“Hey Nick,” Malcolm’s over-shoulder grin, theatrical, did he think this was a movie or what. “Your watchdog’s here.”
I answered neither. What was there for me to say? I felt as if I were moving through water, a vast and calm preoccupation that in its way shielded me, protected me from the emotions of others, from the facts, and facets, of life. Such as now. The hell with them all. Except maybe Vanese. “He’s doing a death mask of my face.”
“Does Shrike know about this?” Randy’s face was turning red. Vanese gave him a look of secret-feminine scorn, walked past us all to make herself instant coffee. She wore a pair of strange delicate earrings, flat silver loops that seemed to drip and twist in some corrosive dance. I went to her, touched one gently.
“These are nice.”
“Randy made ’em.” She touched the same one I had, set it swinging. “Reminds him of the Funhole,” she said. “Nicholas,” lowering her voice, soft urgency, “you didn’t let Malcolm talk you into anything, did you? I mean I know Shrike, Nakota whatever, I know she was here, but she’s got her own agenda, you know what I’m saying?”
I most certainly knew what she was saying.
“So what happened, when he got here?”
“We showed him the video.”
She stared at me, past surprise, she even looked as if she might laugh, from sheer appreciation of our brazen idiocy, then shook her head, shrugged, and stirred her coffee. “It’s your ride,” she said. “Hang on.”
Glaring at each other, Randy and Malcolm traded bon mots, none of which I heard, instead hearing not so much below as through everything else the, what, the voice of the Funhole, the sound of its workings, as music permeating their voices, the room, like water soaks a fabric yet leaves the fabric itself intact. I stood, head bent, and it must have seemed as though it was their argument I heard, that I cared who did what, that in fact I had any say in the matter at all. Everyone else seemed to think so. What was next? Franchise rights? Funhole Inc.? Didn’t anybody understand what was going on here?
And of course stupid bastard Malcolm, “Is that right?” to Randy’s ever-reddening face and moving to turn on the video again, to prove his point, stupid point, and as if abruptly waking I moved too, faster than they could react, and pushed his hand away.
“Leave it,” I said.
My motion had momentarily surprised them into stillness, maybe they had all forgotten I was there, but Miss Incubus was first to bristle to de; fense, turning on me with what she no doubt thought of as a streetgirl’s stare; Main Street, maybe. Anytown, USA. Brusque: “What’s your problem?”
Malcolm laughed. “Believe me, we don’t have time for that.”
“Look,” and back it came again, that underwater feel, but did you know, I thought, that I can swim? “Look, you don’t know what you’re fucking around with,” I said to her, ignoring the prepracticed stare, they had all of them seen far too many movies. “You really don’t.”
“You know,” she said, pushing right up into my face, “you’re nothing but promises, you know that? Bullshit promises, I think.”
“You, think? Jury’s still out,” and Vanese snickered as red lab coat turned on her and she gave him a look that was the real edition of what’s-her-name’s counterfeit glare, just as good as a pinch in the crotch and maybe better since it shut him up before he could speak, which is usually the best time, and under it all like a muttered secret that sound in my head, rushing like water but like no water I could finally navigate for long, swimmer or no.
“Listen,” I said, including them all in my gaze, even I could hear my desperation, “this is really turning out to be—”
The door clicked open, and in the hall’s cold-blown rectangle Nakota, one hand on hip: “Well well,” stepping in to take over, “looks like the gang’s all here.”
Oh boy. Waiting to see what she would do, and not alone, I stood in that forking rush of water, one half of me almost hurtfully aware of the temper of the room, the other half dreamy-drowned in the flow, the surge, it was in the end a mercy that they could not hear it too. Nakota poured herself some mineral water, walked through half conversations to turn on, of course, the TV.
“Nakota,” I said, “don’t.”
“Why not?” mild burlesque surprise.
“You know damn well why not,” said Vanese, with the deep and instant irritability that only Nakota seemed able to rouse in her, “you stupid rabble-rousing bitch, the only one you ever think of is yourself.”
“Shrike,” Randy’s hand, palm-up like some vexed saint’s, “really, Nicholas’s right. You shouldn’t really—”
“Screw you all,” she said, and tapped the tape to ON.
Well. I guess she told us, in fact her specialty, that pale poker face one large suppressed sneer. Rapt and stupid Malcolm, sitting fast beside her, his trio ringed behind him. Randy just as rapt and Vanese abstaining but then nobody could abstain for long, could they, with that witch light in the room? Of course not. Of course not. THey sat like kids, open mouths, apparently Malcolm’s all-day exposure had done nothing to dim the cold gee-whiz, they sat like rubes at a seance and one of the trio said, “God damn,” and as if that was my cue I got up, obeying my own wishes for once, that riverine voice a carpet as I walked out of the room and heard Malcolm behind me, tardy distracted petulance: “Hey, Nick, where’re you going?” and half of Randy’s shitty reply, and nothing else because here they came, all of them. Call me the Pied Piper.
I ignored them when they talked, nothing mystic, I just didn’t feel like answering. By the time we hit the door they had stopped entirely, all I heard was the churchly shuffle of their feet, basilica Funhole. We stood in the hall, our merry octet, three of them watching Malcolm who with the other three watched me.
I know what you want, I thought. But you’re not gonna get it.
“You,” to the Malcolmettes, “get the fuck out of here.” They stared at me as if I had just become miraculously stupider than I was, which I had to agree would have been some feat, but then I was smarter than they were, wasn’t I, I knew exactly what was behind door number one. “I mean it,” no such warning in my voice, as flat in fact as my determination that they must not, not, be allowed to see it, not in fact be allowed near it, I was no goddamned ringmaster after all, was I? The video was bad enough, wasn’t it?
“Go back upstairs,” I said, “and watch your movie. Go on,” and paradox Nakota turned on them and said, “Are you deaf?” with all the menace I lacked, backing them off a pace or two but that was obviously as far as we were going to get without a gun. I looked first at Randy, whose face was as blank as my voice, and then Vanese. Who shrugged.
’It’s their funeral,” she said.
Nakota laughed: “Hold the flowers,” and slipped past me into the storage room, the three left behind instantly craning, what had been a square room full of nothing was now the most, the only important place to be; strange the workings of denial, you can see it in a schoolyard clique, which this silly scene very much resembled. Malcolm next, fearless leader without so much as a glance behind, then Randy and Vanese and me last of all, one sweaty hand closing the door.
On the other side, “Watch this door,” I said to Randy, and Vanese nodded.
Kneeling, self-conscious now, before the lip, untied my badly made bandage with my teeth. I heard Malcolm’s stage whisper, the whip Vanese retort. Randy’s distant grumble. And strongest of all beside me, the astringent odor of Nakota’s devotion, the cold heat of her impatience, urging me on to her kind of action, let the games begin.