Penny Dreadful Read online

  She walked down the hall and dressed before a broken mirror.

  Her pale splintered torso. Distended arms and legs, coming apart before her eyes. She watched herself fall and fall through the dark glass. She pulled on a black corset and thigh-high black boots. Hesitated, then chose a yellowed wedding dress that had been crudely altered and was now held together by safety pins and fell in a ragged hem a few inches above the tops of her boots.

  Phineas still slept. She folded his clean clothes and left them at his feet. She tried but could not write him a note. Instead she left twenty dollars on the kitchen table with a menu for the Silver Frog, a Chinese place that delivered at all hours.

  Down the creaking staircase and outside. Blue and black sky. She would take a cab down to Lodo but first she must walk a few blocks and relax. If she thought about it too much, she might cling to herself. She would be trapped, unable to play. But her breathing soon became easy, fluid. The street narrowed. And almost without apprehension, she transformed. Eve became Goo. And Goo was stronger.

  I was awake, technically. But I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was vaguely aware that someone was watching me. The skin had that familiar creepy tingle and I was naked, it seemed. On what felt like a couch. I was tucked like a dead man under a thin blanket. The material was very soft and smelled of tobacco and rain and skin. I reached between my thighs and gave my testicles a reassuring squeeze and briefly, I was twelve and just waking up in my narrow bunk bed at home with blue-and-white-striped sheets and pale blue walls around me and a whale mobile dangling overhead and my little dick cupped safely in my left hand.

  I hoped I was in Eve’s apartment.

  The couch beneath me felt like velvet. Eve had a velvet couch, dark red velvet. I remembered that much. From before. But I didn’t exactly remember arriving here. I must have walked twenty-two blocks from the Greyhound station in a drowsy sort of morphine stupor, even though I had been off that shit for six weeks or so, ever since I separated from Jude in San Francisco. It had been a long walk from the station, and stinking hot. I had decided it must be springtime. April, or possibly May. And who was watching me. It didn’t feel like Eve. She must have undressed me, though. I tried to remember her hands. Her thin strong fingers.

  I opened my eyes and stared into an unsmiling, androgynous blue-eyed face hovering a few inches from my own. The face sniffed at me.

  Human, the face said. And apparently alive.

  I sat up and waited calmly for the world to spin around. But the world appeared to be temporarily stable. Maybe this was an exaggeration, but I felt much better than I deserved to. The face grunted, pulled away from me and lit an unfiltered white cigarette.

  Can I have one of these? I said.

  Il est possible que.

  I rubbed my mouth. The face was speaking French, apparently. Languages. I had studied German in high school and been pretty bad at it. I had spent some of the past year in South America and could spit out enough Spanish to ask for breakfast and not get shot. However. I hated the French and their slippery tongue. But I shrugged this away. I had no real reason to hate the French and could barely remember why I did. It had something to do with my grandfather and a prostitute during World War II and a mouthful of stolen gold teeth. Anyway. The unsmiling face before me was fierce and beautiful. It was probably male, I thought. If it were a woman’s face I would likely be afraid of it.

  Two slender fingers were extended, floating toward me. The fingernails were painted a bright yellow. Horrible, a horrible color. These were the fingers of a corpse, a vampire. A short white cigarette appeared before my eyes like a magician’s rabbit. I took it between my lips and allowed the yellow fingers to light it for me. The smoke was bitter and harsh and I coughed painfully into my fist. As usual, I looked for black phlegm or chunks of lung in my hand and was relieved to find nothing.

  What the hell is this? I said.

  It is a Gitanes, the face said. The finest of French cigarettes.

  I’m sure. But it tastes like shit.

  The face was unamused. Then return it to me.

  Thanks, I said. The tobacco is just a little stale, maybe.

  Imagine, said another voice. The human is rude.

  Right. I was fucking surrounded, then. I sighed and glanced around. My clothes were tucked beneath my feet. They were folded. I couldn’t remember the last time my clothes were folded and somehow this made me feel incredibly lonely. I tried to compose my face but couldn’t remember exactly what it was supposed to look like. I only wanted to take a shower. I wanted to be unmolested, unfucked with. But there was a shadow crouched in the window behind me. A boy, or a very small man, in raw brown leather clothes. His hair was long and white and he wore a string of bones around his throat. The room was otherwise empty. Okay, so there were only two of them.

