The Velvet

becoming Rachel

The velvet warms and binds. What is the velvet. Jude loves the word. She throws it like spare change. The velvet is twilight, the gloaming. The velvet is code for heroin. Jude might refer darkly to her pussy as the velvet. The velvet is her subconscious and mine. The velvet is childhood memories. The lost time of alien abduction. The velvet is euphoria. Dread. The velvet is sleep that plays at death.
-phineas poe

New Orleans disappears behind her. She remembers to take the lithium and tomorrow she will have moments of clarity. She doesn’t know what to do about the car. It shakes like a leaf and spews fluids and the dashboard lights are dead. It scares her to drive after dark because she can’t see the speedometer. She thinks the car was given to her. She examines the ring of keys. One for the ignition, the other for the trunk. The engine is in the trunk and for some reason this disturbs her. A twist of leather on the silver ring, but no house keys. She wonders did she steal this car.

Public radio and the hiss of insects.

The voice of someone she used to fuck. Endlessly deconstructing Sylvia Plath. She gassed herself while the children ate bread soaked in milk. Her skin bright as a Nazi lampshade. Miles and then miles.

Not so easy to disappear. 

The voice refers to the contextual death of another.

She sleeps with doors unlocked, the windows down. She feels safe. The car will never make it to Memphis. She has a baby of her own. He would be two, now. She assumes it was a lover that made her run, a shattered boy with red mouth. A young girl eating a plum in the rain.

Always she is running from someone.

The sky is fleshy, the color of lips. Sally wakes to the hiss of traffic. The seats are slick and cold with dew. She leaves the keys in the ignition and starts walking. A field of dead wheat. She wishes the sun would come out. The wheat surrounds her. It blurs her vision, becomes powder in her hands. She turns to look back and the path she has left appears random, violent. She begins to run, her eyes burning. If she falls she will surely die in the wheat. Then an access road, trailing away like black ribbon. Her tongue is strange and misshapen.

Her memories are encrypted, binary. The word she searches for is dementia. Her hands are brittle, hanging from the wheel. The skeleton of a bird’s wing.

Headlights rise and swallow her.

Sally has an irrational fear of the word panties. Of heat ripples on the highway. She looks up and the river falls into an unseen chasm. She tells herself this is only the curve of the earth, the trajectory of its orbit. The sun is cleverly hooded, like the eye of a corpse.

The sun is blood orange.

She is hungry and her menstrual cycle is irregular. She wants to find a mirror, to see if the skin around her eyes is yellow. Aliens and dead souls have yellow skin, she is sure of that. And she doesn’t really care to see the pale web of scars around her left eye. Deformity is too easily memorized. Sally stares at the road until she can’t feel her legs. She veers abruptly into a field of cotton and crouches to pee in the dust. As she nears the city the sadness in her resumes, like a pulse.

She smells urine and touches herself.

The edge of the French Quarter. Late summer and bitterly hot. She is thirsty and walks into the first lighted doorway. There is sawdust on the floor. In a shadowy corner are a pinball machine and a jukebox, apparently broken. Two drunks sluggishly hammer and kick at the machine. They stand there panting, staring dumbly at her in the doorway. The sun is behind her and Sally wonders if they can see through her thin dress. The drunks nudge each other and continue to abuse the jukebox. Sally steps to the bar and asks for iced tea. The bartender is a large woman with bright blue eyes. She is slumped on a stool behind the bar, staring at an untouched jelly doughnut on a plate before her. Her eyes flash like two blue insects and soon she produces a tall glass with a twist of lemon at the lip.

I added you a drop of gin, she says.

Thanks. You have beautiful eyes.

The bartender is embarrassed, briskly wiping the bar with a rag. Her eyes don’t avoid the scars on Sally’s face, but they don’t linger there. Sally puts two crushed dollars on the bar, the very last of her money.

There is a brief silence as the drunks take a break from pounding the jukebox. They rest and smoke cigarettes. One of them is bearded, the other is not. Otherwise they are identical. The one with baby face whispers to the machine, you’re a cunt. You’re mother’s a cunt. He spits on the jukebox, then resumes his attack. The second drunk shakes his head.

Escalate, he says. Got to escalate, give that cunt a little nuclear war.

This is nothing, says Bob. This is like fucking Panama.

What’s your name, little one?

Sally flinches. The bartender is peering at her, smiling.

