suffer the fool

nevermind the gap

Look at yourself in the dark glass of a storefront window. The image wavering untrue as a duck pond made of smoke. Twitch a cigarette from your pocket with pinched fingers like you’re on the yard smooth easy boss nobody’s looking at you trick pluck it loose like a rabbit from invisible hat never showing the pack stare at it a minute then watch your reflection waver and glitch a moment longer past you tucking it between gray chapped lips strike a match and watch your shadow in black glass echo the same a dull beat later on fractured delay.

Now shrug and mirror self shrugs back just a hair trigger late but close enough to pass in the dark above ground.

Never mind the gap you never hesitated.

Time becomes narrow and physical. The perception of self is incidental. Disappear shadow from the mind’s eye and from others to become a lizard the color of dust. Detached and cool as new money beyond the torment of echoes. But also vulnerable, exposed.

You haven’t slept with your eyes shut in well over a year.

The mirror self shimmers and jerks like a dangling corpse trying to touch its toes to earth in blackened glass.

Look at yourself how low have you fallen.

Two hours out of lockup and you stand on a corner like a mark waiting for a bus. Like a clown in a borrowed suit. The sleeves too short and your hands dangle like fish on a string. The orange tie is too wide. There’s a hole in your left shoe and your toes are itchy with damp.

Because you aren’t supposed to be here. Don’t you know you don’t proper exist on this strand.

But here you are.

The name is Valentine Fell and you might as well be a dead vessel waiting to be cleaned prepped done up like a whore and shoved in a box.

Turn left and walk until you come to a convenience store.

The clerk is pale and unfriendly but you convince him to surrender five dollars in change.

Perfect.

Now you jingle like a cat with a bell around its neck.

Step outside and find a phone booth sudden hot and already sweating like a mule being born. Nervous and you don’t want to admit it. Take off the brown jacket and tie and leave them wadded on the floor. Now you wear a white shirt tucked into shapeless brown pants. If only you had a sticker on your tit that said hello, my name is Val, do you want to know the secret you could be a drone selling ancient alien literature door to door.

Three telephone numbers you have memorized on top of thousands of numbers and colors useful only in the salt flats of the yellow.

Dial the first and a woman answers.

Josephine.

She exhales sharp and hangs up and you let the receiver swing on its cord. The automated voice instructs you to hang up if you’d like to make a call.

The traffic outside shrinks away to the dull hum of insects.

The skin hugging these bones feels dry and cold.

Josephine Pity.

Her family has been at war with yours off and on going miles past the days of great great uncles the mad Fell twins Zeb and Meriwether riding with Edward Pity and the James brothers during the first civil war. Not so much the bank heist days, they were too clever to walk into a box they couldn’t slip but they were along for the blood bath on the train.

A colossal confederacy of cockups that was Balthazar said once when you were a bump on his knee. He was there too, a shadow dipping in and out of the irregular militia outfits of misfit cowboys thieves assassins and bushwhackers the Fell and Pity cousins crewed up with in the early war days when west Tennessee was firing on family back east in the blue hills.

The grandkids of motherfuckers who got tired of walking.

The Fell and Pity boys rode with outlaw vaqueros and rogue Shawnee bandit gangs as well. Anybody looking to ghost and plunder union soldiers along the Mississippi outback territories. They tried not to target the boys in gray but if it was the difference between eating tonight and going belly up some rebels got got for the Fells swore to no flag but family. They smuggled runaway slaves both directions, no preference nor druthers.

The rivers and tunnels run north or south they didn’t judge if the cargo had money or treasure. If whoever wearing the skin had something to barter.

If you have a working skin suit and the doll parts to go with it you never don’t have something to trade.

Rufus Fell was known from the French Quarter to the pale strands beyond the yellow as Balthazar. The name was rightful feared from Texas to Tennessee high and low but only Edward Pity rode with the Harpe brothers. They were something else. They ate people above ground under open sky. They were special and legend was the last time Pity and Fell did wet work voluntary in the high strand together was putting them down. Balthazar killed Big Harpe and took his head off with a hatchet on the Trace and Pity cut Little’s throat in his sleep and twice the other watched the other’s back without a sigh.

A posse of marshals claimed they had Little lynched in Nachez along with Mason the monster but that was a punk creeper like the coward Robert Ford looking to use the Harpe name for purposes.

Fell and Pity folks fought on both sides north south but for the most skated the black lurked the fringes did crime along the underbelly of war same as ever. The Pity clan fought Fell and Fell hunted Pity in the smoky mountains in the war before the war. The hill folk who didn’t truck with river people. Fell nor Pity never gave a toss what Jefferson Davis or Robert Lee said. They took up arms when and where necessary and there was never not skin or treasure involved. They all preyed on the plantation dandy boys. The tossers and lords who wanted to duel at dawn. The Fells had beef gone biblical with the Pity clan and fought them where the fuck ever they found each other.

