Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (4 page)

Her mouth gaped until she brought it slowly closed. “Athletic failure and rejection of cultural heritage all in one night? Did you hope Daddy Dearest would have a heart attack and spare you the punishment?”

“I just figured…I guess…get it all out at once.”

Beep.
Cool
, Carcy replied.
You’ll feel healthier in no time. :)

“You sure did that. Tell him about your boyfriend, too?”

“You’re kidding, right?” It was hard to think about what to type back to Carcy. He wanted to talk more about the evening with his father, the courage he’d had to muster. The ram had no idea what meat-eating meant to a family of wolves.
I thought he was going to hit me
, he typed.

“Well, why not get it all out at once?”

Sol snorted. “I’m not legally an adult for four months. He can still beat the shit out of me. Or lock me in my room, or take away my phone and computer, or send me to anti-gay Bible camp for the summer.”

“Or what, ground you? You’re not thirteen anymore. But yeah, Bible camp would suck, even if it wouldn’t work.” Meg talked distractedly, staring at her laptop screen. She tapped a couple keys on her keyboard. “So here’s some background on our project. Comin’ to your e-mail.”

Did he?
Carcy asked.

There didn’t seem to be much he could say to that, except
No.

Sol’s e-mail flashed on his phone. He checked to make sure it was Meg’s message and skimmed it as Carcy’s next text came back.
Too bad. If he hit you, you could call Social Services.

He didn’t type a reply. Instead, he went to his phone’s e-reader to see if “Confession” had been delivered yet. “I started looking at the books you recommended. Pretty interesting.”

“You don’t have to read them all if you don’t have the time. I’ll do the art research. Mr. Vandermeer says I could be an artist if I could learn to use a color besides black.”

“I like your black-on-black paintings.”

She looked up again, her eyes trailing along his arms and down to his tail. “I’d kill for your fur,” she said. “Save me a fortune in dye.”

He laughed. “Your fur is brown enough anyway.” But his tail wagged, and he felt relaxed for the first time all afternoon. And when he checked his e-reader, “Confession” had loaded. His phone beeped again with another message from Carcy.
*strokes your flank* You got time now?

Doing schoolwork at Meg’s.

Later, then. *licks your nose*

*kisses*

“You reading or sexting?” Meg sounded bored. “If you’re sexting, I wanna see.”

Sol tapped the book open to the first page. “I’m just…telling him about my evening.”

“Hey,” Meg said. “Is he interested in baseball?”

“I, uh…” Sol stared down at his phone. “I don’t think so.”

“He oughta be interested in your baseball, anyway.” Meg realized what she had said, and pointed at him. “No ‘ball-boy’ jokes.”

Carcy had, in fact, made one of those jokes, early on in their relationship. Sol pretended to ignore Meg’s comment. “We don’t talk about it that much. What’s that got to do with anything anyway?”

“Ah, if he encouraged you, maybe you’d do better.”

Sol had a fleeting vision of sitting on his bed with Carcy beside him, talking excitedly about what Mr. Zerling had said about him, or hearing Carcy praise his play in a game. Stupid, he told himself. Like that’d happen. But for a moment, imagining it, he’d felt that passion stir in him, the pride in putting on his uniform, the excitement of being part of the game that he hadn’t felt since the previous summer.

The image faded; the excitement went with it. He stopped the slight wagging of his tail and said, “You don’t think the car is enough motivation?”

“I dunno, is it? Better be. Fuck if I’m gonna spend another summer in this prison camp of a town. I’ll kill myself. Maybe take you with me.”

Sol sighed. He smelled the echo of steak in his nostrils again, twisting his stomach into a painful knot. “Yeah, seriously.”

She stared at his phone. “Get your boyfriend to give you a car.”

“He’s not rich.” Sol swiped his finger to turn to the first page of the book. “He just has a beat-up Yari.”

Meg lifted her gaze to glare at him. “I’m not one of your car-obsessed musclehead friends. What the hell is a Yari?”

“It’s just a little compact car.” Sol had looked it up on the Internet because Carcy wouldn’t send him a picture.

“Sounds like a winner.” She lowered her head to her screen again. The reflections of the images she was looking at danced across her eyes.

“He…” The black walls of the room stifled the words before he got them past his throat. He turned to the words on his phone.

“What? Loves you?”

Meg had a “love” speech like Sol had a “baseball” speech. “Yeah.”

“All love is fake. It’s insecurity, it’s an act we put on because we’re afraid of being alone.”

“You’re not afraid of being alone?” Sol scrolled the screen up and down without reading the words.

“No. I know I’m alone.”

He exhaled, fogging his screen briefly. “Thanks. Glad I count for so much.” He watched the mark of his breath shrink and fade, revealing the words beneath.

“Don’t be a twat. Hey, this is a nice picture, look.” Meg lifted her laptop and turned it, showing Sol a nighttime scene of city lights reflected in a river, the blue sky dotted with glowing yellow beacons.

“Sure,” he said. “Who did it?”

