Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Read online

  “I like that part.”

  “It’s pretty groovy. It’s because of the weather. Otherwise they’d never fall by the lake, where it’s all so exposed. But look at the connection. The reason you notice the deer beds is because the dog tracks, or whatever, are into the same thing.

  “There’s this feeling you get every evening, extrasensory goosebumps, and all. At first it’s only a mild distraction but it begins to drive you up the wall, so you finally pick a time when you’re having trouble reading, and you go after it, even though there’s not much light left. But the person you’re with—”

  “A girl?”

  “Oh yeah, from Radcliffe. It’s her place, see? Second cousin.”

  “Oh.”

  “She says to be careful because she’s got the same feeling you have. Spooking at the shadows, like that. Anyway, you make it, and the snow under your boots almost shrieks. It hasn’t sounded quite that way before, and it really doesn’t do very much for your head. The ice starts cracking too, not splitting open or anything, just little cracks, needle-thin, from all the contraction going on. They zip all over the place, like out-of-control buzz saws, and they make this weird roaring sound, like a huge gurgle. Then something happens that’s really astounding. This deer, this young buck, breaks cover and takes off over the lake right at you. It’s as if he’s been doing it all along, like he’s running on an arc that somebody’s plotted for him, and you’re walking on your own, and that’s where they’re meant to intersect. It’s as if the whole time, you’d already been thinking that when he did it you’d take him, then and there. So you do. You bring him down, I mean.”

  “You shot him?”

  “That’s right. There are reasons for that, though, things that make it back on top of other things, salt flats on the desert, movie stars, martinis, and crap. But that’s not tied up with the wolf part yet. All I knew was how the deer went down and after the shot there was this commotion, this panic sound in the cover he’d broken out of. I saw a gray tail flashing around, right? Well, that’s where it was all at, and both of us knew the score. Only, he was gone, zoom, like that, before he had eyes to leave. I had to track him, see, screw around in all the swampy parts.”

  She made a face.

  “No, man, these are different swamps, just pine areas, depressed land, they get all the drainage is the thing.”

  “Not the icky kind?”

  “Just dark. So in about the fourth one I put up a whole family—buck, doe, and two fawns—just like that, standing there looking at me, not knowing what the hell I am.”

  “Wait now, I want to understand. The one on the lake?”

  “He was something else, baby, all hung up with other events, part of my karma, so to speak. But these guys just stood there looking; I mean, I thought they were digging me, until I heard that panic sound again. They were terrified, see? They were frozen with mortal fear, they couldn’t move their noses to sniff the breeze. They were so up-tight it wasn’t true. When I looked to see why—I’m telling you straight, now—it was like the different components of your head talking all at once. Like one part said, ‘Now what’s a German shepherd doing in the woods?’ Twisted, right? But the inflection, the syntax, was already cynical. I mean, another part knew perfectly well what it was. I’d surprised him. Coming out of the wind, and all. And by that time, figuring that he’d foxed me after the lake business, he was looking out for more deer. I mean, I was supposed to be behind him, on his other side, the way he figured.”

  “Oh, Gnossos, how could you know that?”

  “I don’t know, baby, but that’s certainly the look he was wearing. Then, to cool the whole thing, to make it seem as if he hadn’t screwed up, he arched his gums and snarled. You know those little half-moon curves of the lip that tremble and show fangs? And he started crouching, man, like the way a cat does, really coming on, only he wasn’t a cat, and he didn’t look as if he wanted to be there crouching at all. Okay now, there were three slugs and two birdshot in the gun, a Marlin, an automatic, and this other head component had already arranged for all the safety business, and the trigger, and fingers, right? It was like that, it’s true, the different ideas coming on at once. I was up-tight, myself, enough so that I missed the first two slugs, and really wide. The range was close, to make it worse, but he was moving out by then and I had to be cool; boy, did I have to be cool. The third slug took him from behind, straight from the rear, and tore through him and tumbled him over. Now close your eyes again. Tight. Now can you see him starting to tumble? Make it slow motion if you have to. He’s just been hit, right in the ass.”

