THREE HIDDEN FACES OF SATURN or; Three Conversations St. John Allerdyce Never Had
ONE. Days pass, and the new Liz is a profoundly silent creature like some half-dead thing in a coccoon. She can only let the machine talk for her. Steady beats. Still alive. Still lost in here, John. Henry's looking and he's lost too. Her body's interior is hollow and dark but she keeps pressing the telegraph lever, tapping out their names. The movement is inside. There's nothing of that showing now. John understands that.
Liz, he would say, for instance: I loved you the first day in the Bureau.
The fact that he doesn't say it, isn't saying it, never said it, means nothing; Liz isn't here. He might as well be talking to a plastic plant. With the door closed, the hospital room becomes Schroedinger's box. What does or doesn't get said is an entire open sky. John may or may not be holding Liz's hand, though her hand is representative only of the part that is absent. His eyes are fixed on a far flaw in the wall, but slide down to her wan face; his mother, the unquestioned absence who forms the space Liz occupies and whose remnants remain only in name and manner, taught him to look people in the eye when you talk.
Liz. (Understandably, she doesn't respond. He, if somehow given the choice, wouldn't have either. His voice sounds strange, hinting of hoarseness and more unruly routes. Not talking is cheating. It is rude. He has never deliberately been rude to Liz.)
Liz, if you wake up after, don't be mad. (He's bluffing. He feels certain she wouldn't be mad, if he came back and if she were there to see him. But neither of those things are certain, so what else can he say?)
All the things they never say (representative and definitive on the paper he puts in her hand, like the cut places of the snowflakes kids make at Christmas) forcibly make space inside him, pushing between organs, softening what he's worked to make hard. He doesn't mind: he's grateful for the understanding of that obscure pain, and even given the chance will never say those things because Liz already knows those things even in whatever strange place she is now. He's glad to have this silence. It will help now that his time is up. It may be the only thing that will carry him home.
TWO. Charlie crosses the road and the change is palpable, heavy and metallic in the air. This is her agenda, and he's never been offended to have to follow behind. The kids -- fucking kids, giving him more of a shiver than he'd care to admit, so like and unlike those at the mansion. He has a soft spot for hurting kids, but these aren't hurt like that, especially not that little fucker with the open wound eyes: he's all cold and burnt out, professional when daddy's watching, gleefully malicious when not. John can almost see himself in those bland black eyes. Dead pools, drowning pools. That's a movie. He and Charlie watched it last night at the motel, lying on the bed. They're the same height, probably the same weight. They must cancel each other out, because when they fucked, the bed hardly squeaked. Slow and together, both lost in thought while careful and intent. Charlie's skin is smooth and dry. Her lips crack in the desert heat. They aren't cracked now. If he touched her -- she'd smack him, but what he meant to focus on is the sheen of sweat, from terror and adrenaline and now the fires blazing around them so strong John can hardly think.
More, and more. This is really why he loves Charlie, and the thing is, he never denied he could be a superficial jerk. She has fire. She has more fire than anyone he's ever met. Familiar fire. It gives him a taste in his mouth when he hasn't eaten all day: a taste of himself, but a taste of her moreso. She lets him in. They push and push and push and if there's anything of this government-run town tomorrow, it'll be fuckin modern art.
Are those kids even breathing? Is there enough oxygen? They're tiny things, like clever little sparrows with their little powers. The boy who knows the truth. It must piss him off to know he'll always be a tool and never be able to make his own way. Charlie finishes with the miniature sociopath, and he tanks. The other kids don't even know what to do. John moves forward, past Charlie whose chest is heaving (yeah, believe it, John noticed that), flips the kid over with his toe.
"Get the fuck out of here," he says low and quiet to the others, and they don't even know who he is or what the fuck he can do to give them orders but they go, dragging their fallen and unloved leader behind them.
He turns to Charlie, who's upset, angry tears lingering in the wings of her weirdly slanted eyes. It makes her look exotic, even though everything else is familiar. She comes from some place cold. Her fire comes from some place cold. Even though she has it, she's never warm. He'll fix that.
