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“Are you a person?”
The Deadman chewed on one of my fingernails which he had no right to do.
“Used to be.”
“In Paris, France? With the river?”
The Deadman snorted. “Yeah.”
“How do you stop being a person?”
“Lots of ways. It’s far harder to keep on being a person than to stop. I do think about starting up again sometimes, though. I do think about that. But once you been to that river, it fills you up forever. You need something real good to turn your heart back to red.”
“Why do you keep coming back here? Do you even like my Daddy? Are you really his friend?”
“I think he’s a worthless piece of shit, Badgirl. But he has cable. And he has you.”
The blue butterfly moon got bigger and bigger in the window. It was gonna take up our whole apartment. “Did he know I was in the…the…arrr-mwah?”
The Deadman sighed. He put down a quick 2-3-4 on his ace. “It wouldn’t have gone different if he did or didn’t, kid. The thing about having the whole world in your back pocket is that every day is nothing but wall to wall bargains. I don’t have to dicker. They keep upping the price. Everyone wants the world. I just want everyone.”
“I want my hands back.”
The beautiful lady turned around six or seven letters quick, one after the other. She was still wearing my smart dress, which I guess is why she always knows the answer to the puzzle. But now my dress had gotten long like a wedding dress. It glittered all over. The green bow and green buttons were all emeralds falling down her back and all over the stage. Her chest looked like the sun and she had stars all up and down her arms and the blue butterfly moon was rising in the studio, too, right behind her head like a crown. Everyone had stolen my things. I wanted her to come out of the TV and save me and turn me around like the letter B. But she wasn’t going to. She had my dress. She had what she wanted.
I’m a little black cat, I thought. Little black cats run away. Little black cats don’t need hands. The blue butterfly moon had gotten so big it bulged up against my treehouse and the front door at the same time. Little black cats can climb up on the moon and ride it far, far away. To Paris, France and the Bronx and the continent of Atlantis.
The Deadman glanced at the game show. For once, he didn’t solve it before the contestants did. He just touched his lips with my fingers and said quietly:
“I need them.”
Little black cats don’t need anyone. Little black cats have magic no one can steal. Little black cats run faster than dead men.
“Why?”
All the letters lit up at once and the lady in my dress touched them all, smiling, buttons and bows and butterflies sparkling everywhere, until they spelled out: HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE.
“With clean hands, Badgirl, you can start all over.”
Little black cats run right out, just as soon as you open the door.
A Fall Counts
Anywhere
The late summer sun melts over a ring of toadstools twenty feet tall. On one side, a mass of glitter and veiny neon wings. On the other, a buzzing mountain of metal and electricity. The stands soar up to the heat-sink of heaven. Three thousand seats and every one sold to a screamer, a chanter, a stomper, a drunk, a betting man.
Two crimson leaves drift slowly through the crisp, clear air. They catch the red-gold twilight as they chase each other, turning, end over end, stem over tip, and land in the center of the grassy ring like lonely drops of blood. But in the next moment, the sheer force of decibel-mocking, eardrum-executing, sternum-cracking volume blows them up toward the clouds again, up and away, high and wide over the shrieking crowd, the popcorn-sellers and the beer-barkers, the kerosene-hawkers and the aelfwine-merchants, until those red, red leaves come to rest against a pair of microphones. The silvery fingers of a tall, lithe woman stroke the golden veins of the leaf with a deep melancholy you can see from the cheap seats, from the nosebleeds. She has the wings of a monarch butterfly, hair out of a belladonna-induced nightmare, and eyes the color of the end of all things. The other mic is gripped in the bolt-action fist of a barrel-chested metal man, a friendly middle-class working stiff cast in platinum and ceramic and copper. His mouth lights up with a dance of blue and green electricity that looks almost, but not entirely comfortably, like teeth.
—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ANDROIDS AND ANDROGYNES, SPRITES AND SPROCKETS, WELCOME TO THE ONE YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, THE BIG SHOW, THE RUMBLE IN THE FUNGAL, THE BRAWL IN THE FALL, THE TWILIGHT PRIZEFIGHT OF WILD WIGHT AGAINST METAL MIGHT! THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S TIME TO ROCK THE EQUINOX! IT’S THE TWELFTH ANNUAL ALL SOULS’ CLEEEEAVE! STRAP YOURSELVES IN FOR THE MOST EPIC BATTLE ROYAL OF ALL TIME! ROBOTS VS. FAIRIES, MAGIC VS. MICROCHIP, THE AGRARIAN VS. THE AUTOMATON, SEELIE VS. SOLID STATE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VS. INTELLIGENT ARTIFICE! I AM YOUR HOST, THE THINK version 3.4.1 copyright Cogitotech Industries all SUPER EXTREME rights SUPER EXTREMELY reserved. If you agree to the Think’s MASSIVELY MIND-BLOWING and FULLY-LOADED terms and restrictions please indicate both group and individual consent via the RADICALLY ERGONOMIC numerical pad on your armrest. 67% group consent is required by law for the Think to proceed AWWWW YEAH 99% INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPLIANCE ACHIEVED! LET’S HEAR IT FOR OUR STONE COLD SECURITY TEAM AS THEY MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE MEGA-BUMMER HOLD-OUT IN SEAT 42D! ALL RIGHT! HERE WE GO! NOW, THIS TIME WE’VE GOT A SHOCKING TWIST FOR YOU EAGER REAVERS! TONIGHT ON THE SUNDOWN SHOWDOWN, THE FANS BRING THE WEAPONS! THAT’S RIGHT, THE CODE CRUSHERS AND THE SPELL SLAYERS WILL THROW DOWN WITH WHATEVER GARBAGE YOU’VE BROUGHT FROM HOME! PLEASE DEPOSIT YOUR TRASH, FLASH AND BARELY-LEGAL ORDNANCE WITH AN USHER BEFORE THE FIRST BELL OR YOU WILL MISS THE HELL OUUUUUUT! Cogitotech Industries and the Non-Primate Combat Federation (NPCF) are not responsible for any COMPLETELY HILARIOUS ancillary injurie
s, plagues, transformations, madnesses, amnesias or deaths caused by either attendee-provided weaponry or munitions natural to NPCF fighters. Spectate at your own risk. ARE YOU READY, HUMAN SCUM? YOU WANNA BLAST FROM THE VAST BEYOND BLOWING OUT YOUR BRAIN CELLS? WELL, BUCKLE UP FOR THE MAIN EVENT, THE GRAND SLAMMER OF PROGRAMMER AGAINST ANCIENT GLAMOUR! LET’S GET READY TO GLIIIIITTTTTER! WITH ME AS ALWAYS IS MY PARTNER IN PRIME TIME, THE UNCANNY UNDINE, THE PIXIE PULVERIZER, FORMER HEAVY DIVISION WORLD CHAMPION AND THE KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER, MANZANILLA MONSOOOON!
—Good evening, Lord Think. I am gratified to sit at your side once more beneath the divinity of oncoming starlight on this most hallowed of nights and perform feats of commentary for the capacity crowd here at Dunsany Gardens.
—DON’T YOU MEAN CAPACITOR CROWD? HA. HA. HA.
—I do not. When I say a thing, I mean it, and always shall mean it, without alteration, to the the deepest profundity of time.