  “Almost.”

  “And his front legs collapse for a minute and he skids. His nose plows up the snow ahead of him, that’s the thing.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “But then he got up. I mean, that was the insane thing. He just got up and bounded away, no limp, no dragging. And another head component was raging, oh I mean furious.” Gnossos turning over from watching the fire, moving his weight to an elbow. Kristin sensed it and again opened her eyes. “I hated him. Baby, I really hated him. He disgusted me, he made me nauseous. And there was nothing rational about it. I just wanted him dead. No, more than dead, really, I wanted his gums all squashed, and his fangs broken, and his head cut off, and his insides pulled out for the weasels, and all kinds of terrible things. But even there, it was only one component doing the talking. Another one had me off running after him doing logical things, checking out patches of blood here and there. Sometimes there were deep impressions in the snow, where he’d rested; but he always jumped up again, you could tell from the tracks, the way they started a good way off. And I followed him like that for a long time. Nausea things, blood things, tracking things, cold things; man, it was too serious. Finally, in this last swamp, everything fell on my head. I mean, it finally came to me that it was much too dark even for the pines and the sun was probably down. And no matches, and I hadn’t watched directions and no compass. And then the wolf, wounded, see, jumping around in the darkness someplace, and I couldn’t feel my toes, and my fingers hurt, and everything was a colossally mortal drag. It was all of a sudden over. Absolutely all over.”

  Gnossos pushed the hair out of his eyes and swallowed. His throat was becoming dry.

  “So at first I took it very easy and followed my tracks. But that didn’t work; it was too dark, and there was no way to tell my footprints from the patches where lumps of snow had fallen out of the trees. Anyway, I ended up in the same swamp after about an hour, and for no reason at all I fired the other two birdshot into the air. No reason. I needed them in case the wolf came by, but I fired them off anyway. Clever, right? Then, in maybe another half an hour, I couldn’t see anything. I mean, anything at all, even if it were close enough to lick my forehead, and my fingers were numb at the tips, so you begin to get the picture.”

  Kristin’s hands reached for his, but he had them tucked under his armpits. A little too tightly, he realized. She touched his shoulder instead and let the touch linger, her eyes searching his expression. But she remained silent.

  “Stomach feenies,” he said. “Loose bowels, baby, you know the scene. The smelly sensation when your own body is really capable of doing you dirt. Betraying you, man, moving out on its own, nothing to do with your will. Adrenalin has a high, that’s where it’s all at to start with, a jolt, little flash-connections it hits all the way down your nervous system. Then your lower intestines, all ready to unhinge like a trap door, make you crap in your pants. Think about that for a while; I mean, people finding you frozen, bringing you back to civilization, maybe laying you on a slab, and sooner or later, when they take off your pants, finding all this frozen shit. But then, when the adrenalin gave out, there was a calm. You become half a spectator, you watch symptoms like a doctor with a Rolleiflex. Except that you’re making the action at the same time. So I broke off a lot of spruce boughs, a dozen or so, feeling around in the dark, the soft ones. I just wanted a little pad thing,
to be off the ground, have a little distance between me and the enemy. That’s when I thought about the two sets of tracks; remember, when I’d first checked the thing out? Another one, a female, dig, coming out for a little revenge. You want to know what you think of, naturally, I mean, when there’s things jumping around that can see in the dark. You think: What part is he going to eat first? You’re wearing a parka and boots and gloves, so there’s only your face. The rest is cool, right? So what part will he start with? The nose? Chomp, no nose, just two holes, drip drip. Or your cheek, munch, like that.”

  Kristin making another face.

  “That’s right, but there’s more. The calm business, it suddenly occurs to you, has nothing to do with your being cool. It’s because you’re freezing to death. It’s just what happens. It’s another lousy symptom of the cold, another body betrayal. There’s nothing even unique about it. Everything’s numb, especially your nose. But what the hell, the wolf gets it anyway, little bit of frozen nose might give him indigestion. Okay. Next you get sleepy. So in a little while there’s nothing you can do to keep awake. There’s even a weird odor starting to move in, sort of crowding out your perceptions, but it doesn’t matter. That’s where it’s finally at. It doesn’t matter what you smell or hear or anything. You can’t be touched. Bang, it’s all over. Now close your eyes again, and I’ll tell you what you see right before you fall asleep. No, really, close them.”

