Murder Of Angels Part 12

"I got nowhere else to go," she says and smiles for him, but he doesn't smile back for her.

"Good. I want to read a few more lines, skipping ahead to the end of the essay, okay?"

"We're almost out of time," Niki says, glancing at the clock. "My hour's almost up."

"There's time for this," he says and then begins reading again before she can object. " 'The trick must be to become aware of it'-and here, Campbell is talking about the visionary object or its witness, the visionary subject-'to become aware of it without becoming lost in it: to understand that we may all be saviors when functioning in relation to our friends and enemies-savior figures, but never The Savior.' "

Niki shuts her eyes a moment, just to be sure, and then opens them again.

"Spyder thought she could save us all," she says.

"Yes. I think she must have."

"I've never asked anyone to save me. The hour's up, Dr.

Dalby," and he checks his wrist.w.a.tch.

"So it is. Remember these things. You'll need them, I expect."

"I'll try."

"Try hard. You have to cross this bridge alone."

"Just like all the others," Niki whispers, and outside the window all the pigeons take flight at once.

"Watch your step, Nicolan," Dr. Dalby says and takes another sip of water. "And don't look down."

The Dog's Bridge rises so high above the sea of fire that its crest almost brushes the underside of the sulfur clouds before finally beginning the long descent to the opposite sh.o.r.e. Niki walks down the middle, because there are no guardrails, nothing to prevent a fall, and the bridge of bones sways slightly in the hot wind, shifts as the lava flows 102 slowly by far below. But mostly, she's careful not to lose count, because then she'd have to go back to the beginning and start all over again, and Spyder said not to turn back, no matter what happened.

The deck of yellow-white and ivory creaks loudly beneath her boots, long bones and vertebrae, tooth-studded jaws and parts of broken skulls all wired together, the bones of men and animals and gigantic beasts she's glad she's never seen alive. Sweat pours from her face and drips to splotch the dry path at her feet. The heat and fumes alone almost enough to kill, she thinks, and looks at her hand again, Marvin's bandage gone now, sloughed off like some sweaty second skin, and the wound has turned an even deeper red than the sky.

The sea makes a sound like dying, and the clouds moan a low and threatful reb.u.t.tal. Something falls, screeching, burning alive, a living meteor streaking past the bridge, plummeting towards the lava. She doesn't stop walking, doesn't stop to see what it might have been.

"Watch your step, and don't look down," Niki says out loud, staring straight ahead. "And don't f.u.c.king look up, either."

Bone snaps and crunches beneath her boots, and the hot wind blows like sandpaper fingers through her tangled hair, across her blistered skin, and Niki keeps counting. In the end, she finds the other side, because all bridges, even here, eventually lead somewhere.

And when she opens her eyes, Marvin's kneeling there beside her, brushing hair from her face, and the checkerboard tile of the restroom floor is smooth and cool as ice beneath her. She blinks up at the fluorescent bulbs, the white light that means nothing at all, only electricity and a bit of glowing, ionized gas and nothing more to it than that.

Nothing to marvel at and no riddles here to solve, nothing to have to fear.

Hold the line.

"Don't move," Marvin says, and she can hear how scared 103.

he is, and how relieved, can see it in his eyes. "Someone's coming."

"Did you feel it? Was it an earthquake?" she asks weakly, but he only looks confused.

"You just be still now. Someone's coming to help. They'll be here in a second."

"I'm okay," she says, and Niki closes her eyes again because she doesn't want to see how worried he looks. "I was dizzy. I must have fainted. I think I fainted and fell, that's all."

"I heard you call my name," he says. "I came as quickly as I could."

"Yeah," she whispers. "You did real good, Marvin," turning her head to one side so that the cool tile presses against her right cheek, skin that still remembers the heat of a flaming sea. And Niki keeps her eyes shut until they come to check her pulse and ask her questions and take her away to one of the examination rooms.

C H A P T E R F O U R.

This Only Song I Know Daria Parker is lying alone on the wide hotel bed, much too wide for just one, staring out the sliding-gla.s.s balcony doors at the glittering Atlanta skyline stretching away into the night. Dylan's playing on her laptop, Street Legal, and she rolls over and stares at Alex Singer, who's been staring at her back for the last fifteen or twenty minutes.

