Hell's Half Acre

twenty.

AGORAPHOBIC YES, AND WEIRDLY HAPPY. I wake up alone. The room is dark, muted but it feels like morning. The sound of water falling behind silver wings. Molly is in the shower. I can see her standing with eyes closed and head lowered as if praying. The blades of her shoulders, the fine ridge of her spine. The bed is very comfortable and I might like to lie here and smoke a cigarette and daydream for a while but I don’t think I’m ready to see Molly just yet, what with the aftershock of new intimacy and bloody bedtime stories between us. There’s always the possibility of a sudden freakout when you get to know someone a little too well, too soon.

Therefore. I drag my intimate ass out of bed. I’m looking around for my pants when I notice there are no shadows in the room and I remember how Peter Pan misplaced his shadow and Wendy was kind enough to sew it back on for him and this makes me think of Molly and I tell myself to be very fucking careful with this line of thought. And besides. I always hated Peter Pan. The Lost Boys were pretty cool of course but Pan himself was a complete wanker, a fancyboy. Peter Pan was a racist sexist little fuckhole in green tights. He was shitty to the Indians and mean to Tinkerbell. I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake directed by John Woo in which Captain Hook kills off the Lost Boys one by one, gutting them like rabbits, after which he feeds Pan’s liver to the ticking crocodile and puts his impish head on a stick, and then gets into some serious bondage with wee Wendy. Now that would be edgy.

The shower still hums.

I make the bed, or rather I jerk at the bedding until it looks presentable. I am tempted to leave Molly a note or something, a few words. But I don’t have a pen on me and anyway I don’t know what I would say. Thanks for keeping me warm last night, and thanks for not being horrified by me.

Fuck it. I’m going downstairs.

I find Miller in the kitchen, standing at the counter. He wears the black and green bathrobe that Jude was wearing last night and his dark hair is slick with gel, combed into a skullcap. He’s eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and reading the Wall Street Journal. The windows are open and the air swirls, tugging gently at his newspaper. I glance at the sky, white with clouds.

Poe, says Miller. How goes?

I light a cigarette. Is there any coffee?

He shrugs. French press by the sink. But I think it’s gone cold.

That’s fine. I ramble around the kitchen as if I live here, opening and closing cabinets until I find what I want. I pour lukewarm but very black coffee into a tall glass, then add ice and milk and sugar. I take a long drink and feel better right away.

How’s Molly? says Miller.

What do you mean?

He smiles at me over the stock page. How did she fare last night? he says. How did you fare. How do you like her. How does she like you? That kind of thing.

Molly is fine, I say.

Miller squints at me, amused. That’s your answer?

Yeah. Molly is fine.

Do you have another cigarette? he says.

I give him one and we stare at each other.

How is Jude? I say.

Ahh, he says, blowing smoke. Here it comes.

I shake my head. Never mind.

He grins. Molly is sweet, isn’t she?

Yeah, I say. She is. What the hell is wrong with you?

Listen, he says. You ignorant Philistine. There is nothing wrong with me. I am simply trying to expand my horizons, and yours.

By letting me fuck your girlfriend.

Did you? he says.

What?

Did you fuck her?

No, I didn’t.

He laughs. Jude was right. You’re soft around the edges.

Fuck you.

Have you ever been married? he says.

Yeah.

How did you like it?

My wife is dead, I say. I wouldn’t insult her.

Miller leans forward and his robe falls open. He scratches his chest lazily and smiles at me, shaking his head and rolling his eyes as if he feels sorry for me and I remember practicing my crippled smile in the bathroom mirror, my deathly grimace. He picks up his spoon and wipes it down with his tongue, then tosses it into the sink with a clatter. Molly said that he doesn’t love her, that he never loved her and I wonder if he has ever hurt her. I wonder what his head would look like in a box.

Your sense of loyalty is fascinating, man.

Fuck you, Miller. Where is Jude?

She took one of the cars and went into the city.

Why?

He shrugs. To get some equipment.

What kind of equipment?

Lights, cameras. Nothing special.

Be warned, man. If you put her in danger, you will be crawling around on prosthetic limbs.

Miller shrugs and concentrates on his cereal.

What are you doing today? I say.

I thought I’d get started on the storyboards.

Yeah, I say. Regarding the script…I wonder if I could get a look at it.

Miller slurps his milk and grins. Had your chance the other night, he says.

Then what the fuck, right?

Why do you want to see it? he says.

Because I’d like to know what I’m getting into.

Oh, says Miller. You’re in well over your head.

Long humming silence.

Speaking of fuck-ups, I say. Have you given any thought to my case?

The murder charges?

Yeah. Those.

Pretty cut and dried. They have you by the short hairs and all. But I think with a little slick lawyering, I can get you down to manslaughter.

Thanks for that.

