Skin, page 14
Still: she was Bibi, endlessly, friend before enemy, love before hate and even after in memory's stubborn colors: see her shadow, there, hedgehog ball and bright eyes, drawled jokes and small rages, her protectiveness when Tess was working, her willingness to carry more than her share. No way, perhaps, to balance this against that sore mouth saying "He was mine" but balance was not what she was after, was it? Balance was perfect, and perfectly empty, empty like a shed skin, something left behind.
So. How to keep up, or try to; pitiful nonchalance, what a sorry asshole she must seem. Must be. Michael she did not call, afraid in some obscure way that his concern had dwindled with the pressure of her obstinance; if he was no longer a friend, she could wait forever to find out; another loss she had no strength to bear but only fend from the prospect of bearing. She had had with Bibi no real mutual friends beyond the Surgeons, to half of whom her name was presumably anathema; the Zombie trio were her link to both past and present, Jerome and Peter, gregarious Nicky with a friend in every basement bar, every cheap nitro club. Her clumsy questions, who comes to the shows? Anybody I know? Yeah? No, Sandrine, I haven't seen her, and Raelynne's a barmaid? Really? And Bibi, what is she up to?
Working, they said, or said they heard; they heard a lot of things. Crosstown flat, cold water running bloody with rust and they said she was a regular at all the skin parties, the tattoo shops and bondage shops and S&M affairs, they said she even went to the shacktowns; was she crazy enough for that? Yes, they said, but others denied it, even Bibi wasn't nuts enough to hang there. Probably. Experiments, the malleability of flesh and skin, what was she piercing now, what food for her cuttings did she find? He was mine; and who was hers now, and how deeply, and with what bloody mess? Could she, Tess, buy her way back if she was willing to bleed for it? willing to take the knife? No. Plenty of pain, now; no more, not that kind; never.
Sometimes on her solitary trips Tess imagined she saw Bibi, arm in arm with someone, a boy, a woman, sometimes alone in that jaunty cold walk; in dread kept the figure in sight until sight proved her wrong: only someone who looked like her, walked like her, pale eyes and chopped hair but never Bibi all the way down.
And an afternoon, late after work, dragging home through gauntlet streets a burn damp with stink and sweat to burn some more and Jerome out front, talking; some guy, red plaid shirt and black bandanna and as he turned she saw it was Michael, half-blank, half-smiling, halfsomething else and he put out his hands to take hers in a touch begun tentative but gripping, then, till it hurt in her knuckles and bones and she was so glad to see him, so glad to see him again. For himself, surely; but he would know, wouldn't he? Better than anyone, he would know.
Dissembling, she had a little pride left anyway and up the stairs, gave him some ice water from the bicycle bottle in the squat refrigerator, showed him the longlegs but her mind was so far elsewhere that her hands shook on the stems of metal, how is she? how to ask? But kind, he was kind and he solved it for her, took her to sit on the couch-bed and said, swift and simple, "You know, she hasn't ever got over that fight you guys had. She really misses you, Tess."
I miss her. I miss her. "She's a busy girl," her gaze away. "I hear she spends her time in the shacktowns now."
He made a face. "Shit. Have you ever been down there? All these little houses made out of shipping pallets and cardboard, and those toxic drums even the dumps won't take and they sit around there swapping needles and pissing on each other and half of them are just fucking crazy.
"Sometimes I think she's crazy; you should hear her talk, sometimes. But she's not scared of anything." Half a smile. "Like you."
One bright cold drop of water unnoticed on his lower lip. Hands clenched austere between her knees, looking toward the window; had she so quickly run out of safe questions? "How is she?"
Michael's gentle shrug. "Skinny. She's lost a lot of weight."
"Less is more."
Headshake, less gentle. "You guys kill me, you know that? You're both saying the same things but you're saying them to me. Why don't you just break down and tell each other, huh? Why don't you just pick up the phone and-"
"Why doesn't she?"
"I don't know, you tell me. You're the only one who understands her anyway." Hand over eyes, slow blown breath; patience lost, try again. "Listen. Why don't you come with me tonight, and see her. Okay? Just see her, say hi, and leave. Or take it from there, or kill each other or whatever you want. What do you think of that?"
