Moisture sprung on his body and he grew cold.
“Lanya…?”
He looked around at the clearing, and then back at the blanket. She hadn’t had time to put her sneakers on!
But her sneakers were gone.
He circled the tree, frowning, looking out at the charred grass and the other trees, looking back at this one.
With orchid and chains, he was suddenly far more aware of his nakedness than when he had awakened with Lanya at the center of the scorpion ring.
She’s gone back down to the commune, he thought. But why off just like that? He tried to recall the funny quality that had been in her voice. Anger? But that’s silly. He touched the chain Nightmare had placed around his neck. That’s silly.
But he stood there a long time.
Then—and his whole body moved with a different rhythm now—he stepped toward the tree, stepped again; stepped a third time, and the side of his foot pressed a root. He leaned forward, his knee against the bark, his thigh, his belly, his chest, his cheek. He closed his eyes and stretched his chained arm high as he could and pressed his fingers on the trunk. He breathed deep for the woody smell and pushed his body into the leaning curve. Bark was rough against the juncture at penis and scrotum, rough on the bone of his ankle, the back of his jaw.
Water was running out the corners of both his eyes. He opened them slightly, but closed them quickly against distortions.
With his weaponed hand—the urge came and went, like a flash bulb’s pulsing after-image, to jam the orchid phloem deep—gently he moved his blades across the bark. Turning his hand this way and that, listening to the variated raspings, again and again he stroked the tree.
When he pushed away, the bark clung to his chest hair, his crotch hair. His ankle stung. So did his jaw. He rubbed his palm across his face to feel the mottled imprint; could see it along the flesh of his inner arm, stopping at the loops of chain to continue on the other side.
He went back to the blanket and pulled his vest from the folds. His feelings sat oddly between embarrassment and the greatest relief. Unused to either, the juxtaposition confused him. Still wondering where she’d gone, he pulled up his pants, then sat to strap on (wondering why he still bothered) his one sandal.
He began to search the blanket. He looked under the folds, lifted it to see beneath, frowned and finally searched the whole area.
After fifteen frustrating minutes, he gave up and started down the slope. It was only when he reached the door of the park rest rooms (it had been locked before but someone had broken it open so that the hasp still dangled by one screw) he remembered he had already given the notebook, last night, to Newboy.
3
The pipes yowled, started to knock.
A trickle spilled the porcelain, crawled like a glass worm through the light lozenges from the window high in the concrete. He put his orchid in the next sink and scrubbed hard at his hands, wrists, and forearms, then bent to drink. He washed some more till his bladder warmed.
He urinated into the drain in the middle of the floor. Under his stream the loose grate chattered.
At the sink he wet his fists and ground them in his armpits. Again and again he wiped his neck. He filled his cupped hands, sloshed his face, and cupped them to fill again. Bark crumbs flecked him, neck to knee. He brushed them, rubbed them, washed them away. (Pants and vest were across another sink.) He put his foot in the bowl. Water ran between the ligaments. He rubbed; the porcelain streaked black and grey. Laboriously, fingers tingling, he washed away all the dirt except what callous had taken permanently. He wet and rubbed his legs to the thigh, then began the other foot. With dripping hands he kneaded his genitals; they shriveled at cold water.
Once the trickle gave out.
A minute later, the pipes recommenced yowling. The stream, slightly stronger, started once more.
Water gathered in the hair behind his testicles, dribbled his legs. He ran his hands over his head. His hair was greasy. With his hand’s edge, he squeegeed as much as possible from arms, legs, and sides. The muddy puddle where he stood reached the drain: plonk-plonk, plonk-plonk, plonk-plonk.
Someone around in the stalls coughed.
The labored ablutions had dissolved all verbal thought. But his brain was super-saturated with the stuff of thinking. The cough—repeated, and followed by a clearing throat—set thought forming.
Someone old and ill?
He used his left pant leg to blot dry groin, belly, and back. He dressed, put the orchid in his belt, and even went outside to walk his feet dry. He put on his sandal, came back in—he had made a mess, he realized—and went around the dividing wall hiding the johns.
Not old, the guy certainly looked sick.
Cowboy boots, turned in, rested on their sides. One sole, pulled free, showed toes crusty as Kidd’s own before washing. Sitting on the toilet ring, head against the empty paper dispenser, face strung with ropy hair, bare ribs and wrinkled belly hung with chain—among them a spherical shield projector. “You okay?” Kidd asked. “You look like you’re—”
“Unnnn….” The white scorpion moved his head and, though he sat both feet on the floor, swayed like a drunken cyclist on a high wire. “Naw. Naw, I’m not sick…” The long nose cut the shaking hair. Beside the nose a rimed eye blinked its purple lid. “Who…who you?”
“Who’re you?” Kidd countered.
“Pepper. I’m Pepper. I ain’t sick.” He put his head back against the dispenser. “I just don’t feel well.”
Kidd felt a small, sharp sadness; as well, an urge to laugh. “What’s the matter?”
Pepper suddenly shook the hair from his eyes and was almost still. “Who you run with?”
Kidd frowned.
“Ain’t you a scorpion?” Pepper gestured with a hand whose nails were graphite spikes. “Guess you run with Dragon Lady.”
“I don’t run,” Kidd said. “With anybody.”
Pepper squinted. “I used to be with Nightmare’s nest.” The squint became curious. “You with Dragon Lady now? What did you say your name was?”
On a ludicrous impulse, Kidd stuck his thumb in his pocket, put his weight on one hip. “Some people been calling me the Kid.”
Pepper’s head went back the other way. Then he laughed. “Hey, I heard of you.” His gums were rimmed with rot and silver. “Yeah, Nightmare, he said something about the Kid. He was talkin’ to Dragon Lady when she was over. I heard ’em talking. Yeah.” His laugh broke; he laid his head back against the wall and moaned. “I don’t feel real well.”
“What’d you hear?” Within surprise, Kid (Kidd decided) reflected on the smallness of the city.
Pepper raised only his eyes; “Nightmare,” and lowered them. “He told her you was around, that he thought you was…” He coughed: the sound, weak, still tore things inside. His hands, upturned, shook on his thighs, shook when he coughed: “…till she went away.”
Which made fairly little sense; so he asked: “You been in here all night?”
Cough. “Well, I ain’t gonna stay out there in the dark!” Pepper’s hand gathered enough strength to indicate the doorway.
“You can find yourself a clump of brush, get inside where nobody can see. It’s pretty warm out, and it’s more comfortable than sleeping on the can. Get yourself a blanket for the night—”
“Man, there’re things out there.” At first Pepper’s face seemed seized with pain. But he was just squinting. “That’s what you do, huh? Yeah, you must be pretty brave. Like Nightmare told her.”