The clock read nine-fourteen P.M. His skin burned and writhed as if trying to tear itself off his body. The people in the plastic seats took one look at his lurching, twitching gait and shifted away, drawing into themselves, pulling their legs under their seats. Looking anywhere but at him.
He stood, panting, just inside the door. Tattered ropes of the alien thread hung off him in wild garlands. A deep red moss covered one side of his face, and threads grew from his mouth, the corner of his eyes, his ears. One of his arms had fused to his body, stitched with the fungus that crawled over his skin.
"Are you frightened of me? You should be," he rasped. He tripped and almost fell into a family of four. They cried out and covered their heads. A boy of about four stared up at him with wide brown eyes until his parents grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back. "It's because you recognize a dying man when you see one, isn't it!" he shouted at them.
He had come here to die, if he could; his body and mind welcomed the end. But something else—what he carried like a dark, fertile seed—had decided otherwise.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jynx's neighborhood was even worse than Sugar's: a rotting, tumbled maze of cracked pavement, stinking alleyways, and abandoned cars. The building looked like something that had died and begun to rot while still standing. Six floors of cracked sandstone the color of bone, the bottom floor choking under a mat of creeping ivy that crept up the sides of the building like an infection. Jynx lived on the top floor, above the clutching fingers of the ivy.
The buzzer was broken, so she pounded on the glass doors. Inside, the lobby sat deserted save for an old-fashioned standing ashtray and a broken-down chair upholstered in worn red velveteen. She re-dialed Jynx and got no answer. She ran back outside, looking upwards. She thought maybe she could see someone high above, looking down, but dialing the number again yielded nothing. She waved her arms, shouting, and jumped up and down. Someone across the street shouted at her to shut up. She was about to give up when she saw an Asian couple leaving the building. She managed to slide past the door just as it closed. She raced to the elevators. An out-of-order sign. Judging by the dust, it had hung there for years.
The stairwell echoed like a bad memory, and smelled like piss and dejection. She charged upward, re-dialing Jynx's number. Still no answer. She kicked aside drifts of trash until an empty syringe rattled back down the steps, then she just hopped over the piles.
The harder it was to actually get to Jynx, the more Sugar wanted—needed—to see her. Sugar told herself Jynx probably just needed money, or drugs, or take-out Chinese, or a pack of Marlboro Lights. Her mind skated around what had happened earlier—no sense in worrying about that now. She pushed the memory away. That feeling of
giving birth
extraction nagged at her, but it was tempered with pride. She had been faced with something that a few years ago would have sent her screaming into a 5150 hold at Hollywood Presby. Today? She had stepped right the fuck up and dealt with it. Negative perspiration, as her mother would say. A spasm of nostalgia ran through her. What she wouldn't give just to sit and talk to her again, like when Sugar was a kid. What would her mother make of her, now? Would she be proud?
Wiping sweat away from her brow, the back of her neck stinging, she reached the top floor. Panting like a dog, she trudged down the dim hallway. Burnt out, buzzing or busted light bulbs left a path of shadows punctuated with tiny islands of dirty yellow light. The hallway smelled like old fried food and accumulated grime and smoke. Jynx (real name Jackie Gonzalez, a broken product of a long-departed white Angeleno and a Latina mother who, according to Jackie, spent most of her time at the bottom of a bottle) hated live cam work, and spent the money she made
He stood, panting, just inside the door. Tattered ropes of the alien thread hung off him in wild garlands. A deep red moss covered one side of his face, and threads grew from his mouth, the corner of his eyes, his ears. One of his arms had fused to his body, stitched with the fungus that crawled over his skin.
"Are you frightened of me? You should be," he rasped. He tripped and almost fell into a family of four. They cried out and covered their heads. A boy of about four stared up at him with wide brown eyes until his parents grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back. "It's because you recognize a dying man when you see one, isn't it!" he shouted at them.
He had come here to die, if he could; his body and mind welcomed the end. But something else—what he carried like a dark, fertile seed—had decided otherwise.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jynx's neighborhood was even worse than Sugar's: a rotting, tumbled maze of cracked pavement, stinking alleyways, and abandoned cars. The building looked like something that had died and begun to rot while still standing. Six floors of cracked sandstone the color of bone, the bottom floor choking under a mat of creeping ivy that crept up the sides of the building like an infection. Jynx lived on the top floor, above the clutching fingers of the ivy.
The buzzer was broken, so she pounded on the glass doors. Inside, the lobby sat deserted save for an old-fashioned standing ashtray and a broken-down chair upholstered in worn red velveteen. She re-dialed Jynx and got no answer. She ran back outside, looking upwards. She thought maybe she could see someone high above, looking down, but dialing the number again yielded nothing. She waved her arms, shouting, and jumped up and down. Someone across the street shouted at her to shut up. She was about to give up when she saw an Asian couple leaving the building. She managed to slide past the door just as it closed. She raced to the elevators. An out-of-order sign. Judging by the dust, it had hung there for years.
The stairwell echoed like a bad memory, and smelled like piss and dejection. She charged upward, re-dialing Jynx's number. Still no answer. She kicked aside drifts of trash until an empty syringe rattled back down the steps, then she just hopped over the piles.
The harder it was to actually get to Jynx, the more Sugar wanted—needed—to see her. Sugar told herself Jynx probably just needed money, or drugs, or take-out Chinese, or a pack of Marlboro Lights. Her mind skated around what had happened earlier—no sense in worrying about that now. She pushed the memory away. That feeling of
giving birth
extraction nagged at her, but it was tempered with pride. She had been faced with something that a few years ago would have sent her screaming into a 5150 hold at Hollywood Presby. Today? She had stepped right the fuck up and dealt with it. Negative perspiration, as her mother would say. A spasm of nostalgia ran through her. What she wouldn't give just to sit and talk to her again, like when Sugar was a kid. What would her mother make of her, now? Would she be proud?
Wiping sweat away from her brow, the back of her neck stinging, she reached the top floor. Panting like a dog, she trudged down the dim hallway. Burnt out, buzzing or busted light bulbs left a path of shadows punctuated with tiny islands of dirty yellow light. The hallway smelled like old fried food and accumulated grime and smoke. Jynx (real name Jackie Gonzalez, a broken product of a long-departed white Angeleno and a Latina mother who, according to Jackie, spent most of her time at the bottom of a bottle) hated live cam work, and spent the money she made
Similar Books
