She looked up at me. It was one of those moments. She knew.
“Is that blood?” she asked.
“Um-”
“ Is it? Gross! Jesus!”
“Well, no, it’s beef stock, it’s just, like, au jus from Lobel Brothers-”
“Jed, it’s blood, it’s blood and I think I’m going to throw up.” She put the glass down on the table and looked away. Her face was all scrunched up.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I think we have to get you some help.”
“Oh, please,” I said. I looked down at the clotting soda. It didn’t seem quite so appetizing anymore. But I picked it up and took a slug anyway.
“Jed, I’m your good friend,” Marena said, “and I really feel like you might be freaking out just a little bit. Do you have any feelings in that regard?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said.
“Would you be willing to talk to the shrink? I mean without anybody else around. Confidentiality city.” She poured herself some water. The moment she wasn’t looking I slid the bottle fragment under the pillow. You could really dig out a pretty big plug of flesh with this thing. I cached the glass ready-to-hand in the near corner pocket of the pool table. Marena pulled out a baby Lurisia, wrenched it open, and drank half the bottle.
“Well?” she asked. “Seriously.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, “I mean, I’ll see what I can do, I’m not sure I want to go into therapy or anything-”
“No, no.”
“But, you know, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life confused either.”
She came over and put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
“Jed, seriously. I’m on your side. What’s going on?”
“I don’t think it’s anything,” I said. I moved my eyes away from actually looking into hers and focused on a tiny little mole on her forehead.
“Your eyes look like they’re not focusing or something.”
“Yeah, I think, uh, that’s right-”
“Maybe you should take a Val or four and chill.”
“I will.”
“Okay.” She sat down.
“Okay,” I said. I flicked on my screen. “Okay, just a beat, I have to purify the directions.”
“Uh, right.”
“Tin chi’m tex tahlah tex to cal ual tu cal xol,” I said.
“Cantul ti ku cex cantul lubul bin yicnal.”
“My breath is black, my breath is yellow, my breath
Is white, my breath is red. Accept her head.”
“Som pul yicnal can yah ual kak ke
Tix tu ch’aah u kah u chi u sudz.”
“Accept her husk, her skin. We cast her down,
Into the heart of the cave lake, turquoise heart.”
“So look inside,” I said to Marena. “Check it out.” I moved the marker and entered the move. Marena leaned over the screen.
“See the deal?” I asked. I got my glass knife out from under the pillow but kept it out of her sight line.
“I can’t focus on this anymore,” she said. She pushed back.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She got up and moved away.
“No, you have a problem,” I said. “I can tell.” I pulled out my IV needle and, without thinking about it, licked away the drop of blood. She recoiled a little. I moved away from her, but between her and the door, keeping my right hand down at my side with the glass in the lee of her vision. “Seriously,” I said. “Please don’t make me upset. I know I look like a nerd, but when I do get upset, people say I’m hard to deal with. This is not a threat.”
“I don’t know,” she said. She leaned forward and reached for the speaker button on the phone.
“No, no, that’s not necessary,” I said. I got between her and the phone.
“Look, Jed, seriously,” she said, “I think something serious is happening and we need to talk about it”
“I’m there, I’m all over it,” I said, “yes, I want to help, don’t WORRY!”
“I just want to send one text,” she said. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“No, really, don’t,” I said. “Really, I’m adamant about this.”
She moved back.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She smiled. “Atom Ant. Let’s go sit down.” She went toward the chair. I repositioned between her and the doorway.
Pause.
“Okay, fine,” she said, suddenly shifting gears. “You don’t give a wet shit about the world, or other people, or, or the Maya, or even yourself, or anything,” she said. “You just wanted to see a bunch of ugly pretentious old buildings before the paint came off. You know what you are? You’re a fucking tourist. You ought to be wearing five different cameras and, and Madras shorts.”
“The article in Time. That was a plant, right? For an audience of one.”
“Come on,” she said. “Don’t make me have to get everybody in here.”
“So is that sort of a threat?” I asked. It was getting harder and harder to talk the way Jed would.
“No,” she said.
“How about this?” I asked. I got the piece of broken bottle into striking position, where she could see it. “Is this a threat?”
“Jed, listen.”
“Answer question, is this a threat?”
“Yes, I think it’s a threat,” she said. She started moving away, in the other direction, getting the bed between us. “What do you think?”
“That’s a stupid like question,” I said. I moved to the right. If I went after her she might get around me and get out the door. She paused. I could see her gauging how long it would take to get to the door, thinking it was better to keep the bed between us, that if I jumped over it she’d be able to fake me out and get away. I moved back a bit, to a spot where I could get to her before she got out the door. It was all about pretty subtle trajectories.
Come on, give her a break, Jed thought.
Too late, I thought.
Come on, Jed thought. Anyway, I’m making you up. You got that?
No you’re not, I thought, I’m really really back. THANKS for bringing me BACK! I’m BACK, Jeddy, it’s ME! I’m HERE for YOU! It’s ME, CHACAAAAAAAAAL!!!
You can’t do anything I don’t want you to do, Jed thought.
Of course I can, I’m so much stronger than you are. Wimp. Anyway Marena outfucked you. And now she’s your enemy. She’s going to have you put away for a very long time. You got that?
I guess, Jed thought. He was obviously just feeling too weak to say anything against me. When people like Jed feel all enraged and stupid and betrayed and everything, they don’t have enough stamina to put up with it. The whole world seems so bleak and scary to them that they just gray out.
“Okay, Jed,” Marena said, “come on, you know you’re-”
“Fuck Jed,” I said. “Jed’s gone. It’s me, Chacal, SURPRISESURPRISE SURPRISE!!! ”
Marena didn’t move, but I could see her hair stirring and goose bumps spreading over her face and her nipples standing up under the linen. Her eyes were huge but I could see her already coming out of the initial Oh- my-God-I’m-dead-I’m-dead shock and thinking, What am I going to do to get out Whoa. She was on the chair-and- table side of the room, as I had maneuvered her, so the door and the call button were on my side, with the bed between us. If I went around it to grab her, she could jump over it and reach the door. I feinted as if I was about to take hold of the IV pole to hit her, and I could see from a flick of her glance that she was going to jump onto the
