Blackbirds Page 3

She screws a cigarette between her lips, and starts flicking the lighter.

  "You mind if I smoke?"

  "I do. You can't smoke in here."

  She frowns. She could really use a smoke. Scowling, she puts the lighter away but leaves the cigarette dangling from her lips.

  "Whatever. Your truck. Anyway. The black eye, that's what you want to talk about."

  "Did one of those boys give it to you? We could call the police."

  She snorts. "Does it look like either of those frat-fucks gave me a black eye? Please. I can handle myself. No, this shiner was dutifully applied by my boyfriend."

  "Your boyfriend hits you?"

  "Not anymore. I'm done with scum like him. That's why I don't want to go back to the motel, see? Because that prick is back there."

  "You left him."

  "I left the shit out of him. Get this. He's lying there on the bed, all smug and satisfied after popping me in the eye and then popping his cookies – at least he didn't pop his cookies in my eye, am I right? – and the dumb fucker falls asleep. Ooh. Bad move. He starts snoring like a drunken bear with sleep apnea, and I think, it's over. I'm tired of getting pushed around. Tired of the cigarette burns, tired of the belt and the golf cleats and all that shit."

  Louis stares dead ahead, like he's not sure what to make of the story. She continues.

  "So I grab a pair of handcuffs – sorry for the sordid details, but the jerkoff likes to get kinky and has a real power-trip fetish. I take the handcuffs, and gently, so as not to wake him, I handcuff his one wrist to the bedpost." Miriam pulls out the cigarette, twirls it betwixt thumb and forefinger like a cancer baton. "I take the key, and I go chuck it into the toilet, then I pee on the key for good measure. But that's not all – as they say on TV, wait, there's more."

  Miriam, it must be said, loves to lie. She's very good at it.

  "I took one of those little plastic bears, the ones filled with honey? Again, I know, kinky details, but the guy liked foodplay. Whipped cream on my tits, a lollipop in my mouth, a hunk of broccoli up his ass, whatever. So I take the honey bear, and I drizzle the sticky golden goo all over his–"

  She makes a swirly motion over her crotch region with her index finger. For added emphasis, she whistles.

  "Christ," Louis says.

  "Not done yet. When I blew out of there, I left the door wide open. Windows, too. I figure whatever kind of animal wants to come in and snack on his Honey Nut Cheerios, so be it. Flies, bees, a stray dog."

  "Christ," Louis says again, his jaw set firm.

  "Made some Pooh Bear very happy, I hope." She clears her throat, then sticks the cigarette back between her lips. "Or some homeless guy."

  For the first minute, Louis doesn't say anything. The trucker just sits, stewing. His shoulders tense. He looks pissed. Does he know that she just lied? Is this when he slams on the brakes, puts her through the windshield because she's not wearing her seatbelt, then rapes her broken body on the soaked macadam?

  Bam. He pounds his hand against the steering wheel.

  Miriam doesn't have anything smartass to say. A slow realization creeps up on her: I can't take this guy. He'll crush me like a bug.

  "Goddamn assholes," he says.

  She narrows her eyes. "What? Who?"

  "Men."

  "You're gay?" It's the way he says it.

  He pivots his head, levels his gaze at her. "Gay? What? No."

  "I just thought–"

  "Men don't know how good they have it. Men are basically… children. Pigs."

  "Pig children," Miriam offers, a quiet addendum.

  "We never see what's in front of us. The women that are kind enough to be in our lives, we just treat them like garbage. It's nonsense. Plain nonsense. And men who hit women? Who take advantage of them? Who don't just fail to appreciate what they have but they outright… abuse what's been given to them? My wife – when she left me… I didn't fully appreciate…"

  He hits the steering wheel again.

  That's when Miriam decides she likes this man.

  It's the first time she's felt even the tiniest bit inclined toward anyone in… years. Something about him: sweet, sad, damaged. She knows who he reminds her of (Ben, he reminds you of Ben), but she doesn't want to go there, and she shoves that thought back into the darkest corners of her brain.

  And then, she can't help it. She has to know. She has to see. It's a compulsion. An addiction. She offers her hand.

  "My name's Miriam."

  But he's still fuming. He doesn't take the proffered hand.

  Shit, she thinks. C'mon. Grab it. Shake it. I need to see.

  "Miriam's a pretty name," he says.

  Hesitantly, she withdraws her hand. "Nice to meet you, Lou."

  "Louis, not Lou."

  She shrugs. "Your truck, your name."

  "I'm sorry," he offers. "I don't mean to get pissy. It's just…" He waves it off. "Been a long couple weeks. Just coming down off a backslide from Cincinnati, and have to head down to Charlotte to pick up another load."

  He takes a deep breath through his nose, like he's trying to ratchet up his courage.

  "Thing is, I've got a few days down there before I grab the next haul. I don't get too many days off, I usually go straight through, but… I was thinking. Maybe you'll be down in that area. It's only an hour south of here. And maybe, if you are in that area, and you have a spare night, well. We could do dinner. A movie."