Balthazar once told Stonewall Jackson while playing gin rummy if he sneezed on the cards one more time he’d catch a bullet in his left eye before he could lick the snot from his lip.

The Fells had loved lost spilled blood with the James family same as Pity and Evers same as Teach and Sparrow all the way back to sailing under black in the virgin islands but it was only Edward Pity drew no line in the sand when it came to horrors the thin man in the hat might do for pleasure.

The banners of Pity and Fell had been blood feuding fucking fighting each other to a standstill ever since they were riding herd on Roman slaves building roads in the old country according to Gran Fell.

And before that back to the two thieves if you believed Momma Pity.

They nudged you and Josephine together from age of five.

The fire sign.

They banished you to the basement barracks together with Cowboy and four pups from clans Teach and James and started putting you to sleep.

Tell yourself you’re not sure how you feel about her now or is it still even her.

What were her numbers how far was her flat.

How wide is her sky.

She cut her spiral at seven minutes sixty four seconds. The Pity girls were by the book. Joe stopped surfing beyond the hedge maze after you and brother drowned. After you disappeared you smoked the yellow and vanished. Josephine and half a crew were lost for months in the flats and she didn’t want to talk about it but the farthest up down or back the strand she looped was seven years six months four days but she hasn’t you know she hasn’t hopped yellow since you and brother ghosted her vessel this is the only strand she walks no other.

Minutes become weeks become years in the flat spiral of the pale.

Two years since you received one of her grim cheerful letters. She might not be walking this strand at all. She may have hopped one last but you don’t think so you’re not sure she’d make it

not in that skin.

Josephine stopped chasing numbers down the abyss of light long ago.

Last time you spoke she said she doesn’t remember the shadow otherkin days. She doesn’t believe in that fairy shit anymore. She doesn’t want to and you don’t blame her and you never did mind when the letters stopped. It’s not easy to communicate with the one you love or dread through stone walls. Everything is a dull blade. A description of a trip to the grocery store in a thunderstorm can bring a prisoner to tears.

Not seeing her isn’t an option.

There is nothing else, no one else.

Five minutes you just need five minutes with her.

Gather what moisture you can and spit.

The second number is a dead drop signal line. Call and let it ring twice. Call back let it ring three times then once then nothing. If brother gets the smoke signal he meets you at the spot.

If you can remember which spot is the spot.

Reach for the phone again and dial Shane Pity.

Her estranged half brother.

He’s people.

Shane has been your friend and enemy since you took your first steps in this skin since you were five and seven in the cellar sleeping in the day running the yellow at night they choked you out every night you brother cowboy polly josephine shane he whupped you more times than you can count anytime you knocked him down you made sure to stomp him or choke him out before he got up again before he passed the mile marker where his eyes went glassy Shane murdered folk too easy but when you were kids once he gave you his skateboard when your cherry bmx hopper was stolen.

Taught you some useful some not how to talk to girls survival skills that Cowboy neglected because it was too easy and you wrote one of Shane’s book reports in the seventh grade after his ma died he was a zombie that was the last time shit was half normal after the long dark the shadow days in the Pity house cellar you had one summer of not looking back in the pale. You slept with his half sister daughter of Jameson the motherfucker who killed Jack the elder four precious times hopping the yellow forward and back then you broke her you broke each other but Shane forgave you.

He borrowed three hundred from you once, for an abortion in the strand he said and you didn’t ask. Rule four hundred there is no four oh one he paid you back with this ugly brown suit you wore to court.

They did this same shit to brother Jack and Josephine’s kid sister. Mister James wanted a Pity and Fell baby boy to spawn inside the yellow to make the run beyond the train station nobody

there is no beyond

nobody made the station unless they had a mechanic who was true and nobody saw up or down like Josephine. Nobody attempted to run it alone not since Cowboy and nobody knew what hell might follow a baby born in the dark light and flat time of the pale. Why do you think Jack the elder and Gran Fell hammered rule four hundred into them from their first breath.

Never enter the yellow heavy with child.