The opportunity: Will you? Heart fast from the temptation, near to scared laughter and less than half a smile, "What's it to you?" and his arm then around her, squeezing her tight.
"None of your business," head light against hers, soft little pressure, knock knock. "Hers either." And a big smile, sweet and slow. "Jeez. Girls."
"This is it?" Crummy box-shaped row house with brick like acne, busted windows and six big kids in baggy jeans hanging outside the door; they were all, she saw, pierced in some way, ears and nostrils ringed over and over in interconnecting circles, shiny and complex. Tattoos and scars, waiting for Michael to chain his scooter and one of the kids laughed, called out, "Hey man, don't want it anyway."
"She doesn't really live here," past them up the wide unpainted steps into half-dark and heavy garbage smell. "Just visiting. Guy named Tony. You won't like him."
She didn't. Forever to answer the door, even her wet-palmed hammering knock and at first he pretended he didn't know Bibi; coy, then smiling, sure. Come on in. Big bare dewlap breasts, both nipples pierced and he told her about his cock piercing, 's called a Prince Albert, you ever heard of a Prince Albert?
"Yeah," staring down at him, he was a good four inches shorter than she. Dandruff like nits in his hair. "I know what that is."
"Wanna see it?"
"No."
"The chicks love it."
"I bet."
Michael, softly, with a certain coldness she had not seen in him before, "When do you expect her?"
That got a laugh. "Don't 'spect her at all, man, she just shows up whenever the fuck she feels like it, whenever she gets her shit together from those fuckin' shacktowns. I told her, you bring any of that shit here I'll ream your ass for you."
The idea of anyone reaming Bibi's ass was bemusing, Tess almost had to smile through the stuttering drive of her heart. Michael said something, low, she didn't hear because there were sounds in the hall, one of the outside kids laughing as the door swung crookedly to: Bibi, pushing in.
Purest white, virgin and martyr, white hair, white head-wrap like cerements and new white sneakers sparkling against the floor's red linoleum filth: shiny all over with rings, studs, bright surgical steel like tiny surface manifestations of a blunter core within; staring back at her; to save her life Tess could not have spoken first.
Silence, and the kid at the door scraping slowly away. Even ox Tony did not speak; incurious? or conscious of currents, of plates shifting deep beneath the ground? Beside her Tess could feel Michael, tension, her own bones thrumming in the space beneath her skin.
At last, dry: "Hi, Tess," and that pale gaze unsteady, up and over and down to her hands; nails torn and rings on every finger, coptic crosses, miniature skulls. Up to Tess again. "Come to visit?"
"No," and from her own mouth, not loud but certain, absolutely sure, "I came to take you home."
And instant as a blow what she would never have believed: the big pale blinkless eyes filling steadily with tears, as out of place here as the coursing blood of angels, of stripped seraphic veins. It was as if Bibi did not feel them, heavy bright glycerin, her mouth moved on a word and Tess felt her own tears, drove them back; they would not be shed here no matter what.
"C'mon," she said, iron in her throat, out the door and silent Michael behind them, the three of them in the halflit street and Bibi suddenly laughing, a shaky laugh, "We can't all fit on that," and Tess unable to talk, biting hard at her inner cheek, red from her mouth and Bibi in wonder said "You're bleeding," and suddenly her face collapsed into a terrible fist, as if everything not dead was pain and Tess grabbed her, skinny little hedgehog, death's baby sister and hugged her tight, tight; and she did cry, then, Bibi, silently onto Tess's shoulder, little chin digging in and without ever raising her head.
And Michael, half a pace away and Tess saw his smile, small but so true, so informed with warm pleasure that her tears ran as well for him: for his persistence, for his patience and the fruit of it, their joy.