She lets him have their kiss, here in the center of a burning town. She lets him push her fire: she's stronger than him, she's just as skilled as he is, but nine times out of ten, she doesn't have the heart for it. She won't push it all the way. She wouldn't kick that little shit in the head with her black chucks. But John would, and he does. He has a hard quick heart and the viciousness to go through with it. They'll go together until he alienates her, well-matched but perhaps only too much so. What happens after he helps Charlie destroy everything that destroyed her little life, one that would've been normal? People like her crave normalacy like seabirds crave the water on their wings. They can't stay down there forever.
One thing John does know is that he's going to miss her smile.
THREE. "So this is it."
He and Warren are the same age but it's like they grew up on different planets. Something about the world bothers him today. He feels itchy, out of place, aggravated. Warren looks at him uncertainly.
"Looks all right," he makes himself say, taking a cursory glance around the cafeteria.
"It is," Warren admits, shuffling onwards like he doesn't suddenly and secretly love the place, or rather, showing it to a stranger. Adults here aren't so laidback about kids cutting hooky, as it turns out. The zippo's been stowed in his pocket ever since somebody nearly froze his foot to the pavement. That too, that pissed him off in a way he wasn't ready to explain.
Warren moves around, dropping funny stories, a little gossip, letting him know what's what -- he's the kind that would know. It's late afternoon, and the halls are practically empty. John looks down the locker-lined hallway, unwillingly filling it with the kids from the mansion.
"So where'd you move from?" The question's not as casual as it sounds. He's pretty sure Warren managed to overhear the part where he has no parents.
"Massachusetts." In his head, his middle finger divides the mansion neatly in half. It occurs to him he has no idea where the fuck he is anyway. He doesn't want to ask.
"Nothing like this, huh."
The short bark of laughter escapes before he can control it. He is, he has to admit, a little out of control right now. He looks right at Warren, who doesn't back up but John can see the line of his stomach move in with his breath like that will keep a safe distance between them. "Nah. Real different."
Now they're at the end of the hallway, and through the windows it's incredibly bright, sunlight filling the street without any little bit leaking through to where they are. John eyes the fire alarm sourly and, since Warren is watching him uncertainly instead of leading on, crosses over to the end of the lockers and sinks down against them. Someone's written "blow me" on the wall next to his eye. Subtle.
Warren leans against the door.
With the shelter of the lockers John wiggles his zippo out and snaps it a few times, eyelids low like an addict. Sometimes he hates how he acts when he knows he's being watched, but what the fuck does it matter.
"Different circumstances, I could really hate your guts." He says conversationally, keeping his eyes on the flame.
"Uh," the door creaks as Warren straightens off of it. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
John snorts, shutting his lighter and looking up. "Means," he mocks gently, though that too is another little sliver, "I think you got it easy, when I got it hard. Means," he pushes up, back, uncurling sliding into standing against the wall. "if I was really gonna have to go here for the next two years, I'd make every day of your life fucking miserable."
"Easy." Warren's voice is flat and drawing, a knife turned sideways. "Yeah. I had it easy all right."
Smiling, John ignores that. "But I'm not staying. So thanks for the tour."
O, great clamity
dish of inequity and tears
how I abhor this place!
Moving forward smooth and unconcerned, every muscle in his back is waiting for Warren to clock him as he pushes the door open and takes a step outside into the more accustomed open air. He pauses.
"Hey," he waits patiently until Warren deigns to give him attention, "you should give some thought to it yourself."
The suppressed eyeroll is audible in Warren's voice. "To what?"
its sweet and bitter taste
has left me wreched, retching on all fours
"Fucking off." John slides his hand down the metal of the door, thinking about the pained creaking sound it'd make as it bent inward and off its hinges before flying down the hall. Crashing against the lockers, before they too peeled off their concrete anchors to bounce deafeningly off the ceiling, the floor. He scratches a flake of paint off with his fingernail. "Different circumstances, we could probably be friends. Or whatever."
Warren doesn't say anything and John lets the door close as he sets off across the blacktop for the distant neighborhood and somewhere to hide. He hears the door open behind him before he reaches the street.
Los Angeles, I'm yours.