  Hello.

  The man-boy smiled at me, a ring of sharp teeth in shadow.

  I pushed the blanket aside and reached for my clothes. I felt hot, as if my blood was thickening. I pulled on pants and sat there, scratching my chest and not blinking. Trying to be cool, I suppose. As if I woke up on a strange couch with mutants staring at me every day. I wanted a cup of coffee. I wanted these two freaks to give me a little space.

  I rubbed at a sore mosquito bite on my left wrist, aware now that my knife was missing. I told myself to wake the fuck up.

  The unsmiling pretty face wavered before me, became solid again. A body formed behind it. A black, sleeveless shirt that appeared to be made of soft metal. Hairless, muscular arms with a few unreadable words tattooed on the pale, smooth underside of one bicep. Black pants held together by patches of rubber and electrician’s tape and boots stained with mud. The man’s hair was black and short and very soft, like the fur of a young black dog. The man was eerily calm and not exactly hostile. He was unpleasantly seductive, though. I guessed him to be about thirty years old. There was a fine web of wrinkles around his blue eyes. And those eyes were now staring obliquely at my chest, my exposed belly.

  That is exquisite work, the face said.

  What?

  The scar, he said. Where did you have it done?

  I blinked stupidly at him, smiled. It isn’t meant to be ornamental, I said.

  How did it happen?

  On a lumber crew in Oregon. I stumbled into a tree pulper.

  Ah, said the face. The wrath of Pan.

  Excuse me. Who are you?

  The face sighed. The wrong question, isn’t it?

  The man-boy began to whisper. A string of curses, or prayers. It sounded like Latin, maybe. One dead tongue or another. What the fuck. They wanted to spook me.

  But how did it really happen? said the face.

  You wouldn’t believe me.

  Try me, said the face.

  I had an organ stolen, I said. And felt a slight flush. The story embarrassed me, somehow.

  The face nodded sagely. Leggers, he said. Happens all the time.

  I frowned. This was not the reaction I was used to. Most people looked at me with a peculiar mix of disbelief, horror and amusement. Nausea, basically. One woman actually hit me in the face when I told her about it.

  Again, I said. Who are you guys?

  I am rather more interested in who you might be, said the face.

  Okay. I’m Phineas. A friend of Eve’s.

  Eve, said the face. I’m sure you mean Goo.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. Yes, I said.

  I am Chrome, said the face.

  The man-boy still whispered.

  How do you know Eve? I said. Or Goo, that is.

  I am her paramour.

  Okay. I stood up and walked into the kitchen. I was suddenly very thirsty, and wondered how long I had been sleeping. I was shivering a little, claustrophobic. I didn’t think I liked my new friends. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to. Eve didn’t want me here, maybe. And why would she? I barely knew her at all. The last time I saw her, she had just been raped with an assortment of household objects. By someone wh
o was looking for me. She had probably hoped she would never lay eyes on my sorry ass again. Then I showed up on her porch, homeless and unannounced. And after I passed out on her couch she naturally sent these two along to give me a fright.

  I opened the refrigerator and peered at its uncertain contents. A few unmarked items wrapped in brown paper. Meat, possibly. But Eve was a vegetarian, or so I thought. She was also a lesbian, the last time I saw her. Now she seemed to have a creepy Goth boyfriend with sharp yellow fingernails. His name was Chrome, for fuck’s sake. The paramour. I licked my lips and reached for a jar in the fridge that appeared to contain water. And what the hell did I know. Maybe she was bisexual. Who wasn’t a little bisexual at the end of the day, alone with the black fingers of memory and silence? The heart was a frail but curiously stubborn organ. I knew that much. This Chrome person, though. He was a nasty one. And not just dark and dreary. He was a skinny wolf lounging in the sun. The guy was for real. I sniffed at the water and my nostrils burned. It was not fucking water, okay. I leaned over the sink and took a long drink from the tap. Now my mouth felt a little better, but I was lonely.