He's sitting on a love seat on the other side of the room, sipping a bourbon and 7UP. His guitar case is lying at his feet. He sighs and glances towards the sliding doors.

"So, why won't you call her?" he asks. His Manchester accent gets heavier when he's exhausted or drunk, and it's heavier than she's heard it in a long time.

"No. It's easier if I don't. Marvin can take care of things.

Isn't that what I pay him for?"

"Easier for who? You or Niki?"

"Easier for all of us," Daria replies and almost tells him to leave. She's too tired for Alex and his disapproval and his questions. She just wants to sleep, wants to not think about Niki or San Francisco or work for a few hours. Her sinuses are still aching from the dry, recirculated air of the plane, and her stomach is sour as old milk.

"I don't know, Dar," Alex says softly, almost whispering, and takes another sip of his drink.

"What? What don't you know, Alex?"

105.

"I'm saying you gotta deal with this s.h.i.t. Get it under control. We can't cancel another date."

"Niki's my problem, not yours."

"Right. Well, at least we agree on something then. You're my problem."

Daria grits her teeth and shuts her eyes, willing herself not to take the bait this time, too weary and sick and worried to get into an argument with Alex tonight. To get into the same old threadbare argument all over again.

"What time's the signing at Tower," she asks him.

"They want us there by three. Jarod says there are fliers up all over the city. He's expecting a crowd."

"That figures," Daria mutters to herself.

"And you've got an interview at four. Nothing major, just some local music reporter."

"I thought we had a radio spot lined up."

"They changed their minds."

Daria opens one eye and glares at the guitarist.

"Who changed their minds?" she asks and opens the other eye.

"h.e.l.l, Dar, I don't know. The f.u.c.kwits at the station. Try talking to Jarod every now and then if you want to know what's up with your schedule. I'm not your b.l.o.o.d.y manager."

"You're not my b.l.o.o.d.y marriage counselor, either, but that hasn't stopped you yet."

"Touche," he sighs and finishes his drink in one long gulp, then tosses the plastic cup at a garbage can near the bed. He misses, and melting ice scatters across the beige carpet like fake, gla.s.sy jewels.

"Why don't you go trash your own room," Daria growls, and he grins and reaches for the big bottle of Seagram's he brought in with him.

"That's no fun, love."

"I've got to get some sleep."

"Did you know that Arkansas c.o.c.ksucker is threatening to sue us?" Alex says, twisting the plastic cap off the bottle.

"Jarod's trying to talk them down, you know, but-"

106.

"Are you f.u.c.king deaf?"

Alex takes a drink from the bottle, then stands and steps over the guitar case. Daria lies on her back, staring up at him, his soft gray eyes and rough, unshaven cheeks, his black hair pulled back in a short ponytail. He's wearing a red Pixies T-shirt that's been washed so many times it's turning pink, and the St. Christopher's medal she's never seen him without. She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

"They can't sue me," Daria says, trying hard to frown, but smiling a reluctant quarter smile instead, wishing he'd done a little more to p.i.s.s her off. "I can't afford it."

"Yeah, I told Jarod you'd say something like that."

Daria reaches up and takes the bottle from him, tips it to her lips and shuts her eyes as the bourbon burns her mouth and throat numb. A little more and maybe her head will be numb, as well. Alex leans over and licks away a stray trickle of liquor from her chin.

"Jesus, I'm a G.o.dd.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she says and takes another drink. "I'm a f.u.c.king c.u.n.t."

"We do what we have to do," he replies, sitting down on the edge of the bed, running his st.u.r.dy fingers through her hair. "Whatever it takes to get us through the night."

"Is that what I'm doing? Whatever it takes?"

"Way I see it, that's exactly what you're doing."

Alex starts to kiss her, but she pushes him away and sits up. She turns to face the balcony and the city lights again.

"You just don't get it, do you?"

He shakes his head, then takes another long drink from the bottle before s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the cap back on and setting it on the floor.

