Chapter 13: Iron Balcony Balustrades
The setting of the sun brought the evening humidity, and all the sticky water from the outlying swamps evaporated and spread like syrup over the bowl-shaped city. The streetlamps and gas lamps of the Quarter shone holy with incandescent halos, and the Rue Decatur seemed painted by Renoir as horse-drawn buggies clumped soft primary people with blurry faces past hotel gardens framed in irony balcony balustrades. Milling at crosswalks and under the bronze statue of Bienville where the street forks, the tourists in their sports team T-shirts and velcro fanny packs all wore beads, and everyone downtown that night was tourist. They drank in bars and in front of bars and nowhere near bars, and they hooted and laughed and lowed. Traffic crawled like blood through cholesterol and the line of headlights was unbroken from Esplanade to Canal. Long strands of broken beads dangled from telephone wires where they’d been caught since Mardi Gras. The air was warm and took the edge off the bustle.
The white-faced clock on the St. Louis Cathedral pointed to just after eight as Snoz approached Café Du Monde. Families, couples, goths, hippies, and church groups all clustered along the black iron rail, all rails in the Quarter being black iron, waiting for a seat while the mostly Asian waitstaff in their Oxford shirts and black slacks darted among the haphazard table arrangements. Snoz spotted Lucy out front peering through a telescope as wide as a telephone pole and long as a fire hydrant. A bald man with a neat goatee had set it up and he charged a few dollars to gaze at the stars.
“You should try that,” Lucy said coming over.
“I’ve done it before,” Snoz replied. “Well?”
He took a hesitant step toward the curb, and Lucy followed, and there they waited for the light to change and when it did they were back on Jackson Square, Lucy this time driven with purpose, Snoz this time, and for change, sober. Lucy led him to Lady Rene who was set up in the same place facing the cathedral, only she was engaged with two middle-age women wearing nylon tracksuits. Lady Rene noticed Lucy and she brought her session to an end. The women stood up.
“Thank you so much,” one said.
“We fly out on Sunday, but we’ll do our best to return with it before then,” said the other.
“We will get it,” said the first.
Lady Rene nodded and beckoned Lucy.
“Hello, Lady Rene,” said Lucy excitedly. “You were right! This is Snoz, and he had the dream too, and I didn’t have to find him because he works for me!”
“Hello,” Snoz said taking a seat.
“Have I seen you down here before?” Lady Rene asked.
“No.”
“What do you do, outside of this place where you work together?” Lady Rene asked him.
“Do? Well, but shouldn’t you tell me that?”
Lady Rene scooted forward. “Child I am not a psychic. I commune with the spirits of the swamp, the old ghosts covered in moss and muck, the ancient ones who dwelt here long before people came and who will be here long after people are not. Now. Tell me what it is you do.”
Snoz felt chilled in spite of himself. “Well, I read a lot, watch movies, I guess you could say I’m a film buff. I write. I play the piano.”
“He described you the dream?” Lady Rene asked Lucy.
“Yes,” Lucy said.
“And it was the same? In every detail?”
“Yes, but there was one more…”
“Why,” asked Lady Rene, “why is the princess in the tower? Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Snoz said. “There was a little girl, I think, but it was a sleeping beauty kind of thing.”
“You must know.”
“But I don’t. She was asleep.”
“You mean she did not speak to you,” said Lady Rene.
“But there was one more thing,” Lucy put in. “He said except for this one, all his dreams are about his girlfriend.”
“What?” said Lady Rene.
“You shouldn’t have gave that away,” Snoz said. “You should’ve let her predict that herself.”
“The princess as a child. Recurring dreams of his girlfriend…” Lady Rene leapt up. “Impossible! But the dates, the ages. It must be true!”
“She already told you she’s not a psychic,” said Lucy.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Snoz told Lucy, “Swamp Thing and his ancient pals haven’t communed jack since we’ve been here.”
“Will you let her speak?” Lucy said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Fine,” Snoz said. “What’s up, dingbat?”