  On the table was a menu and twenty dollars, and I felt my spirits lift a little. Eve wanted to feed me, it seemed. Therefore, she was not trying to kill me. I smiled and licked my teeth, which felt mossy. How long had I been sleeping.

  Be nice, I muttered. Be fucking nice.

  I wandered back to the living room.

  I’m going to order some food, I said. Are you guys hungry?

  Chrome sighed. He sat on the couch now, his left boot resting on the blanket I had so recently slept with. And I have to say I was fairly aroused, my senses jangling. I felt sick, too. I concentrated on the fist of hunger in my belly. I stared at Chrome and I was confident that he was well aware of the effect he had on men and women. That he saw other humans as amusing toys. Everyone who ever came near him must want to fuck him or kill him or both. He had dark swollen lips that any supermodel would die for and blue eyes like seawater in the sun. And he smelled like metal, like salt and gasoline.

  He was a tease, a torturer. Nothing more, nothing more.

  Chrome stared back at me, smiling now.

  The man-boy was busily examining the rest of my clothing. He sniffed a boot delicately, then licked the heel. He pressed the socks and shirt to his face.

  What do they smell like? I said.

  The man-boy grinned. Like a summer breeze, he said. Like chemical detergent.

  Chrome spat. I assume Goo laundered them, he said. She is such a woman, sometimes.

  I looked at Chrome’s throat and wondered where the hell my knife was.

  The man-boy grunted. The boots, however, taste of blood and feces. They taste of Louisiana. He glanced up at me. You have come from Louisiana, have you not?

  Yes, I said. I was there last week. And I laughed, weirdly pleased by his cleverness. Meanwhile, my bowels felt like they were slowly stretching.

  I lived there as a child, said the man-boy. My name is Mingus the Breather.

  Well. I rubbed at my eyes and could think of nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s nice to meet you, I said.

  Perhaps you would like us to call you Fred, said Chrome. Because you will be going to see Elvis, soon.

  What? I said.

  And then we can say: Poor Fred. He was a friend of mine.

  That’s not true, said Mingus. He won’t see Elvis, necessarily.

  I’m sorry, said Chrome with a sigh. But the man does not look well.

  Nothing has been decided, said Mingus. No one’s fate is sealed.

  Spare me, said Chrome.

  I smiled benevolently. As if I wanted to be nothing more than a gracious host. I picked up the phone and dialed the Silver Frog. My vision was swimming and I calmly ordered mu shu, dumplings, fried rice and eggdrop soup. Then hung up the phone and helped myself to another of Chrome’s nasty French cigarettes. I blew a pretty sorry smoke ring and handed the cigarette to Chrome.

  Our hands touched. Our eyes slipped over opposing flesh.

  I laughed out loud. The tension between us was absurd, cartoonish. I might as well ask the man to choose a weapon.

  Chrome merely yawned. Enchantez de faire votre connaissance.

  I pulled on my boots and stood there, feeling awkward and clumsy, as if my limbs were suddenly too large for my body. I watched as Mingus patiently repaired a hole in my freshly washed shirt with a needle and a length of black thread. It was a maddeningly slow process, sewing. No wonder I never learned to do it. My mother had been no good at it either and as a boy my socks were always full of holes. Jesus fucking. My mind was about to crash into itself. I chewed at my thumb and wished they would leave. Otherwise I was going to jump out a window any minute now. The silence rose like water, swirling. Chrome stared and stared at me.

  Do you like to hunt? said Chrome.

  What do you mean. Like ducks? I said.

  Yes, said Chrome. Exactly like ducks.

  Goo:

  She walked along a deserted street through shadows so soft she was tempted to grab at them, to pull them to her face. These were the dark sisters of clouds seen from the window of an airplane, she thought. She giggled like a foolish bird. Goo shook her head as if it were made of rags, disgusted with herself. She was thinking like Eve and she was still weak from the change, the glamour. The street she walked along did exist, she was sure of that. She had bent to touch it countless times. But the street was unnamed, and she could find it on no map of the city. In the end it didn’t matter. There was cracked pavement beneath her feet, was there not? And now there were other voices, other bodies. They moved around her, a current. She was not entirely safe, though. Goo was vulnerable still, when out alone. She touched her fingers to her mouth and the soft tip of her own tongue reassured her.