Enter Molly, agitated.

I’m late, she says. I’m so fucking late.

Her hair is still wet. She wears a white cotton sundress and the destroyed brown cowboy boots she was wearing when I met her. She touches the back of my head as she passes, a soft cool touch.

The whispering breath of fairies.

A voice in my head says she smells like sunflowers but upon reflection I have no idea what sunflowers smell like. Molly acknowledges Miller with a smile, a cool shrug. Then goes to the refrigerator and takes out a container of strawberry yogurt. She rips it open and uses her finger as a spoon.

Miller sighs, opens a drawer. He removes a bright silver spoon and hands it to her.

What are you late for? he says.

Rehearsal, she says. Fool for Love.

He snorts rudely.

Molly smiles at me. John doesn’t much care for Sam Shepard.

Why not?

He’s a minor playwright, says Miller. And a redneck, besides.

Ignore him, says Molly. She touches my arm. Do you want to come?

I follow Molly to the garage, glad to get away from Miller. The garage is cavernous, cold, and smells of chemicals. I see several red plastic gas cans. Miller strikes me as the sort of cat who’s prepared for the end times, and as I look around I see he’s laid in a six-month supply of water, batteries, first aid gear, canned goods, emergency flares, camping equipment, and more. He’s got all manner of fishing and deep sea gear: wet suits, surfboards, spear guns, oxygen tanks. Mounted on one wall are two small sharks he presumably murdered himself. As for vehicles he’s got jet-skis and a speedboat named Jezebel and several cars. An old white Jaguar XJ6, the silver Mustang, a dusty green Jeep, an ancient but gleaming convertible Mercedes coupe. I wonder what sort of ride Jude is tooling around in. A black Range Rover, probably, with black windows and a cloaking device and hidden gun turrets. Two motorcycles, Ducati Monsters, skeletal street bikes silver and black. They look like birds of prey on two wheels, and now I remember that Jude was riding a black Ducati the day I watched her scalp Shane Finch.

Let’s take the silver one, I say.

Molly tosses me the keys and a black helmet. She grins at me and pulls her own helmet on. This is trust, baby. I haven’t been on a motorcycle in years and anyone who knows me would say that’s a good thing. I tend to fly too close to the sun, when given half the chance. I tend to get distracted. I have smashed up more than my share of vehicles while daydreaming, and lately I have the headaches and blackbird visions to worry about. But my skull feels clean and clear and sometimes you have to say fuck it. The bike purrs to life and Molly climbs on behind me. Her arms slip around my waist like they belong there. I take it easy up the long driveway and I’m about to glance around and ask her which way am I going when she tells me that she’s not really so late and maybe we should just ride a while.

It’s a fine day for it, she says.

The sweetest decline is always voluntary. I cruise through the hills above Berkeley, slow and winding, and soon I’m wondering how fast this bike is and how long it would take me to kill myself on an open road. I begin to descend, with no idea where I’m going. The wind and sun are sweet narcotics and I imagine Molly’s dress whipping about her thighs and now she slips one hand under my shirt to touch my chest, and oh, the galaxies in my head. The way she kissed me last night. The way she held me when I was shaking. I was covered in sweat and she didn’t pull away from me. The pulse of sorrow and loneliness between us. The mad babble of imagined friends. The dizzy smell of her hair. I woke beside her twice in the night, drunk and still dreaming and I wanted to just eat her cold white skin. I remember how she said the bellybutton is terribly sensitive, how death is always on the wing. But I must have dreamed these things. I must have been dreaming. My skull begins to ache and my vision shimmers. Deathly, the crash preconceived. The earth forever pulls at you, gravity and all. It pulls you down. I suffer random, grasshopper thoughts. The subconscious fancy that I will lose Jude in this, that she will never be mine. That tomorrow is possibly unkind. Tomorrow is unknown and one of us may die in traffic today and I have to wake up before tomorrow comes.

The inside of my own head is a half acre of hell.

I run through a red light and the blast of a truck’s horn rips a nasty hole in my internal sky and I nearly lay the bike down.

Jesus. Are you okay?

I bring us to a shivering stop under a grove of lemon trees. My heart is hopping around in my chest. Molly yanks her helmet off and her yellow hair is wild around her face and I taste the guilt, the sour guilt of nearly killing someone I barely know and prematurely adore.

I’m fine, she says. What happened back there?

Dreaming, I say. I was dreaming.

About what?

I open my mouth and realize the answer is foolish, romantic but foolish.

Never mind, I say. I’ll tell you later.

It doesn’t matter, she says. Are you okay?

Yeah.

Molly smiles, then takes one of my cold hands in hers.

You’re none too steady, she says.

That’s normal.

If you say so.

Torn shadows and silence under the lemon trees. The motorcycle warm, ticking.