhead could never be, gazing from each young hoodlum to the other as they recited it in unison. Their sheepish pollen was making him nauseous.

  For a buncha would-be revolutionaries, you sure toe the line, don’t you? They all stopped and stared. He should stop, he thought, this was a slalom and a careen down a deadly, stupid path, trying to season these fools, bait them further. Again, the waitress’s obscuring elbow came between him and the others. He ducked around it with a challenging frown.

  You must believe that seed doesn’t dream. Tell that to the rose, Spindle shot back from down the table. The women present all glared at him with a venom, he guessed, that coerced their bloods and scents into untying slaves, pariahs, and bodices, a poison that boiled up from their burdens below, if all young women shared the fate of the code of toxins. As you know, we go along with her. It’s part of our ruse.

  It’s, Gympie plucked at his almost-false goatee and cast him an aloof stare, how we will emerge triumphant and free our city.

  Maybe that’s just what she wants you to do. You all seem willing to go along with her—to great extents, he looked with disgust at Machine Eel. How could they underestimate the strangler of Weatherhead? He ducked under the waitress’s arm again to glare at Gympie. He was becoming annoyed at both the server’s incessant hand thrusts into the spaces around him and the smug, self-righteous false-lefty jackass staring at him from across the table. There were two things he loathed: anyone activist and philosophy. Having a goatee only made it worse.

  Really? You think we’re just caught in a self-indulgent trap, don’t you? Sir Burn motioned to Machine Eel with his chin. Show him!

  He recoiled in disgust. I don’t—

  She stood. Sir Burn went on: Lies are half-infinities, unaccelerated velocities. If all throats, whatever the mouths they’re attached to—he leaned back in his chair as Machine Eel began unfastening her trousers—if all mouths are criminal, then we need to find that one—he held up a finger; she bent forward slightly, pushing her breeches to the pavement—that one that foams and froths innocence because this is the one thing that she lacks in abundance. And we can drown her in it again!

  Someone from down the row of faces asked, Didn’t she drown?

  There was a low rumble of supposition. I heard, Machine Eel offered, standing there in her wasteland torn panties with her hands clasped behind her back, that she was gallowsed and hung and she was looking up when she was kilt in the first place. This is why she doesn’t like up, ‘cuz she died looking up.

  Reluctantly, he half-stood and peered down over her waistband. There was nothing of Man there, no metallic serpentine blessing, just the customary tangle of black-brown cobwebs. Unremarkably, she had a mole at the top right corner of the triangle of hair, he saw. Sir Burn reached over and tugged the elastic out further, turning Machine Eel this way and that so that he could get a better look. He saw nothing else, just the banal, unfiddled asymmetry of the maths of Woman. They all laughed at his perplexity.

  All stories were lies in Weatherhead. Machine Eel was a lie. He recognized this lie for what it was, the slap hurt at the sight, lies strangle the eyes, see? Like snow-blind from the land thrown open, the lie of the land. “Snow makes us all look the same under our hats and coats an’ all.” Maggie said that. Alaska. Baked Alaska. She always had fog coming out of her mouth, too, didn’t she? He pressed his eyes shut.

  Machine Eel stared at his knuckle-eyes blandly. I wrote that, she blurted, I was never born.

  What is a flower? came drifting again from somewhere nearby.

  Sir Burn waved for Machine Eel to sit down then leaned forward on his elbows to stare him in the face. The lie is our best weapon against her and you’re the only lie left in the city. Machine Eel here was our last best hope. The others looked from Sir Burn to him. But her lie was raped right out of her by the alphabets of the ruler of Weatherhead, the alphabets carved into the stones of the streets and the buildings and the soles and souls of our feet and fate. Someone cracked their knuckles. The waitress bumped her elbow against the back of his head and she squeaked an apology. Sir Burn ignored her and went on: Machine Eel’s story was born out of clammy palms and palms over clams: a fantasy more mysterious than the twenty-six scars that give birth to everything because you can’t reduce everything down into prisons, prison letters—trap alphabets in boxes—what’s the point if no one’s reading? Machine Eel—no one dictated that her lie meant anything more than what it did to her: a sacred and sacral vanishing of birthrights and the seduction of the self with the metals that we raise up out of the earth. Thus, her story became a lie because no one save us paid attention. A lie needs to be fed, stroked, taken in—someone cleared their throat—a lie is a hidden god. We thought we had a glorious weapon in our arsenal with the lie of Machine Eel, but her selfless sacrifice of her songless, poisonous wound, despite all of our efforts to keep it deliverance—someone shifted uncomfortably in their seat—it lacked the blood and grit our cause required and the lie was caught out. Faced with this serious problem, how opportune that you appear in the city in our darkest hour!