Rachel, she says. My name is Rachel.

And you live around here?

Sort of.

Are you okay?

I think so.

You don’t look it.

How do I look?

The bartender hesitates. Your arms are bleeding, she says. For one thing.

Sally examines her arms, which are indeed scratched and bleeding.

I’m just tired, she says.

The bartender shrugs. You call me Dolores. And holler if you want anything.

Sally sips the tea cautiously and the gin is like metal to her tongue. She turns to watch the drunks, who still pound and curse at the jukebox.

I guess your jukebox is broken, says Sally.

It’s unplugged, says Dolores. I don’t have the heart to tell them.

Bob notices Sally looking at them and nudges his partner.

They grin at her, their mouths fat and wet.

Sally swallows more of the tea, then touches her lips with a napkin.

She turns away.

Are you sure you don’t want something for those cuts? says Dolores.

Sally stares at her. You don’t even know me.

No, says Dolores.

How can you care?

I guess I don’t.

Dolores is flustered. She’s reluctant to offend the cripple. Sally has seen this before, in the rare eyes of sympathetic cops and social workers.

Do you want half a jelly doughnut? says Dolores.

Would you mind, says Sally. Would you put your arms around me?

Dolores hesitates.

Sally spreads her arms wide and closes her eyes. Dolores comes around the bar and her heavy red hands pull her close and she can hear another heartbeat. Dolores could crush her like an egg, but Sally feels weirdly safe. For a moment the sadness is blunted.

Oh my, says the bearded drunk.

Bob junior, says Dolores. Shut your face.

You kidding? says Bob Jr. I dream about this shit.

Sally swivels on her stool, remotely conscious that her dress has slipped to mid thigh.

You’re delicious, says Bob Jr. You’re sweet as pie.

He steps closer. Sally trembles and wonders if this is rage.

Thank you, Bob.

I’m Bob junior. He points at the other drunk. That one’s Bob.

Is he your father? says Sally.

They’re twins, says Dolores. One of them wasn’t enough, apparently.

Bob is three minutes older, says Bob Jr.

Sally concentrates and her shoulders simply stop shaking. As if she has flipped a switch. Dolores comes around the bar and goes to plug in the jukebox. Bob shakes his head and laughs.

You like a model, or what? says Bob Jr.

Sally frowns. No, she says.

Bob ambles over to stand alongside his brother. Sally smiles at them and reaches to tie her hair back in a ponytail. Her scars are more visible this way. Bob Jr. recoils violently, while Bob develops a sudden coughing fit. Dolores feeds a quarter into the jukebox and Willie Nelson begins to croon, his voice full of rust. The brothers barely notice.

I dance at the Velvet, says Sally.

You’re a stripper, says Bob Jr.  With that face?

Bob grunts. No, shit. Your face is a fucking freak show.

The jukebox abruptly fails. Willie Nelson ominously slips into a drunken warble, then dies.

Sally puts her drink down, her lips wet. She doesn’t know what to say. She is amused to think that anyone might be interested in a stripper’s face. Dolores is not amused, however. She offers to fetch her husband’s shotgun. Bob and Bob Jr. might just learn some manners, she says. If they spent the weekend picking buckshot out their asses, for instance.

It’s okay, says Sally.

The brothers shuffle away, their faces pink and confused and Sally wishes she had a few dollars, if only to buy them a beer or two. It must be thirsty work, beating a machine to death like that.

Sally walks in circles until she comes to the black apartment. Everyone calls it that. The wall behind the television is painted black. She’s not sure who lives there now, and Tripper doesn’t look up when she comes in. He’s eating a bowl of cereal and watching a cartoon on television. His face is apelike and he literally hoots at the TV. There is something always wrong with his mouth, as if it’s numb from the dentist. The milk drools from his lips, a damp cornflake stuck to his chin like a smudge. Sally sits down on the couch. She takes her shoes off and folds her bare feet beneath her.

Anyone home? she says.

The Penguin, he says. That’s who.

Sally looks at him. Tripper is not much older than  her.  Thin limp mustache. He wears stained white pants with no shirt. Eyes close together and small. His hair is wispy, prematurely gray. Most of his teeth are gone. His mother drank when he was in utero. When he has money he spends it on crystal meth. Tripper grunts and swipes at his mouth with his clubbed left hand. The hand is fingerless and reminds her of a child’s foot. His other hand is muscular, callused.