  Again she did, keeping her hand at his shoulder.

  “Everything is dark, almost like any sleep-dark, only the medium isn’t just in front of you like a plane, or a wall. It goes off to both sides, it wraps right around your peripheral vision. You can actually feel it behind you; maybe under you, only the ‘under’ part isn’t too clear. Little tingles of blue at the edge, but it’s not exactly an edge. Then it’s as if you’ve just thrown a pearl into the sky.”

  She blinked.

  “You didn’t really throw it but it’s as if you did, because it came from you and it’s small and white, phosphorescent. You see a kind of minuscule meteor trail behind it as it goes. It loses inertia, though, it stops climbing, it arches over and starts to drop. All the while gleaming. And the darkness, like I said, all around you. One thing has changed, though. When you threw it, or seemed to throw it, you were standing on something. Now it’s as if you were about not to be, and everything is the pearl, and there’s nothing underneath it. It’s going to keep on falling. Underneath it, see, is an abyss.”

  There was a little sound of recognition in the back of Kristin’s throat.

  “Ah, but you hear something else. You’ve been hearing it for quite a while; in fact, even before the pearl went up. The thing is, you can’t get away from it any more, it’s become too clear, too recognizable. Just as the pearl starts to drop, baby, you dig it, it’s the sound of your name, and you open your eyes.”

  She did.

  “That’s right. You wait a little, and it comes again; but nearer this time. There’s a shaft of light poking through the trees, and now there’s no way to get away from it. The only hangup is, you think you’re making it up. Then at one point, which of all the screwy sensations to have at the time actually embarrasses you, you decide to call back. You’re sure about it by then; I mean, you recognize the voice.”

  “The girl.”

  Gnossos nodding lazily, looking into the fire. “The girl, sure. All the same, you tell her to come to you instead of the other way around, just on the off-chance you really are making it up. She thinks your head is twisted, of course, but she comes and there you are, all flat on your back on top of these spruce boughs, with your hands folded and nothing missing but the lily. Pretty funny, right? Only, there’s this uneasy expression on your face, and she’s just seen it and nobody laughs. So instead she gives you a little lush she’s thrown together in a thermos: whiskey with hot water and butter. It goes down, Piglet, believe me, like nectar and ambrosia.”

  A coal splintered and popped onto the rug. They both watched it momentarily, allowing the wool to burn, then reached for it simultaneously. Gnossos got there first but gave her his spoon and let her flick it back.

  “That’s all?” she asked.

  “There ain’t no more,” he said.

  She sighed audibly and for quite some time smoothed the material of her knee-socks against her legs. “This is stupid,” she said finally, “but it’s made me thirsty.”

  He watched the fire again, then answered, “That’s all right. You want some wine? There’s only wine.”

  “Please, yes.” Another long pause, during which neither of them moved, until they became aware of the clock ticking in the next apartment. “Is it terribly late?”

  “Yeah, probably. For curfew, I mean.”

  She took her hand from her ankle, waited a moment, and asked, “Where do you keep it?”

  “In the rucksack, just on the wall there. Everything’s in the rucksack. It’s resin wine, Greek stuff, nobody else likes it around here.”

  “I’ll like it, I think.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  She stood and crossed the room, pausing at the bag, which was fixed to the wall with Pamela Watson-May’s replaced stiletto. “I’m sorry I have to get back,” she told him. “It seems senseless. Especially tonight.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Hey, would you like a little goat cheese with that?”

  They were sitting in the stolen Anglia, the windshield wipers swishing back and forth, parked in the courtyard of Circe III, the girls’ dormitory. Kristin turned to him and asked, “What time tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know, any time’s good, figure something out. You go to classes, right? After classes sometime.”

  “Can we have dinner at your place? That is your place, isn’t it? Where we were tonight?”

