Butcher Bird

THIRTY A Universal Joke

Their clothes dried quickly in the bright sun, and by the time they reached one of the great boulevards that divided Berenice into its local parishes, no one would have guessed that they’d had to swim into the city.

From the interior, Berenice was much more impressive than it had seemed on the approach. At each corner of the boulevard was a whitewashed ziggurat topped with a gilt sun, angled to catch the light at different times of the day. Crystal globes hung from polished streetlamps. Spyder counted a dozen large bronze statues to different gods on the one street. Who knew how many there were on the others? Handsome residents came and went from temples and tailor shops, butchers and herbalists, paying no attention to the travelers. The street on which they stood was paved with pale pink flagstones, but green, yellow and sky-blue streets intersected it.

“Okay, we’re here, somewhere. What do we do now?” asked Lulu.

“Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation,” Count Non said.

Spyder looked hard at the Count.

“St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians,” he said.

“Yeah, I was just about to say that.”

“We need to find stables or a market,” said Shrike. “Some place big, with professional traders. And remember, you can’t tell the wandering memories of people from real humans simply by looking at them.”

“Then how do we know who we’re talking to?” asked Spyder. “How do we trade for anything?”

“It’s a question of attitude,” Shrike said. “If you’re talking to the memory of a trader, his responses will be mechanical and rote. A memory isn’t active. It can’t really do or say anything new or original. A human trader will be more eager and unpredictable.”

“Makes sense.”

“I’m going to go alone,” said Shrike. “A poor blind girl can sometimes count on a pity discount.”

“You’ll be able to find your way back here?” asked Spyder. “Maybe you should take Primo as backup.”

“I’ll be happy to accompany you, Butcher Bird. And a one-armed man with a blind woman might evoke even more pity from an anxious trader.”

“All right,” said Shrike. “We’ll meet back here in two hours. Can I trust you three to find your way back?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after Lulu and the little brother,” said the Count.

Spyder felt a pang of awkwardness as he and Shrike went off in different directions. He felt, somehow, that he should give her a goodbye kiss or something, but simultaneously wondered if he was supposed to acknowledge anything between them at all. In the end, they both went their own way.

They walked three abreast through the strange town, Spyder near the street and Lulu near the buildings. Count Non walked between them. “The first time I ever went to Tijuana on my own, I got lost,” said Spyder. “Ended up in this shantytown somewhere up in the hills. This place went on and on. Plus, it was one of those days where you don’t wake up hungover, you wake up still drunk. So, I’m wandering around, trying to figure out a way back to town, and this kid, a student, starts chatting me up. He wants to practice his English. Only whenever I ask him how to get back downtown, he suddenly can’t understand me. I tell him to fuck off and keep walking. But these Tijuana shantytowns are like a goddam anthill. Houses made of broken cinder blocks, cardboard and big cans of vegetable oil pounded flat.

“Fast forward a few hours and I’m somewhere, but nowhere I’ve ever seen before. And now the sun is going down. Out of nowhere comes the kid who wanted English lessons. At first I think that I’ve just walked in a big circle. Then, I realize that the little fucker’s probably been shadowing me all day. My eyes are red and my head’s full of broken glass and dust bunnies. I was wearing a brand new shiny pair of two-hundred-dollar New Rock boots. I had to trade ’em to the kid to get out of there, and walked back to my hotel barefoot.”

Spyder couldn’t quite figure out a pattern to the city. A street would be laid out like an ordinary one in any town, but then a building would be gone and in its place would be a pile of junk. Lost things, Spyder guessed. Not objects, but the memory of them. There were mounds of keys, piles of every kind of money, great meals laid out on endless banquet tables, the wan clowns and listless trapeze acts from forgotten circuses, lost limbs (fingers still trying to grasp some long lost something, feet flexing with somewhere to go). There were packs of dogs, flocks of birds, colonies of house cats and stacks of dirty aquariums holding every kind of fish imaginable, lost pets all.

They stopped to look at the trinkets laid out on tables in a small street market on a yellow boulevard that intersected theirs. A trader with leathery skin and blue, chapped lips clasped his hands and greeted them eagerly. He stared at Lulu. “I see you’ve been doing some renovations, my dear.” He took a bite of a juicy, green-skinned fruit. “What will you take for her?”

Spyder didn’t bother looking up at the man, but kept studying the charms on the table. “She’s not for sale.”

The merchant leaned in close, speaking in intimate tones. “You think I won’t keep her well because she lacks eyes. Don’t worry. Those are not the organs that interest me.”

Spyder tucked his hands in the waist of his jeans, pushing back his jacket to make sure the man saw Apollyon’s knife. “I missed that. Say it again,” Spyder told the man.

The merchant’s gaze flickered from the knife to Spyder’s eyes. “You misunderstood me, friend. There is no business here,” said the merchant, licking his thin lips. “Thank you. Have a good day.” He walked quickly away.

Spyder turned to Count Non, who loomed close behind him. “I was doing all right, you know. I don’t need you doing Hulk Hogan over my shoulder.”

“Perhaps neither of us frightened him,” said the Count. “Perhaps for once he heard his own words and was appalled.”

Lulu said nothing, but swept her arm across the merchant’s table, knocking his wares to the pavement.

“Yeah, he seemed like the real reflective type,” said Spyder.

“‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’” The Count laughed. “I like you, little brother. You disguise your nobler qualities to play the fool.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Would you take some advice from someone with a bit more experience of the world?”

“You don’t look that much older than me.”

“Trust me. I am.”

“Are we talking Paul McCartney old or Bob Hope old?”

“More like those mountains in the distance.”

“Damn. You must get all the senior discounts.”

“Be quiet,” said the Count. “It’s not necessary to fill every moment with your own voice. Silence terrifies you. You see your own existence as so tenuous that you’re afraid you’ll pop like a bubble if, at every opportunity, you don’t remind the world that you’re alive. But wisdom begins in silence. In learning to listen. To words and to the world. Trust me. You won’t disappear. And, in time, you might find that you’ve grown into something unexpected.”

“What?”

“A man,” said the Count. He started out of the market and back to the main boulevard. Spyder and Lulu followed.

“Don’t feel badly. This is just a chat between friends, not a reprimand. If you feel lost and foolish sometimes, don’t worry about that, either. All great men begin as fools. It’s one of life’s little jokes.”

“Spyder, he just called you a joke of the universe. Kick his ass,” said Lulu. She put an arm around Spyder’s shoulders. Count Non smiled at her.

“Food for thought,” said Spyder. “We’ll cover more ground if we split up for a while. I’ll meet you back at the corner where we started.”

“I was just fucking with you, man,” said Lulu, but Spyder was already rounding the corner in the other direction.