"I don't have much stuff, anymore," nimble legs crossed high at the thigh, arms curling complicated as Shiva in some series of slow exercise as lovely, itself, as a dance. Square blocks of shadow, indigo drift across the plane of the floor, dust-sugared and striped with the terminus twist of cables, red and black and dirty blue. Michael had gone nearly after arrival, hugging them both swift and briefly, longest smile for Tess as he closed the door. Tess's hurried shower, aware she still stunk like work and Bibi nonstop, talking and talking, filling in all the time apart: and then I did this, and then I did that, and then I worked a couple weeks for Linda Joy, that was cool but we didn't really see eye to eye; so I left. And little chunks of time, a week dancing: Skeleton Fist, you know what that is? 'S a club. Sort of. And I did some work for this guy, he's a therapist, one of those free-lance clinics, you know-
From beneath the water: "What kind of therapist?"
"Mmm," bony little shrug, "sexuality. Deviant sexuality, I guess you could call it."
"What'd you do?"
"Referrals."
-and on and on, so much to happen in what was really such a short time, a short time that felt so long and now that it had ended felt like nothing at all. Toweling off, nonstop smile for Bibi on the couchbed: how she filled the room with just herself. "Anyway I've been moving around. I left that one flat, the bed and everything," a slim yawn, "all those magazines, I got rid of it all. Most of the clothes, too."
"What about that blue thing, that dumb Queen Mab dress?" and Bibi's swift grin, fuck you and she poked Tess in passing with the stretch of one bare foot.
"Yeah, that, too, don't be a bitch. See, this's what I've got now-it's better than clothes," and she pulled free the white shirt, swiveling turn to display the long slim lines of scars precise, white runic tattoo as pale as her eyes and barely rimmed by faint receding pink; troubling, and beautiful, and strange. From over her shoulder: "I got it done after-you know, after, and a couple new piercings, too- my lip, you saw my lip." Sore purple hole healed now and she sounded nervous; how strange, to think of Bibi as nervous, and before Tess could speak Bibi's own lowest voice, soft as a floorboard groan: "It didn't make me happy, Tess. None of it. Not even this, at first," backhand brush of two fingers. "I did it to keep going. To just keep on going."
Hedgehog; it knows only one trick, one good one, and Bibi the hedgehog inside-out, baring the softest spots for the knife and the needle; nothing in the end left vulnerable to pain except the softest spots of all, where no needle can ever reach.
Head down, a little, shirt stretched on her crossed arms and she was so beautiful, pierced and shorn, pale as a ghost boned with steel and sharp metal and now her smile again, itself like a piercing: "So do I sleep with you, or use the floor, or what?"
"Anywhere you want," Tess said, "if you-" and her voice croaking loud and sudden and to her harsh astonishment came tears, hot and bitter as a caustic, an acid to burn for all the lost life, all the lost time, face grinding hard into the towel and Bibi instantly there, thin arms to hold her tight, saying shhh and John Henry and everything will be all right, now, you hear me? Everything is going to be all right.
***
And waking, the drifting line of blue dark and the fierce warmth of Bibi, there in the bed, curled caging around her larger limbs as naturally as a spider to prey; I have you, that touch said, I know exactly where you are. Thin scissoring thighs, shorn raptor's head like a pulled punch in the middle of her back and back to sleep, smiling, the room was cold around them but together they were warm.
Pulpy orange juice and hot beignets-Bibi's treat, juice on her lip and shreds of pulp like skin, curbside past the kiosk, their knees cornpanionably close. She wore one of Tess's sweat shirts in a morning chill that had not faded, itself faded to a color like dirt and sleeves rolled high above the thick chain bracelet, it looked like iron vined with razor wire; real metal, pretty in a weird way on the bony stalk of her wrist. Big compound-eye sunglasses over the pale gaze, brushing crumbs disdainful from the sweat shirt: "Don't you have any real clothes?"
"Don't you?"
"No. Yeah. I have a bag at a friend's house, we should go and get it. Let's go now," past the last of her beignet, crammed into her mouth like a child impatient. "It's not that far."
"What friend?" No napkin, wiping one hand against the other; such a feeling of looseness in her muscles, she felt so good. Squinting against the sun, "Not that guy, what's his name, Tony."
"No, not that asshole. You'll like this guy."
So: gone, not arm in arm but the distinct feeling of it, down the street and her own sudden idiotic grin, it was good to be together again, she had not realized how isolated she had become: as if, blinking into light she realized how long the dark had lasted, the changing of the seasons, the passing of a year; not that long but that was how it felt and Bibi, in uncanny chime: "I missed you, John Henry. I thought about you a lot." Slow sideways grin. "Mostly when I was going to do something bad."