Josephine and her sister were true they could see north in fog south in black as pitch they could hear gravity particles in the hedge maze the Pity girls could feel the air tell you which way was up standing in a salt flat under white sky level as a strap the circle is ever flat but lose track of up or down kiss the mind’s eye and swallow a razor the Pity girls knew the way home and you never nobody from the seven or five ever made the train station riding alone not since brother and Cowboy he’s gone mad plinking rats in the church annex last you saw he never comes up from the pale not since the mockingbird house if you lose track of up down crossing the flats same as looking back in the pale Jack the elder said purgatory may look flat but up or down is never never not the blade’s edge when running the straylight strands your mother stopped talking after mister Jameson came but your gran always said there hasn’t been a girl born under the Fell name in two hundred of years but for one you never met and don’t necessarily believe in Althea said to be daughter of Balthazar she walks elsewhere beyond the train station there is no beyond how do you know you lost your mechanic you can’t see up for down.

This brown suit you walked out of county in was Shane’s. He loaned it to you the day you went to court. He said he didn’t want it back and you don’t blame him. This is an ugly fucking suit and it itches.

Shane answers on the fifth ring.

Don’t blink.

Val he says judas priest.

I’m out

no shit

where are you

what number is the sky

pink

yellow

yellow claims no number

six is never green

I’m nowhere

I’ll come pick you up

not yet

latitude and longitude

I’m going to see your sister

unwise

maybe

spare yourself

save yourself

you might as well cut your own throat

yeh maybe I should do that

fuck off

just giving heads up I’m on Fell business

what mother oh you fucker

you don’t know my up or down

you can’t see my sky

don’t fuck with me Shane

Josephine looks tough and efficient. Her eyes are flat and cold and this is not how you knew her.

She clocks you when the bell dings over the door.

She can hear strains of light.

She smelled you coming a block away.

how are you

not terrible

you’re not here

I am

how are you here

I’m outside my numbers

Josephine chews the end of a golf pencil.

Her copper hair is pulled back and her skin is pale like she dodges the sun still sleeps by day most of the shadowkin never stop that but she isn’t so thin and spiky there are muscles in her arms.

you look good

you smell like Shane

these are his clothes

She glances at the clock at a woman with a crying baby.

At anything but you.

what can I get you

the number four

which no that’s the old menu

fried egg grilled cheese with bacon and tots

new owners don’t do meat we are animal friendly

eggs are not technically meat

I’m busy

cup of coffee then

She remembers black with three sugars which is about enough to fold you in half after two years eight months seventeen days inside. She cuts you open with a pale distant oddly delighted somehow still apologetic smile and says she has disturbing dreams about you.

Disturbing how.

The things I do.

Not sure is that good or bad.

Neither it just is.

What do I do.

You come home to meet mother.

Abigail Pity.

Abigail was my aunt or so they said.

Shane’s mom.

Not a name you say aloud three times.

No it isn’t.

mother is lady Delphine remember.

you suck air through your teeth skate five years sideways you never clock the firebird with Polly and Cowboy parked just outside that halo of lamplight until the night you lose Josephine’s eye the black and silver phoenix and two hazy splintered shadows maybe three inside you’re the wheelman one of them one of us smoking a cigarette glowing bloodorange the firebird windows black one of the shadows notices you noticing it you gun the engine just so you mark it tag it for a lookabout later some other dead end night so fuck it you watch little brother Jack hustle up the driveway to catch Josephine to have her back as ever try not to get lost watching the plum of her ass in those snug as a bug pants

Turn around the mockingbird house goes fractal in a blink.

Edward Pity is nazgil the ringwraith of yellow where the fuck are you Jack watch your ass pilgrim.

Delphine Pity daughter of Edward is not to be trifled with neither.

Josephine tucks a matchbook next to your coffee coffee mug with an address scratched in blue ink and says good luck and you watch her work for a minute soon you’re undressing her in my mind.

Not to be rude.

Not to do unasked for sex stuff not touching nor even just peeping her personal moments on the internal reel when she’s not looking you just want to remember her in that skin. The Josephine you know. The ink on her shoulder blade a blue rose a stem with no thorns. A scar on her left thigh where a dog bit her age six. She has pubic hair the color of blonde rust and the only truly perfect belly button you have ever seen. She has a heart murmur. She doesn’t charge you for the coffee. She doesn’t tell you there’s no smoking in this section. She tells you don’t fuck up the knock at mother’s door.

Don’t blink she mutters.

I know.

Don’t stutter.

Nod and shut up.

Don’t look back.

Don’t gas your numbers don’t claim colors you can’t fly and never mind the fucking gap.

I know.

She knows you know.

The blue rose is on her shoulder because you know it is. She doesn’t ask your numbers she knows what color your sky is and she doesn’t bring you a check. Josephine doesn’t expect a tip but you leave a coin because it feels like she gave you a blade.

How deep you cut yourself is not entirely up to you.

She doesn’t ask if she will see you again. That too is up to mother.

/fade

Delphine Pity consort of Balthazar Fell mother of Althea and the sisters Pity photo taken at the Hotel Nine date and provenance unknown.