Who? she says.

The Penguin, he says. That’s me, huh.

Your name is Tripper.

People call me the Penguin. Lately.

You shouldn’t let people make fun of you.

Tripper’s face brightens. Yuh got any cheese?

Cheese? says Sally.

You know. The white, says Tripper. The crystal.

Meth? she says. I never heard anyone call it cheese.

Huh. Now yuh have.

Sally offers him a thin smile and wonders what time it is.

Anyway, says Tripper. Do yuh?

What, says Sally.

Got a little cheese for the Penguin.

Are you a circus act? she says.

Tripper gazes at her, his eyes round and blank. She might as well have asked him the theory of relativity. The door slams and Littlejohn walks in, the heels of his boots ringing loud. He grins broadly.

As I breathe, he says. An angel has fallen.

Hello, she says. I’m back.

Are your wings broken?

She looks away, at the window. Not quite, she says.

Littlejohn is part Cherokee, or so he says. Black hair, perfect skin. He scares the hell out of her. He used to be a paratrooper, in the army. He wears a long torn white shirt, unbuttoned and swirling about him like a cape. Black jeans and ravaged motorcycle boots. Littlejohn smokes a mixture of tobacco and weed from a carved pipe. He sits crosslegged on the floor, blocking the television. The flicker of cartoon light like a halo.

Tripper whines.

Hush, boy. I have something for you.

Littlejohn reaches into his coat, pulls out two cans of spray paint. Tripper giggles and makes a whooping noise. He lunges, grabbing at the cans. Littlejohn gives him one and Tripper pulls a filthy red bandanna from his pocket. He happily sprays paint into the rag and presses it to his nose, breathing deeply. Sally moves to the far end of the couch. She watches Littlejohn carefully. She always feels like a rabbit around him. Afraid to look at him, afraid not to.

Nice, she says.

Littlejohn lights his pipe and smoke drifts blue against the black. He nods at Tripper.

It’s his birthday.

Really, she says.

He’s eighteen. He’s a man today.

Tripper has red paint smeared on his mouth and face. A string of snot catches the light.

A man, she says.

Littlejohn blows a smoke ring, lets the air bleed.

Sally, he says. What do you want from me?

She feels the color rise in her cheeks and hates herself for blushing.

Nothing, she says. Really.

I know you don’t like me, he says.

Sally shrugs, helpless. I do. I like you.

What the fuck do you want?

I need help. I need to get out of town.

Money, he says. He smiles and smoke twists away from his teeth.

The tickle of goosebumps.

Money, she says. Beside her Tripper writhes, panting.

What would you do with my money? says Littlejohn.

I could fix my car, she says.

You don’t have a car.

Yes, she says. I do. A little blue car.

Did you steal it?

No. I don’t remember.

Where would you go in this stolen car?

Anywhere. Back to Memphis.

Littlejohn smiles.

No one will love you, he says. No one will ever love that face.

His eyes paralyze her. She breathes evenly and concentrates on the sadness in her chest. She glances at Tripper, who is staring at his strange left hand as if he’s never seen it before.

Littlejohn shrugs. Might as well go home to your idiot husband.

He’s not my husband, she says.

Neither here nor there. Littlejohn yawns as if bored.

I’ll do anything, she says.

Don’t you have a job?

Sally is silent. On the television, gameshow contestants hop about in apparent ecstasy.

You were dancing at the Velvet, he says.

I was. I quit three weeks ago.

Why?

The men depressed me, she says. They were like ferrets.

Littlejohn points his pinky finger at Tripper.

It’s the Penguin’s birthday, he says.

So what?

He never had a woman.

Sally closes her eyes. The sadness warm and deep. She lets herself sink. She slides next to Tripper and sniffs him, doglike. He smiles at her.

He’s a child, she thinks.

Hello, Sally.

Hello, Tripper.

I’m the Penguin.

With one hand Sally unzips Tripper’s pants. His penis flops out, soft and massive. It’s as fat as her arm. She blinks at it, confused.

Impressive, isn’t it?

I’ll choke to death.

Have faith, says Littlejohn.