  She puts out her hand. "It's a deal."

  He doesn't grab it, and Miriam wonders how bold she'll have to be. Reach up and tweak his ear? She only needs skin to skin to see…

  But then he smiles and takes her hand in his own, and –

  The lantern room is encased in glass. One window pane is broken out, and the wind howls madly through the gap. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Gray light filters in through the dirty windows and illuminates Louis's face, a face encrusted in dried blood.

  Somewhere, the sound of the ocean.

  Louis is bound to a wooden chair next to the lighthouse lantern. A dizzying array of optics sits above his head. Brown extension cords affix his wrists to the chair arms, and another pair holds his feet to the chair legs. His head is held fast by black electrical tape wrapped around his forehead, fastening his skull to base of the lighthouse's pedestal clockworks.

  A tall, thin man approaches. He is entirely hairless. No eyebrows. No eyelashes, even.

  In one of his smooth, spidery hands he holds a long fillet knife.

  The man admires the blade for a moment, though it is pocked with rust and smells not-too-faintly of fish guts.

  "Get away from me," Louis stammers. "Who are you? Who are you people? I don't have what you want!"

  "That no longer matters," the man says. He has an accent. Nebulous. European.

  The man moves preternaturally fast. He stabs Louis in the left eye with the knife. It does not go to the brain, and only ruins the eye: a choice the hairless man has made. Louis screams. The attacker withdraws the knife. It makes a sucking sound as he extracts it.

  His thin lips form a mirthless smile.

  He pauses. He admires.

  Louis's good eye darts to somewhere over the man's shoulder.

  "Miriam?" Louis asks, but it's too late. The man stabs him again, this time through the right eye, and this time, all the way to the hilt. All the way to the brain.

  FOUR

  The Million-Dollar Question

  She can still hear the sound as the knife pulls out of the one eye and the sound as it plunges into the other. And him speaking her name… Miriam? It bounces around her skull like a ricocheting bullet.

  Her hand feels like it's touching a hot stove. She gasps and jerks, pulling it away.

  Her head slams into the passenger side window. Not enough to crack it, but enough where she sees stars. The unlit cigarette drops from her lips and tumbles into her lap.

  "Do you know me?" she asks, blinking away the white spots. Louis, of course, looks confused.


  "I don't know if anybody knows anybody," he says.

  "No!" she barks, sharp, too sharp, and shakes her head. "I mean, have we met? We don't know each other?"

  Louis still has his hand hanging out there from where she grabbed it, but now he slowly pulls back, like any fast movement might cause him to lose it.

  "No. We don't know each other."

  She rubs her eyes. "Do you know anyone named Miriam?"

  "I don't think so. No."

  He's watching her now like she's a rattlesnake. He's got one hand on the wheel and the other hanging free – just in case the rattlesnake decides to bite, she thinks. He probably thinks she's on drugs. If only.

  Shit. She knows how this adds up. This is a bad equation. Her guts roil.

  "Stop the truck," she says.

  "What? The truck? No. Let me get to a–"

  "Stop the goddamn truck!" This time it's a hoarse scream. She doesn't mean it to be, but that's how it comes out. And the reminder of how little control she really has only furthers the feeling that she is weightless, dizzy, spiraling into a yawning black hole.

  Louis is kind enough not to punch the brake. He eases it in, slow. The hydraulics whine. He brings the truck over to the shoulder and lets it idle.

  "Okay. Calm down," he says, putting his hands out.

  Miriam grits her teeth. "That's the worst thing you can ever say to somebody who's not calm. It's just gas on a fire, Louis."

  "I'm sorry. I'm not… trained in this."

  This? He means dealing with crazy people. Which she is, probably.

  "I'm not trained in being this way, either." Though, she thinks, I'm getting better with it. Week by week, month by month, year by bloody year. One day, it'll be water off a duck's back.

  "What's wrong?" he asks.

  "That's the million-dollar question."

  "You can tell me."

  "I can't, I really can't. You wouldn't–" She takes a deep breath. "I have to go."

  "We're in the middle of nowhere."

  "It's America. Nowhere is nowhere. Everywhere is somewhere."

  "I can't let you do that."

  She fishes the cigarette from her lap and, with trembling hands, tucks it behind her ear. "You're a very nice man, Louis. But you will let me get out of this truck, because you know now that I am off my bloody rocker. I see the look on your face. Already you're thinking, she's not worth the trouble. And I'm not. I'm a curse. I'm an infected boil on your neck. Best thing I can do for you is get away from you. Best thing you can do is lance the boil."

  Grabbing her messenger bag, she pops the door.

  "Wait!" he says.

  She ignores him and hops out onto the cracked and crumbling highway shoulder. Her feet plant into a murky puddle, soaking through.

  Louis slides over onto the passenger side and pops the glove box.

  "Wait, here," he says, going through the compartment. He pulls out a white envelope, and as he cracks it, she sees what waits within:

  Money. A thick wad of it, all Andrew Jacksons.