  He listened to this nonsense with a smirk, not even trying to hide his disdain for these wretches. His derision was punctuated by the waitress who, by now, hovered about him like a pestilence, reaching over his shoulders this way and that, shifting glasses around, dispensing fog, clucking her tongue.

  Lemme get this straight, it was his turn to lean on the table, steeple his fingers pedantically—for the first time in a long while he desperately wanted a cigarette—you had this stupid girl pretend that she had a metal dick, told everyone, and then tried to make it stick by letting her fuck you all in what-have-you? Am I getting the story straight? And this was your grand weapon? But it was never true in the first place? What the hell did you think you were doing?

  Gympie’s face fell. We’re certain we dreamed of her this way, her treason against sex. Filth gives the mind strength, gives fitness to lying.

  We are filth, they all murmured as one.

  You’re all fucking deluding yourselves, he laughed, you’re a pack of lies, the whole of ya. Even your lies are lies. What kinda math is that? Why would I help— The waitress bumped into him yet again and he cursed as fog spilled down the back of his neck. Would you please—

  He jerked his head around to snap at the interfering drinksmaid. It was her. His face fell into ash.

  She was dressed like a diner waitress, in a knee-length skirt made out of a rough black material that billowed out around her thighs, a tight blouse made out of the same stuff, socks almost up to her knees, and a perky little black square cocked on her pinned-up hair. She was chewing something, had a broken piece of glass behind her ear, and held a tray of smoking glass up on her shoulder. She grinned down at him
and nodded at him to keep listening. None of them seemed to have seen her.

  He was overcome with a fit of shivering as she wheeled away from the table, having gotten his attention and went inside the collapsed café. His companions had broken out into argument, so they didn’t notice when he pushed himself back from the table and followed her inside.

  It was the most elaborate lie yet: the interior was a 1950s soda fountain, untouched by the warchafe outside, bright, freshly painted, a chrome-edge counter gleaming in the brilliant lights set into an uncracked ceiling. This drew his eye since from outside the building was half-collapsed. How—he pointed up. She smiled and told him it was a lie. She was leaning over the counter, staring down at something, one leg kicked up to cause vertiginous collapses of the blood downwards in concordance with the law of flesh that made all alphabets into the lowest forms of white and gave them velocities outwards. She was infernal, asphodel.

  She didn’t look up when he made the door tinkle. Any good at math, mister? She was fiddling with what at first he thought was a pencil but which turned out to be a sliver of bone. She was mulling over what at first he thought was their bill but which turned out to be a series of lines and circles, ones and zeroes, he saw. He watched her lazily trace over them. She was staring up at what he at first thought was a rumpled, gaunt-hollowed madman but which turned out to be himself.

  Not really, he sighed.

  Playfully pained amusement made a run from the squint in her eye, down her nose which flared a little, and down into that slow, sexy curl of her upper lip, that curl that only he’d ever been able to drag out of her mouth. Hmph. I’ll answer for them. What kind of maths is it? That’s what you asked those fools?

  You know about them? They want to—

  I know what they want. I’ve never been keen on magic or passwords or makin’ rubes outta people, she told him, and the difference between bondage and bandage is slight, right? In an alphabet, at least, just one letter. In life, the difference is cause and effect, right? A slave is just a wound, is what I’m sayin’, mister. Don’t worry. They can’t see me right now. It’s all a lie. They think they have a lie to stop me. They’ve been looking for one for months, hence the girl or boy or whatever she is or whatever she wants to be. She doesn’t even know, does she? They’ve been looking for lies here and there and everywhere. He stared at her long, curled eyelashes. He wanted, suddenly, to suck them between his teeth.