“You bluster,” said Lady Rene. “You are concerned for no one but yourself. You are withdrawn. Sullen. You do not look people in the eye when they speak to you. When you are asked how you are doing, you answer in a word or two and you do not ask after them in return. Your problem is you look inward when you should be paying attention to what is outside looking at you.”
Snoz wanted to object.
“You think everyone is in your way. And you are supposed to be the one who rescues the princess? You are supposed to be the prince? No sir. She would not be a party to it. You would fail… You did fail, did you not?”
Both were staring at Snoz. He looked to Lucy for defense but she said nothing. Lady Rene’s words were not true. He had gone looking for Lucy when they had that bomb threat. But the words were cutting, and he too did not speak.
“This girlfriend, I wager, would not keep a boy like you for long.”
“Hey! I don’t have to take this!”
“Describe her appearance,” said Lady Rene.
“I don’t have to take this,” said Snoz quieter.
“Where is the tower?” asked Lady Rene.
“In my dream.”
“Where in the waking world has she been taken?”
“Or where has she taken herself?” asked Lucy.
Snoz gave Lucy a look. “Who? What do I look like, a kindergarten teacher? I don’t know any little girls.”
“The little princess then has grown into the girlfriend now,” said Lady Rene. “The time and the ages are the same. They two are the same.”
“Uh-uh,” said Snoz, backing his seat up. “I’m not telling you where she is ‘in the waking world.'”
“Snoz!” said Lucy.
“What?” he said. “Are you kidding? After what she said, after the way she’s been acting? We should go. Let’s go.”
“No!” Lucy startled Snoz with her vehemence.
“If you failed with her, then I must be the one to rescue her,” said Lady Rene.
“She doesn’t need resting, rescuing, whatever,” Snoz insisted. “She doesn’t need it. She’s got her life. It was a dream.”
“A dream we all shared.”
“And all at the same time, on the same night,” added Lucy.
“Yeah right. I just talked to her the other day. She isn’t asleep, or in trouble, or anything. There’s nothing wrong.”
“There is trouble, and I am the only one who can rescue her,” said Lady Rene. “For I am the queen.”
Lucy looked at Snoz intently. Snoz thought she was crazy, that she was betraying him. Finally he stood up.
“If you do not tell me where she is,” said Lady Rene, “a most unfortunate accident will befall you.”
“Enough. We’re going.”
“You do not understand the gravity of this situation,” said Lady Rene. “You do not understand its importance. Whether she is captured or is there by choice, she is not able to fulfill her function. I must find her.”
“Where do you sleep?” Snoz demanded. “You were released from an institution during those Reagan cutbacks, weren’t you?”
“I cast my mind into the ether each night, trying to reach her. But all I could find was one strand, a cooling trail, one not yet cold. A strand that led into your dream. And I watched the dream with you, through your own eyes, so that I was not able to identify you. I cast my mind out for another and found a trail leading to her, to Lucy. All this to fulfill my most sacrosanct mission. Tell me where I might find the princess.”
Snoz was still standing but had not yet made the move to walk away.
The witch raised herself, slow and arthritic, to her feet. Her shawl, her scarves, her blue gypsy dress all seemed to glow with new color in the lamp light, in the candlelight.
“Tell me, or before the moon grows full you will die.”
Chapter 14: An Air of Unfamiliarity
Emily was answering the phones when her ex-boyfriend called. Straight away she told him she was busy and she could not talk. If it were earlier, if she were in the office, she could have given the cell to someone else to answer. If she were in an office writing grant applications like she ought to be doing, she could have told the receptionist she was in a meeting, or had stepped out, or had been transferred to Missoula. As it was, she answered when he called.
“I know,” he told Emily. “I know what you said, but this is important. It’s serious. Some really weird shit has gone down and it involves you.”
“No. Nothing that ‘goes down’ involves me, Snoz, because we’re not together anymore. We’ve talked about this.”
“Listen. Please. I have to tell you what happened. It’s important. I don’t want to sound dramatic but… I’m worried. I am.”
Emily thought about it. Another call came. “All right. I have something to do for work tonight at this gallery. You can meet me there, I guess. But I’m going to be busy.”