  Rain began to fall, a warm mist.

  She turned down a tiny alleyway lit by gaslights and entered the Unbecoming Club.

  You’re late, pet.

  Goo flinched. Hello, Theseus.

  Theseus the Glove stood behind the bar in a murky green suit with flared lapels and narrow trousers. He looked like a woodland mortician. He did not smile at her. He did not offer her a drink.

  The Lady Adore waits for you. And her patience grows thin.

  But there is hardly a crowd.

  Theseus nodded, staring moodily at the nearly empty club. There were several Mariners in the corner, playing knives and trumps by candlelight. Two lonely Tremblers lounged on a sofa, picking at their loose flesh. And a damp, foul-smelling Redeemer was perched on a stool at the bar, his nose nearly touching the cool yellow liquid in his glass. But there was a guttural swelling in the air outside and Goo could feel it in her fingers, her toes. The club would be full in minutes. The patrons would be hungry for her, for Goo.

  And not for the first time she felt a little carsick at the idea.

  Goo, she thought. They want Goo, not me.

  Her pale splintered torso, coming apart before her eyes and falling through dark glass.

  Eve, she thought. You stupid little bitch. She turned to the Redeemer at the bar and wondered what a few words of sympathy would cost her. My God. The man truly smelled. But he was not so pathetic and dirty as he looked at first glance. His hair stood up at freakish angles and was peppered with white. His face was long and sour, wrinkled. He looked like a pale gray prune. The man was old, maybe forty. And this was rare, she knew. The middle-aged were generally too gloomy and stubborn about reality for the game of tongues. The Redeemer looked at her now, his lips twitching into a smile. His eyes were red and scorched but still sharp and he was no wetbrain, she could see that. And he looked very familiar, he looked like someone.

  Will you hear me, she said. Will you hear a confession.

  The man sighed. As if amused. Why not, he said. I am a Redeemer.

  Yes, she said. Do I know you?

  No, no. I certainly don’t think so.

  But you look like someone, she said. What
is your name?

  Gulliver, he said. His hand was dry, with blunt fingernails.

  Hello, she said. My name is Goo.

  The Redeemer sipped delicately from his glass of Pale. He wiped at his lips, which were thin and rubbery and morbidly prehensile in appearance. His mouth was ugly but no doubt fantastic when it came to oral sex, she thought. A man could be very popular with lips like that. He nodded and rolled his eyes as if he could hear her thoughts and finally said, Well? What is your problem?

  Goo sighed and glanced around, nervous and hating herself. Theseus didn’t seem to be listening but she could never be sure. He seemed to be anywhere and everywhere at once. I’m not happy, she said.

  Interesting, he said. I don’t hear that one often.

  Goo whispered, now. Sometimes I want to leave the game.

  But why? he said.

  I used to have a life, a dayworld life.

  The Redeemer raised his furry eyebrows. Do you drink the Pale?

  Rarely, she said.

  He grunted. Good for you.

  I love it here, she said. But I hate it, too.

  The Redeemer was gazing at her with pity in his eyes and she wondered if he was thinking of her tongue. His eyes were gentle, perhaps. But the whites of them were laced with blood. Careful, she needed to be careful and now the Redeemer sighed. Who am I speaking to? he said.

  Goo, she said. But she knew she sounded doubtful and he just stared at her.

  This is getting silly, he said.

  What do you mean?

  Eve, he said. Don’t you know me?

  It was hard to swallow, to breathe. She wanted to get away from this man.

  It’s okay, he said. You can be two people at once.

  No, she said. I don’t want that.

  Disappear, he said softly. Walk outside and disappear from the game.

  Her left eyelid began to twitch, to blink uncontrollably. And she felt sick, she felt dizzy because that only happened when Eve was nervous, when she was paranoid and sleepless.