"Don't it get lonely, way up there on that cross all by yourself?" he asks and wipes his mouth.

"f.u.c.k you."

"What I can never can figure out is how you managed to drive that last nail in. That must have been a b.i.t.c.h."

"Will you just please shut up now?"

And he does, for a few minutes, while she stares at the 107.

night beyond the twenty-seventh floor and the Dylan CD ends and starts over again.

"I can't stop loving her, Alex. I've tried. I f.u.c.king swear, I've tried, and I can't."

"I never asked you to stop loving her. But you can't live like this, either. How much longer do you think you can keep going, the way things are?"

Daria reaches for her Marlboros and lighter, but the pack is empty; she crumples it into a tight ball and flings it at the balcony doors. It bounces silently off the gla.s.s and lies on the carpet near the spilled ice. Bob Dylan's voice bleeds from the speakers, as haggard and sad and urgent as her own worn-out soul, and the tears come before she can stop them.

"f.u.c.k it," she whispers. "f.u.c.k it all."

"You just gotta let someone else carry some of the weight," Alex says. "Just a little."

And then he puts his arms around her and holds her until dawn has begun to bruise the sky dull shades of rose and violet, and she finally stops crying and sleeps.

Excerpt from "Outside the Vicious Circle: A Conversation with Daria Parker" ( Women Who Rock, March 2002; pp. 2728).

WWR: So, how long did it take you to get sick of answering the lesbian question?

DP: Oh, am I a lesbian? Jesus, is that official now, you know, on record somewhere? (laughs) Yeah, I guess I got sick of it pretty d.a.m.n quick. I think I was kind of naive. I figured people would have gotten enough of the whole celebrity d.y.k.e confessional thing with k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge and Ellen Degeneres, and so on.

I don't know what they expected me to add. I just write songs. I just play my f.u.c.king ba.s.s. If they want the Well of Loneliness, they should go to the library. I'm not the poster girl for lesbian equality in the music industry. I 108 know it p.i.s.ses people off when I say that, but after my records started selling, I felt this enormous pressure to be the next lesbian messiah or something. I'm sorry, but I just don't want any part of that.

WWR: But you're not ashamed of your s.e.xuality? It's very evident in the songs on both Skin Like Gla.s.s and Exit West. These are songs written by a woman to a woman whom she loves, whom she has s.e.xual feelings for.

DP: I think I should have the freedom to be honest, as an artist, as a human being, without having to become a political activist. If I was writing love songs to men, or if I was a man writing love songs to women, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'm a songwriter, not a lesbian songwriter. I don't want people to think of me that way, not because I'm ashamed of being a d.y.k.e or because I'm afraid people won't buy my records or whatever. I just want people to think of me as a musician. I don't have an axe to grind. And, you know, I think that's what people are really afraid of. As long as they can hang a sign around my neck, stick that pink triangle on me, I'm not a such a big threat to anyone. I'm visible.

I'm in this neat little box marked "caution-lesbian singer," and the walls of that box limit the impact of my work, or, if what I do happens to p.i.s.s you off, the amount of damage I can do.

WWR: Is it true you declined interviews with both Curve and The Advocate?

DP: Yes, it is. And it's also true I got a lot of hate mail because of that. But if I'd given the d.a.m.n interviews, I'd have gotten hate mail from born-again Christians and Mormons and mothers who were afraid their teenage daughters were gay. Either way, I get the reactionaries, from one side or the other. It was a lose-lose situation, 109.

and I did what I felt was right for me. I think it's a shame people are more interested in condemning me for making my own decisions than taking the time to try to understand why I made those decisions.

WWR: And the girl in Florida, Becky Silverlake, the suicide- DP: Is not something that I talk about in interviews.

WWR: Her mother still insists that the lyrics to "Seldom Seen" were a factor in her daughter's death and that Exit West is, in her words, "a clear and shameless invita-tion to troubled teenagers to turn to suicide as a solution to their suffering and alienation."

DP: Christ, I said I don't talk about Becky f.u.c.king Silverlake. I thought that was understood?

WWR: And your lover, Nicolan Ky- DP: Is the other thing I don't talk about in interviews.

Next question.