She looks at Tripper. His face is placid and staring. Sally pokes and prods the thing until it’s relatively hard. She takes a breath and bends over him. Tripper begins to struggle and moan, as if she’s attacking him. Then he relaxes and begins to chant the names of actors who have ever portrayed Batman. Adam West, Adam West. Michael Keaton. Val Kilmer. George Clooney, oh no. She tells herself she’s sucking her own fist. It doesn’t take long and Sally pulls away, her mouth wet and sore. A gout of come narrowly misses her face. George Clooney, George Clooney. Sally looks at the coffee table and thinks of slug tracks. A terrible smell rises from Tripper’s crotch. The smell is familiar and she stares at Littlejohn in disbelief.

He shit himself, says Littlejohn. Interesting.

Sally tastes tea and gin in her throat and runs to the kitchen.

Laughter and running water. Sally washes her face and spits repeatedly into the sink. She opens a drawer. Bits of foil and rubber bands and books of matches, a small knife with black handle. She picks it up between two fingers. The blade is thin and bends easily and she tests the edge with her thumb. A line of blood runs to her wrist and she lets go the blade. She slips the knife into the waistband of her underpants and sucks the blood from her thumb.

Tripper is gone. Damp spot where he was sitting. Perhaps a shadow. Sally sits on the floor, near the window. The length of a body between herself and Littlejohn. She sucks blood from her thumb. Sunlight swims in dust and smoke and she realizes she doesn’t know if it’s rising or setting.

Alone at last, angel.

Where is he? she says.

Littlejohn smiles and she feels herself shiver.

The Penguin? I told him to take a bath, he says.

The sound of running water. She can still hear it. Distant, like the whispers of a crowd.

I wish you wouldn’t call him that.

He doesn’t mind, says Littlejohn. It makes him feel like a superhero.

What about the money?

Littlejohn closes his eyes and sinks away from her. He lies flat on the floor. Sally looks at the flickering television, where predatory teenagers glare back at her with superior, indifferent faces. It might be an ad for blue jeans, or a push for safe sex.

I want fifty dollars, she says. At least. That’s enough for a bus ticket and a grilled cheese.

You aren’t going anywhere, angel.

Sally stares at the heels of his boots. Now there is a soap opera on television and she decides it must be morning. After a few minutes Littlejohn breathes slowly, as if he is asleep. Sally sits very still. She watches television for two hours, three. The soap opera becomes a talk show. She tells herself to demand at least a hundred. Her legs begin to hurt. Littlejohn has not moved. He’s not going to give her any money. He’s only amusing himself. She stands up and there is a cracking noise, like knuckles. Littlejohn still sleeps and she edges past him,  a whisper. A finger strokes her ankle and Littlejohn smiles up at her. His teeth are terribly white.

I will give you the money, he says. I promise.

Littlejohn’s bedroom is dark and sensuous, in blunt contrast to the decay and poverty of the rest of the apartment. The ceiling is a mosaic of silk scarves. Blue paper window shades glow in the morning sun and this gives the air a dreamy, underwater quality. In one corner are a table and chair of scarred cherry wood, both piled high with books. Beneath one blue window is an antique chest of drawers that looks very fragile. The surface is littered with masculine accessories. A silver cigarette lighter, a collection of pocketknives, a wooden hairbrush, three pair of expensive sunglasses. Sally turns to face the bed, a simple futon with white cotton sheets and five or six puffy pillows on an iron frame. On the wall above it are two framed photographs, blown up to uncomfortable proportions. One is a naked, redhaired woman wrapped in gauze bandages. The other is a dying horse, its body white with foam. Sally takes her dress off. She wonders distantly if her underpants are clean. She shrugs and drops them to the floor. She looks at herself. She has a girl’s body but her breasts are too large and her nipples strange, translucent. Her pubic hair is growing back. Faded white razorblade scars on her arms and legs. She hates this body. Littlejohn watches her, his eyes lidded. His tongue flashes between his lips and the silence is like the prick of a needle. Sally holds her breath, waiting for him to say something.

Very nice, he whispers. I’ve got to have a piss.

Sally stands frozen, conscious of herself. She forces herself to recline on the bed, her hands hiding her crotch. Littlejohn leaves the bathroom door open and pees endlessly and loud. The toilet flushes and now Sally rolls over to wait on her belly. When she looks up Littlejohn stands naked in the doorway. His muscles are fluid, his skin smooth and hairless. He laughs, softly. He has a nice laugh.

He sits next to her, kisses her hair. His cock is sleek and pretty.

Are you afraid? he says.

Yes. I’m afraid.

But why? he says. We have done this before.