He thanked her and promised not to get in the way. She gave him the name of the gallery without directions or what time and then hung up and took the next call. She had to make an effort to be pleasant to the next few callers that morning.
Snoz was at the gallery, which was downtown, when the opening opened. Attendance was sparse at first and Snoz viewed each piece four or five times over an hour, toting around cubes of cheese pierced with toothpicks on a napkin and a succession of 7&7’s, viewing and reviewing the paintings, collages, and junk sculptures until he was an expert by the time Emily arrived.
He was struck by an air of unfamiliarity in her beauty: her hair was still long and full of curls but it did not twist and coil with the motion of her hips but was controlled by a single bronze leaf breret clipped at the crown of her head, and she wore all black, slacks that zipped from behind, of a material he had not seen, glossy without being shiny and stretchy without being elastic, and her blouse was a spider-thin button down that covered but did not obscure a black spaghetti strap top. Emily was confident, beaming. Immediately a young man with gelled hair and horn-rimmed glasses and the same favorite color greeted her with a shoulder-press hug and air kisses. He led her to an elderly woman Snoz initially thought was Lauren Bacall immaculately coiffed and frocked by a clothier of the continent. Snoz moved to a piece in Emily’s line of sight, and hung back, and waited.
Snoz watched men and women position themselves to be closer to the three. Emily was at ease answering questions from all around, interjecting asides, and her laughs were light and cordial and her ribs non-chalant. Snoz could not imagine that attention. If he had a shell and carapace he’d pull his head inside. He caught Emily’s eye in passing. There was no interruption in the group, and he went back to the table with the hors d’oeuvres.
He made another loop. He was staring at a corner rather than the piece adjascent to it when Emily strode up to him. He knew it was her, he could sense it without looking round. She seemed bothered but he did not recoil, did not feel shamed or confused. He was happy to see her again, outside his mind’s eye.
“Well?” she asked.
He answered without thinking. “You’re doing great,” he said.
This gave her pause. Emily studied his face and saw sincerity. “What do you mean?” she asked with some suspicion.
“Here,” he said. “With this. All these people.”
Emily smiled like a four year old and then chased it with a sigh. “Thank you,” she said. “I am proud of myself.”
“You should be, hosting a success like this.”
“No, I’m not the host. But I’m on the committee and I helped design the installation.”
“Well, it won’t be long til you are.”
Emily became guarded. “What’s this about, Snoz? I only have a minute.”
“Okay,” he said. “Do you remember me talking about Lucy? My manager. She can’t walk?”
“Yes…”
“She told me about this fortune teller she saw and they both had the same strange dream. Then the fortune teller told me…”
“Wait. You went to the fortune teller too?”
“Yeah, I had to. I had the same dream.”
“As they did?”
“Yeah. That’s how it came out. Unbelievable, isn’t it? But there’s one more thing. In all my dreams, it was you. And that means…”
“Hold on.”
“That means you were in their dreams too, Emily. All of us had the same dream on the same night, and all of us dreamt about you. Or you when you were little, but as a princess. That’s what they said. It sounds weird but it made sense.”
Emily fell quiet. “Hold on,” she finally said. “I never met your boss. I don’t know these people.”
“Have you been going down to Jackson Square, or have you gone to any New Age type things?”
“No. How could these people, these strangers, do that? Dream about me specifically. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I had the dream, and they saw it too. In mine. We described it to each other and the descriptions matched. I don’t know, Em. They didn’t really explain it.”
“Then it must be B.S.. Excuse me one second.”
A young lady with a clipboard approached. Her hair was short and matted, and her eyes sat like twin landmarks on her face and seemed pale under the fluorescent lights. She wore black slacks and a knit shawl, its colors muted and calm and the fabric was stained by an artisan rather than chemically dyed. Snoz looked her up and down without being clandestine since whatever problem brought her over was too urgent to merit pleasantries and an introduction.
