A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 34 After the Anvil

I woke up with a start. "Huh-?"

The knock repeated.

"Jim?"

"Go away."

Instead, the door slid open. Lizard stood there, but she didn't enter. I rolled back on my belly and stared out the window.

"What?" I rumbled.

"Nothing," she said. Her voice sounded strange. Stranger than usual.

"What? Was there a knife you forgot to twist?"

"Jim. Please don't do this."

I rolled over on my back again and stared at her. The sunlight was slanting sideways through the room and catching her in its golden rays. Her hair flamed like molten copper, her skin glowed from within, she looked like a haloed angel. It hurt just to look at her.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know." She stood there for a long, uncomfortable moment, looking uncertain and confused. Her gaze wandered all over the room, focusing first on the far window, then on the ceiling, then sliding back down the wall to rest on me for only the briefest of instants, before it flickered quickly away again.

"I just don't want to be alone," she admitted.

I shrugged. "Being with me is better than being alone? Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Jim-when you want to be, you can be an incredibly kind and compassionate man."

"After all the things you said to me, I think you're looking in the wrong place for compassion. You'd probably be better off with a vibrator."

She flinched, but I had to give her credit; she held her ground. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"Yes, you did. You wanted to get even. I hurt you. Over and over and over again. And you saved up all the hurts and then you did a Vesuvius all over me. I was so fucking blind. Everything you said was true-and I deserved your anger. But don't deny it, Lizard, you wanted to hurt me as much as I hurt you. Well, you succeeded. I don't think I've ever been hurt this badly in my entire life. So if you'll please just go away and leave me alone-"

"I'm scared. I'm alone. And I want someone to hold me. And you're the only person-" She came halfway into the room and stopped.

I sat up and stared at her. "I don't believe this. And you tell me that I'm self-destructive? What the fuck is going on here? Only a little while ago you were telling me that you never wanted to see me again. You told me that there are some hurts so bad that you can't ever forgive them or forget them. Well, that's what you just did to me." Abruptly I held up a hand to stop her from answering-and to stop myself from going on.

What was I doing? The one thing I wanted most in the world was to be the man in Lizard Tirelli's arms… in Lizard Tirelli's bed. I liked looking up into her eyes. I liked making her laugh. I liked making her gasp and sigh and giggle. So why the hell was I pushing her away so hard?

"What?" she said.

I shook my head. I couldn't talk. I choked on my own unspoken words. I swallowed hard and coughed and slapped my hand against my chest. Lizard went quickly to the bar; she came back with a fizzing glass of cold mineral water, pushing it firmly into my hand and guiding it carefully toward my mouth. I couldn't refuse it; I drank without tasting. The water poured down my throat like so much cold sand, but when I finished, I could speak again. I reached over and put the glass on the table next to the bed and looked up at her.

I caught my breath and began slowly. "I know what's at stake here-for everybody. But especially for you and me. Maybe that's why I'm so angry about everything. Because it's all out of control, and I'm just as terrified of losing as you are. Most of all, I'm scared of losing you. Sometimes I get so goddamned scared I can't even breathe. I start shaking so bad I think I'm dying."

Just talking about it was giving me the nervous jitters. I took a careful breath and moved on to the next thought. "Look, I came down here to Panama because I had the stupid idea that maybe you and I still had a chance. And then I got on this goddamn flying nightmare, and all I've gotten is one fucking body slam after another. The only person who's said one nice word to me is the cute little steward-and he's being paid to do that."

"The one with the nice ass?"

"I didn't notice."

"You must have. They all wear tight shorts."

"Well, then they probably all have nice asses. Yeah, okay, Shaun has a nice ass. Good legs. Cute smile. But he isn't you. And I don't want sex. Certainly not a mercy fuck-and certainly not one that has to be paid for. All I wanted, from the moment I arrived, was to sit down with you and have one of those moments where we just sit and talk to each other, saying everything we have to say until there's nothing left that needs to be said. Well, we finally had that talk and I'm still waiting for the paramedics to arrive."