  “Sure thing. Little dolma. Vine leaves stuffed with goodies. Egg-and-lemon sauce. You liked that resin wine all right?”

  “I loved the wine.”

  “Yeah,” he smiled.

  “Are you preoccupied?”

  “Who me, baby?”

  “You look so serious, even when you smile.”

  “All façade, all role. Little forehead wrinkle makes for intensity, you know.”

  Fingering the strap on his rucksack, watching the wipers, always preferred the electric kind, predictable rhythm, something to lean on. “Having to take you back: it’s a real drag.” Moving around from the wheel to watch her. “Usually it’s not, there’s no sense telling you otherwise, because I don’t get involved. But with you, man, it’s all of a sudden a drag. What can I say?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Right, what the hell.” He looked at her again, measuring the intent behind the expression, but she seemed serious enough. And still beautiful. The brass ring had been removed and her hair hung down across her cheeks. Touch it, man, what’s the matter, she’s not the Virgin Mary.

  But he couldn’t quite.

  “I’d better get in,” she said.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” putting his parka over her shoulders for the short run to the dormitory entrance. Kristin closed her hands on his fingers for an instant as he did this, then got out his side and ran with him to the door. A light was blinking on and off and couples were clustered everywhere, clutching, whispering, mooning goodnight. All in white raincoats, pastel slickers, golf hats, tam-o’-shanters, pressed jeans, chinos, red and white school scarfs. They tried to find a dry, vacant place to stand but there was none available. At the main desk a line of just abandoned coeds was signing in pathetically for the night.

  “A drag,” she said. “Okay, I’ll buy that.”

  “Tomorrow, Piglet,” he answered, to be away from the scene, “fall by any time.”

  “I’ve got a seminar,” she called after him, but he was almost through the doorway, waving back all right.

  In the courtyard a crush of student cars, headlights criss-crossing in confusion, horns blowing anxiously, brake fluid heating, drivers itching to buttonhook
the evening’s frustration with quickie tidbits. Peanut butter and jelly on rye toast. Warm apple turnover. Pizzaburger with hotsauce from Guido’s kitchen. Home to a Playmate tacked on the ceiling. Masturbation in a wet-strength Kleenex.

  He cut off a convertible, white Lincoln Capri, and the driver leaned on his horn, protesting. “Shut the fuck up,” he screamed back, a homicidal bellow.

  There came immediate silence everywhere, a number of cars stalling as if the sudden malediction had mortally stunned the little rotor-hearts in their distributors. During the pause Gnossos gunned the Anglia out of the driveway, swerved onto the dormitory lawn, and accelerated through a complex of footpaths and dormant flowerbeds. A police whistle blew in his unmistakable direction but he ignored it, continued along the middle of the sidewalk at forty-five, and watched the pedestrians fleeing to the left and right like startled giraffes. He drove into the street, between two narrowly spaced elm trees, kissing their barks with door handles, then bounced over the curb with a couple of stiff bumps and flashed across Harpy Creek Bridge, driving on the wrong side of the road.

  As he approached the desolate Dairy Queen, he cut the motor and let the car freewheel into its old space. There were only a few automobiles left, a motorcycle and two Lambrettas. Probably a six-state alarm out for the Anglia, fuzz combing the countryside. See them swarming into Mojo’s little lair with searchbeams, he-ho, what have we here? But the loft was nearly empty, coeds safely home, only the vampires for possible partners. The hairy little man with the narghile was blowing eight-bar blues in the middle of the floor, snoring between measures, being ignored. Juan Carlos Rosenbloom was unconscious on one of the burlap-covered pallets, oblivious of the vampire who tested the gold of his Saint Christopher medal with her teeth and fondled the sequins on his rodeo shirt. Drew Youngblood sat sober in the corner, reading The Foreign Affairs Quarterly, looking up as Gnossos sauntered in. A yellow, caustic haze hovered in the air, lingered among the smoke fumes like hydrogen sulfide or some yeasty reagent. Through the metal, clandestine door at the end of the brick wall came occasional, muffled whimpers and moans. Regular little Gomorrah.