I remember.

Littlejohn laughs again. His finger moves slow and faint as breath down her spine.

I want some protection, she says.

My body is a temple, he says. I assure you.

Protection, she says.

Relax, he says.

He produces a condom in gold foil. She opens it with her teeth and the lubricant tastes of copper and bad breath, of shoe polish and dead skin and wet hair.

I love the taste of spermicide, she says.

You have beautiful feet, says Littlejohn.

The rubber too is golden. She thinks of locusts and salamanders. Littlejohn slips his fingers inside her. His tongue is everywhere, touching her and disappearing and tickling her asshole like a feather, or the tail of a cat. Now he lifts her onto his lap. Veins stand out along his penis, fat with blood. The rubber is still clenched in her left hand. There is a wound on his shoulder, like a bite. She stares at it without recognition. Littlejohn grunts as she slips the condom onto him. Her hair falls over her eyes and she hides behind it. Littlejohn lifts her by the armpits. Sally is weightless. He can’t seem to get inside her. He lowers her again and prods at her ass and pelvis with his ridiculous gold penis. Sally stares at the bite mark and remembers, the police use the teeth to identify victims. She once did a book report on forensics.

Please stop, she says. This isn’t working.

She feels his muscles tense. But he stops trying to push his penis into her. She feels it soften against her thigh and is temporarily sorry for him.

Maybe a hand job, she says.

Don’t insult me, girl.

Sally pulls her underpants on and feels sticky. She picks up a shirt and realizes it’s not hers. The sleeves hang down to her knees. It doesn’t matter.

I’m going to wash myself, she says.

Littlejohn doesn’t open his eyes.

In the bathroom she bathes her hands and stares at herself in the mirror. Then turns to the toilet and sees the body. Tripper is sprawled with his legs like scissors, his arms around the toilet. His head is somehow wedged beneath the tank. Littlejohn, she says. Then she says it again, she screams it and suddenly he is standing next to her, still naked.

I know, he says.

Tripper has one shoe on. He still wears the fouled white pants.

What happened?

A seizure, I think. He had them sometimes.

There is a window above the toilet, small and dirty. A word is scrawled in the sun bright dust.

You could have warned me, she says.

Littlejohn scratches his belly. Then tugs absently at his scrotum. His penis is shriveled and damp.

The way I see it, he says. The Penguin was taking his shoes off and seized, hit the floor and started thrashing around like a chicken. Then grabbed hold of the toilet and got his head stuck, freaked out and died.

The bathtub is full, the water murky.

The water, she says. It was running, before.

I turned it off, he says.

When you came to pee?

There is a cigarette butt on the sink. Littlejohn puts it in his mouth and looks around for a match.

I heard the toilet flush, she says.

Littlejohn smiles.

He was dead, she says. He was dead.

I stepped over him, says Littlejohn. I emptied my bladder and flushed the toilet.

Sally stares at him. She feels vaguely sick.

Littlejohn sighs. He wouldn’t be any less dead if I pissed in the sink.

What is that word? she says. On the window.

The word is dodo, says Littlejohn. Another, more exotic bird that can’t fly.

Littlejohn turns and walks back to the bedroom. Sally climbs into the bathtub. The water is clammy, room temperature. She sinks until her ears are below the surface and everything is flat and gray.

Littlejohn is sleeping. She watches his chest rise and fall. Water runs from her hair. The shirt is soaked, the long sleeves cold and heavy. Her blue and white dress is a wretched clump on the floor. She tells herself to get dressed and go. He’s not going to give her the money. She takes off the shirt and suddenly is shivering. Her t-shirt smells like sickness and her stomach heaves. She crouches there, staring at her little black shoes. The knife from the kitchen glitters brightly, tucked into her left shoe like a gift but she doesn’t remember leaving it there. It might have been Littlejohn, playing a game with her. He would think that was wildly funny. She looks at him. His breathing is steady as a metronome.

Sally kneels on the bed beside him. She holds the knife gently, like it was a bird’s blue egg. His skin is the color of wood.

Between the ribs, he says.

She doesn’t move.

Slip the blade between my ribs. Poke a hole in my heart.

Sally hesitates. Backs away and Littlejohn smiles, eyes still closed.

I’d die in seconds, he says.