  With a callused thumb and forefinger he peels out five bills, then thrusts them at her.

  "Take it."

  "Go fuck yourself."

  He looks hurt. Good. She needs to hurt him. She hates doing it. But it's like medicine. Everybody needs their medicine. Tastes bad. Does wonders.

  "I have plenty."

  It's the last thing she wants to know. It makes him a mark. She can't help but picture him as roadkill now, and her picking at his exposed guts with a vulture's beak.

  "I'm not a charity case," she says, even though she knows she is.

  His hurt has already scabbed over and become something else. He's angry now. He grabs her hand, hard enough to force her but not so it hurts, and presses the money into her palm. "It's a hundred dollars."

  "Louis–"

  "Listen. Listen. Walk the way we were driving. It'll be a halfhour or so. You'll find a motel down that way, a motor lodge, it's like a… a series of bungalows. There's a gas station and a bar. You keep walking, you'll find it. But get off the road. You don't know what kind of weirdoes are out here at one o'clock in the morning."

  "I know what kind of weirdoes are out here," she says, because she's one of them. Miriam takes the money. She looks into Louis's eyes: He's trying to be firm, but even now the anger is melting, the scab drying up and flaking away.

  "You going to be okay?" he asks.

  "I'm always okay," she says. "You best forget you ever met me."

  Miriam pulls away from him and walks off. Head down. Don't look back, dummy.

  She needs a drink.

  INTERLUDE

  The Interview

  "The first rule," Miriam says, "is that I only see what I see when skin touches skin. If I touch your elbow and you're wearing a shirt, then nothing. If I wear gloves – and I used to, because I didn't want to bear witness to all this craziness – then it prevents the vision from happening."

  "That must be horrible," Paul says. "I mean – sorry. I just mean, over and over again, you can never get close to somebody, I mean–"

  "Relax, Paul. I can take it. I'm a big girl. But this speaks to rule number two. Or maybe number three. I should really write them down. The rule is, it's one and done. I get the vision once. It doesn't keep happening over and over again – though, I'll tell you, some of the really bad ones will keep a girl up at night." She pauses and tries not to think of any. In her mind's eye, so much blood, so much suffering, so many last moments play out. Theater of the macabre, the curtain forever open. Dancing skeletons. Chattering skulls.

  "So, what is it that you see?" Paul asks. "You're like, what, an angel floating above the scene? Or are you the person who's dying?"

  "An angel. That's funny. Me with my wings." She rubs some sleep boogers from the corner of her eye. "This speaks to the next rule. I'm the impartial observer. My viewpoint hovers above the whole thing, or maybe off to the side. I'm privy to certain details but not others. I know how the person tap-step-shuffles off this mortal coil, for one. Intimately. Death isn't always obvious, you know – a guy clutches his head and falls over, could be a lot of things. But I know what it is. I know if it's a brain tumor or a blood clot or a bumblebee that's burrowed its way into his cerebral cortex.

  "I also know when. Year, day, hour, minute, second. It's a red pushpin stuck in the great timeline of the universe, and I can see it. The pushpin I can't see, oddly, is where. The location remains a mystery. Outside visual cues, of course. I see a chick's head explode in the parking lot of a McDonald's with street signs at the corner of Asshole Boulevard and Shitbird Lane and she's wearing a 'Don't Mess with Texas' T-shirt, then I can use my Sherlock Holmesian deductive reasoning to figure out that pesky riddle. Or I just use Google. I fucking love Google."

  "So, how long?"

  "How long what?"

  "How long – er, how much do you see? One minute? Five minutes?"

  "Oh. That. Well. I used to think it was a minute, right? Sixty seconds on the clock, go. Turns out, not so much. I seem to get whatever time I'm supposed to get, if that makes any sense. A car accident might happen over the course of thirty seconds. A heart attack or whatever could unfold over a five-minute period. I see what it lets me see. The weird part is, even if I see five minutes in my mind's eye, it doesn't take more than a second or two in real life. I'll space out, and then I'm back. It's certainly jarring."

  Paul frowns, and Miriam can tell that, despite the thing with his uncle, he doesn't quite believe her. Not that she blames him. She finds times, even still, that she herself doesn't buy it. The easier answer is that she's just bugfuck nuts. A real moonbat. A shithouse spider.

  "You're witness to the last minutes of human lives," he says.

  "Well-put," Miriam says. "Lots of human lives. You know how many people you bump into on the subway during summer? Everybody in short-sleeves? It's all elbows, Paul. Death and elbows."

  "So, why don't you stop it?"

  "Stop what? Death?"
r />   "Yeah."

  Miriam chuckles, the sound of I Know Something You Don't. The sound of irony, that mirthless cad, expressed. She tips the bottle to her lips but does not yet drink.

  "Why don't I stop it from happening," she ruminates over the lip of the bottle. "Well, Paul, that right there is the last – and cruelest – rule."

  She sucks back a cheek-bulging mouthful of Johnny Walker and explains.