At that, she reached over and laid a hand on my shoulder, lightly, as if she were afraid to really touch me. Her perfume was intoxicating, hallucinogenic. It gave me visions and ideas that hurt so badly, I shuddered. I closed my eyes against the seductive clamor of it; then I opened my eyes again and very gently I lifted her hand off.

"No, don't apologize," I told her. "That's my specialty."

She smiled sadly. There were tears at the corners of her eyes. I couldn't stand it. Just looking up at her this way made my throat hurt. I could feel my own eyes beginning to well up.

She started to reach for me again, I lifted a hand to ward her off. She stopped in midmotion; so did I. Then I lowered my hand and let her reach across the intervening light-years to brush my hair back, smoothing it gently.

After a moment, she pulled her hand back and waited for me to react.

But I couldn't. Not yet.

"Look, Lizard, I guess I came down here thinking that you wanted the same thing I did. I didn't know that you felt the way you did, so I had this expectation that we could try to make things better. That's all I wanted-but what you hit me with was one of those 16-ton Acme Anvils, the kind with the really superlative sound effects, and the card with it said, 'That's all, folks!' "And now"-this hurt the hardest to say-"you come in here and you want nothing more than to sit here and be with me, maybe even hug me a little-and you're driving me fucking crazy, because if I give in, or if I let you give in, is that going to change anything? No. Not out there in the real world. They'll still hate me and you'll still find me a liability. And I'll still be a stupid asshole-"

"You're not stupid."

"Yeah, but I'm still an asshole. You told me that you're better off without me. And you were right, Lizard. You were so right. You were so much better off without me that I can't even say it without the tears running down my cheeks; maybe the whole fucking world will be better off without me. That's how I feel right now, and I can't possibly imagine anything that would be big enough to change that. So I don't dare try to be close to you now, do I? Or one of us will say or do something really stupid and then-then we'll… well, you know what'll happen."

She nodded. She straightened up and looked out the window. She didn't know what to say or do. At last she gave up trying and sat down on the bed next to me, but not very close. "I don't know. I ache all over. And when I ache all over, I'm used to coming to you and getting one of your world-famous back rubs. I guess I was hoping that we could just-"

"Don't you dare say it." I cut her off quickly. "No. We. Cannot. Just. Be. Friends."

She laughed at that, only a little giggle, but a laugh nonetheless. "You're right. We can't be friends. And we can't be enemies either. What's left?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Me neither."

After a long long minute, I said, "The really stupid thing, the thing that makes no sense at all, is that I'm sitting here loving you and hating you at the same time. I hurt so bad, and I want to hurt you back-and at the same time, I want to hug you so fucking much-because it'll make both the hurt and the hate go away-" I looked into her eyes. "I'm so stupid. I really fucked up everything, didn't I?"

She nodded with such sadness in her movements that my heart just stopped and withered in my chest. There were tears rolling down her cheeks now. I didn't try to stop her when she reached over and gently put her hand on top of mine. Her thumb crept around and underneath and nestled itself comfortably in my palm.

She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. "Everything is fucked, Jim. There aren't any right answers. There're only convenient scapegoats."

I didn't reply to that. I didn't know what to say.

"You go out there-" She brushed ineffectively at her hair. "You go out there-most of the time you're alone, or with inexperienced kids, and there's no real backup for you, but you go anyway, and you never complain about it. You just go out and you do your very best, and then you come back in and nobody congratulates you or thanks you or even says, 'Attaboy.' Nobody ever tells you what's going on, or if what you're doing is important or even making any difference at all. And then they blame you for being angry and impatient with them."

"Don't try to excuse me, Lizard. Please. No rationalizations. I was wrong and we both know it."

"I don't care about right and wrong anymore, Jim. You're all I have left." Her voice cracked. "I was sitting out there feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I'd just kicked my puppy. I don't think any of us have much longer and-oh, fuck it, Jim," she wept. "I don't want to die alone!"

I couldn't answer. I was caught in my own flood of emotion. I started crying myself. I couldn't help it. I was as afraid as she was. I reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed sobbing into my lap, and all I could do was hold on to her as tightly as I could and wonder how I was going to manage.

How were any of us going to manage anything anymore?