Rachel dresses in the other room. It takes several false starts to get her shoes tied. Her hands are shaking and she sits down to smoke one of Tripper’s cigarettes. The television is still on. She changes the channels until she finds one that is silent and blue. She wonders how long his body will lay there.

Another day, or two.

The chest and stomach and thighs would turn purple almost black. The blood would settle. She can see Littlejohn waking in the middle of the night and stumbling to the bathroom in the dark. He will step on Tripper’s outstretched hand and curse at him. She pushes the television over with a violent shrug and it crashes against the linoleum.

Dull popping sound as the screen goes black.

On the table before her are two cans of spray paint. She picks them up, one in each hand. She listens to the distant lead rattle. The can that Tripper was using seems unclean somehow. She pulls the lid from the other can, rips a square of cloth from her dress. She folds it twice, like a bandage. She shakes the can back and forth then sprays into her fist until the can is cold. The paint is yellow. She presses the cloth to her face and breathes deeply.

In the bathroom again. She looks closely at Tripper. He hasn’t moved and she’s glad. She feels dizzy and turns to the mirror. The skin around her eyes is yellow. The color of lemons, aliens. Rachel turns on the cold water and soaks her wrists. In her left hand she still holds the knife. She turns off the faucet. The fingers of her right hand brush the curve of her breast, her ribs. She has goosebumps. She feels her heart beating and lifts the shirt, watching herself in the mirror. She positions the knife and tries to push it through. The blade bends and she feels a thread of pain. A long thin cut opens down the left side of her body. A ribbon of blood, pretty and painless. Drained of color, the light creeps up on her.  Slow, reptilian.  She washes her hands and face. Her mouth is that of a hanged man.

The sun is high and bright. She feels blind. Three wild dogs, their ribs showing. They follow her, circling. For a moment she is one of them. Perhaps they smell blood, they are waiting for her to weaken. She nearly steps on the swollen, legless body of a rat.

Fetal.

Minutes become teeth. She counts them.

Her clothes are torn. The smear of yellow across her face. She wonders about the color of those Nazi lampshades and would they be yellow or pink. She buys coffee in a small grocery. She decides a cop is watching her. His eyes behind black glasses. She goes into the restroom, locks the door. She takes out the plastic jar of lithium. Two pills remain. The prescription is expired.

Raw pink punctures.

She can’t tell dirt from shadow. His genitals were so pale and unthreatening. She won’t sleep. Not until dark. She finds herself walking toward the river. She’s afraid of the river. The sadness swells when she gets close to it. But the water pulls at her. Despair. The smell of animal waste. The city is below sea level. The dead are left above ground and this gives the air a terrible heaviness. Now the river’s edge. Sally sits on a bench. Two boys throw stones at a foreign object in the water, a shadowy lump that drifts lazily in the current.

What is it?

Dead alligator, says one boy. I think.

Bullshit, says the other. It’s a dang sleeping bag.

She shrugs trying to summon the difference between these possibilities.

The boys wander away and she hears a car. Footsteps in gravel and a man is walking toward her. He wears an ill-fitting blue suit, with white shoes and hat. He grins, lipless and sunburned.

Pretty day, he says

I guess so.

Got a name pretty girl.

Rachel.

Do you know a club called the Velvet?

She stares at him. He’s nervous, shifting his feet.

Never heard of it, she says.

Twenty dollars, he says. I’ll give you twenty dollars to get in the car with me.

Sally turns to look at the car. A silver Toyota sedan with four doors. Electric windows and probably two airbags. A chrome rack on the roof, for luggage and bicycles and skis that he doesn’t use.

Nice car, she says.

Thanks, the man says. Thank you.

Where shall we go? she says.

The skin never asks to be touched. It shrinks. His eyes are invasive, surgical. For six days the sun never drops below the horizon. A blunt object, the fist. The size of a heart.

*photo art by bonsai ninja for paperback ed of penny dreadful aka dizzy bloom.

welcometothevelvet

*note from management. I’ve resisted all urges to tamper with the original text and the above is identical or nearly so to the version that appeared in the Nerve anthology full frontal fiction 1999. but goddamn. the unneeded commas. the tedious dialogue markers. the friggin question marks for fuck sake. I was young. my first published story. skittish about arguing with my editor. that said I have a lot of affection for this one. Sally who became Rachel was the first prototype for Jude and clearly a psych patient on the run.

she just hadn’t met Jack Fell yet. the big narrative in my head is a flat circle.

hakuna matata.