"I bet."
Her friend lived, Bibi said, in a walk-up: eight flights of a walk-up, grit indescribable, pure urine stink at every step. Half the doors on each floor were either smashed or missing, there was garbage all over the floor. "It's kind of a sty."
"Who's your friend, the Ancient Mariner? The curse of the mummy?-shit," scraping dry at a desiccated turd tenacious on her shoe, hollow chummy voice suddenly above saying, "Don't fuck up the woodwork, man."
Lean death's head, skinny as Bibi and pierced in more places, thin nostrils ringed, rings in his lip, his ears: flashy and ugly and Bibi grabbing his hand in a complicated squeeze, turning with pride to say, "Matty, this is my friend Tess Bajac. Tess, this is-"
"Matty Regal," Tess said, slim memories revising now to include this monkey skullface. "I know you," without compliment. "I've seen your work."
"I've seen yours, too. You don't show much anymore, do you?"
"No. Do you?"
"I don't work in sculpture anymore," flat airless superiority like stating a fact to a feeb. "The whole art scene sucks."
So did your sculpture. "I remember you from the Isis," remembering more than that, a kind of pretentious academic reek clung to him still past the scent of deliberate declasse, the kind of fuckhead who enjoyed writing artist's statements. In triplicate. "You did pretty well there, didn't you?"
"So did you."
"Wrong. I never sold a piece there."
"Jeez," Bibi said. "Just let me get my bag, okay? Matty, we're too busy to fight with you now," and in and out while they stared at each other, this is Bibi's friend? Jeez is right; and Bibi with her bag, dirty black nylon and Matty nudging her, you going to the Fist tonight? "No," shaking her head, one arm around Tess. "I told you, we're busy."
"Eating at the Y," and for a moment Tess did not even understand it as a question, did not understand at all until Bibi's sharp stare, "And how's that any of your fucking business?"
"Don't get touchy. I don't care who you screw."
And Tess, fouled by his smile, not wanting to resent it openly for fear of hurting Bibi's feelings, angry all over and down the stairs, silent, into the sun like an autoclave and Bibi's voice in her ear, "Don't be mad, it's just Matty." And then diffident, itself a surprise-Bibi shy?-"I hope you don't mind."
"Mind what?"
"If some people think we're lovers. They used to, before -I didn't know if you knew."
Another surprise: and a warm prickle, a throb at the base of her spine and memory, brief and strong as a smell: Bibi last night, small breasts pushed into her back; So do I sleep with you or what? and her own smile now, wide, confused: "No, I didn't know." Pause, try for a joking tone, is it a laughing matter or not? "Are we?"
Bibi's pause, far more subtle, six long strides and no smile at all. "Ask me again tonight."
So the thought, now, planted and growing in lush confusion; neither one brought it up but for Tess it was there: at night when they slept, in the morning when Bibi walked cat-naked to the shower, the stretch of her, the slim scarred tension of back and pointed breasts. All-day busy, and maybe that was better; it kept her from thinking too much, in a direction that deadpan Bibi had perhaps never intended. Or had. Who knew? In a strange way it was like the old Surgeons' gossip, who hadn't fucked Michael; it got her wondering: what would it be like?
But: busy: in differing directions, the routine established neatly and without plan: Bibi off nocturnal, Tess at the bodyshop or hunched in boneless ease before her worktable; she found that Bibi's presence (or absence, some nights till near morning) in some way-new and old-freed her, released her to the first days when the only thing surpassing hardest work was the gleeful exhibition to Bibi of same: look what I did! Slivering burn, again the resin drift of solder smoke and the turn of the screw: see: metal sinister, the longlegs in matte achievement; within a fortnight it was finished.
Up and down, small ball body and legs double-jointed, promenade in the oblong squares of cool sunlight in dainty steps, as if evil wore beauty's dress, its spangled cat's-eye smile. Bibi, wrapped in faded red cotton like a bright young beggar, sat on the couch-bed and clapped her hands.