The artist whose works were on display was heading toward them. Snoz knew him and was avoiding him. Snoz had seen him earlier, standing in front of an African mask he constructed from an American flag and some chicken wire, talking to a woman wearing a press pass beside an abstract painting of amorphous shapes in the cool colors, blues and purples and such, bisected by a jagged black and white line meant to be a crack in its field. The artist shaved his head and wore flimsy spectacles and he had a soul patch under his lower lip. He was trim and well-groomed. His name was Dirk T. Bathwater, and he was about to throw a fit.
“She can’t talk to me that way. I don’t care what she does. No ma’am. Nuh-uh.”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm by it,” Emily said.
“No harm?” Dirk T. exclaimed. “No harm? Girl you’d have to buy me season tickets to the truck pull to make me feel any worse. ‘A cross between Joan Miro and a skateboard artist.’ That’s what she said.”
“Miro was one of the greats,” Emily said. “His work hangs in the Smithsonian, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the…”
“A skateboard artist? A skateboard artist?”
“Well it’s just one person’s opinion,” said the girl with the clipboard. “Everyone else…”
“Screw everyone else! Screw them to a skateboard! That one person just happens to have a blog. You know what that is, hmm? And now she’s going to go home and tell the whole internet that I’m a, a, skateboard artist!” Dirk T. buried his face in his hands.
“How many people, really Dirk T., how many people read blogs?” asked Emily.
“Everyone! Don’t you see? Ohhh…”
Emily stepped behind him and squeezed his shoulders a few times. “But the critic from the Gambit loved your stuff. He told you so.”
“No one from the Times-Pic came.”
“The daily’s art coverage is atrocious,” she said. “Practically non-existent. And that’s every city. The important thing is that the alt-weekly loved it.”
Dirk T. nodded, petulant.
“Now get back out there and be fabulous. Go on.”
Dirk T. dabbed the corners of his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Hey, you should meet my friend Elio,” Snoz added. “He really likes your work. He says it gives off this thin air, like a mountain, like the Sound of Music.”
“Waauugghh,” said Dirk T. running away.
“Thanks a lot,” Emily said to Snoz.
“That dude cost me a date.”
Emily rolled her eyes and then turning to the clipboard girl continued, “Please go see if the bartender is doing okay on change.”
The clipboard girl pressed her rigid companion to her bosom and set off on her next task. Snoz imagined her as someone who was never bored, someone who created things for herself to do, someone for whom life was not a long journey but a continuous procession of micro-journeys, dozens every day.
“Snoz I’ve got a million things to do,” Emily said.
“They want to know where you are,” he said.
“No, they don’t. It’s a scam. Come on, you know this. Just forget about it.”
“The fortune teller acted like she knows you. She said you’re the princess and she’s the queen.”
Emily turned away. Snoz thought she was leaving but she stopped. “What was her name?”
“Oh, she called herself Lady something. Lady Rene? That’s it.”
“What did she look like?”
“Older, dressed like a gypsy. Scarves, candles. A creole. Swamp voodoo, you know.”
Emily considered this, then she shook her head. “No, I am not a part of this. I’ve chosen to disengage. Excuse me.”
“What should I do?” he asked, raising his voice.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“This is really messed up. Can you tell that? Something is going on. I can’t explain it but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”
Emily’s eyes grew fiery. “I am not fighting with you at my first opening. What’s wrong with you? Have you noticed what’s going on here? Look around. Now I’ve got a million things to do. I have press here. I have donors. I have to keep Dirk T. happy. And here comes my ex-boyfriend. I have chosen to disengage. Okay? That’s all you need to know. Now I have got to go.”
“I’m reaching out here,” Snoz insisted, becoming desperate. “I’m calling out to you. I thought we were in love.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Emily said without meeting his wounded gaze, “but I have to go now.”
Snoz stood there and watched her walk away until the milling crowd in their purposeless steps obscured her. He forgot everything he’d planned to say to convince her not to move back. The next full moon was just over a week away. He did not move, did not pretend to study the painting beside him. He stared off in her direction without thought. Around him people debated, lectured, laughed. The world fell away. He never brought himself to mention the curse. He didn’t really believe it, but he might be dead soon and though she’d wonder she’d never know it was because of her.