Meg’s muzzle, perpetually fixed in an expression of weary scorn, fell into a wearier, more scornful look. “Vincent van Gogh? The artist we’re studying?”

Sol rubbed a finger along his whiskers, pressing them down along his muzzle and letting them spring back up. “This wasn’t one of the pictures in the assignment.”

“He painted nine hundred pictures in his life.” Meg lowered the laptop and turned it around. “This one was about being all alone, like I was saying.”

“There’s a bunch of those yellow thingies, though.” Sol’s phone went dark; he turned it on again. “Are those fireflies? They’re not alone.”

“They’re stars, idiot. They don’t have fireflies in cities.” Her eyebrows lowered and she went back to the screen. “Let me write about the art, ’kay? You can write about love and shit if you want.”

“Love is real.” Sol checked the time. He could plausibly stay out another half hour or so, and he had no desire to go home. The message indicator on his phone remained blank; nothing more from Carcy. He focused on the book.

“The Confession of Jean de Giverne”

(translated by Holliset Marchand, 1922)

Dear
père
, I know that this is not what you meant when you said you wanted all of Lutèce to speak my name. From the prison window, I hear the scurrilous rumors and whispers, and it pains my heart to think that you may be hearing and believing them. They make me out to be devoid of morals, the exemplar of the
bourgeoisie
and their contempt for the peasants. They call for the return of the guillotine, for my head to be mounted at Les Halles as assurance to the lower classes that the government has their interests at heart, that it is not an attempt to re-create the monarchy. As if my head could bear all of those meanings! Dearest father, my story is a love story, a story that could be told between farmer and flower-girl, between landowner and minister. That it was told between a senator’s son and a common dancer is incidental to the heart of it, and to the tragic turn it took.

You may think you know the story, and that is why you have kept yourself from the proceedings. Much has been made of your silence. They say it is an admission of my guilt, a message to the court to bring forth the guillotine with your approval. But if you knew, beloved father, if you only knew! Since you will not come to hear my story from my own lips, I must write it down in these pages, and by so doing perhaps put to rest those wagging tongues with nothing better to do than revel in my fall from grace by adding their own crude embellishments, as a street peddler’s dirty fur clings to the fine rugs he re-sells. I feel certain that when you have heard all the facts, you will fly on the wings of a dove to rescue your poor, maligned son.

I promise you that the night I went to the Moulin Rouge, I had no conception of the path my feet set out upon. It was Thierry Beaumarchais who brought me there. Father, I heard your warnings, and I am ashamed to say that I valued my own judgment over yours at that time. I know that when you spoke of finding a suitable consort that you would never have thought of one of the scandalous dancers from that den of sin, and yet so blinded was I by my youth and self-confidence that I believed I could redeem one of them from the terrible life they led.

As I am certain that you have never even approached the quarter of Montmartre and the bohemians and rogues that make their home there, I will attempt to describe to you the world that had such a profound effect on the young Jean de Giverne.

To an innocent chamois, as I was just two months ago, the chaos and cacophony of Montmartre is bewitching. It is an explosion of bright colors, a flood of smells, a patchwork of language from all corners of Gallia, gathered in a honeycomb of small rooms, each of which seems to have a window giving out onto the street and a fox, a badger, a rabbit, a mouse leaning out of it shouting or singing. It gives one the air of having entered a new world, and in early April, the ragamuffins sell dewy blooms of flowers just showing cracks of color through their green shells, the bohemians pull out their paintings of blue skies and vast gardens to show under the shelter of oilcloth with the light rain hissing softly atop. Father, father, can you see why I followed Thierry there?

He said that Montmartre is the only place where spring truly reveals her essence, that if I were to go at all, it must needs be on this first day of spring, and I had not the years to dispute him. We sat at a café beneath umbrellas with holes, so that the rain dripped through, but we did not mind it. We kept our cups away from the wrought-iron table, nibbled our buttered croissants, and watched the people roaming about the street. The dampness in the air soaked up their scents as they passed, so much sharper and more real than in our refined streets. There were few perfumes, only the unadorned, raw scents of food, of clothing, of foxes and goats and rats and rabbits. It took me very nearly an hour to be at my ease, with my own perfume and fancy clothes.

I was dressed in my fine silks, with a camel-hair coat to keep off the rain, and the cravat you gave me for my birthday wrapped gaily about my neck. Thierry was dressed more soberly, though he did leave his shirt open around his impressive chest. Even with the grey fur about his cheeks and the droop of his antler-less head, I was surprised to hear the shop owner refer to him as my father. Even a rat, after all, should know that the child of a red elk would in no way resemble a tan-furred, delicate chamois. Yet I suppose that to a rodent, all horned people are alike, much as I could be forgiven for mistaking a young mouse for the rat’s son, should I ever suffer such a lapse in perception.

You will be pleased to know that Thierry corrected the rat’s mistake immediately, and deferred to your status, introducing me as the son of a powerful politician (he was discreet enough not to say ‘senator’) while modestly describing himself as a ‘functionary of moderate influence.’ I understand that the rat has been heard to tell people that he believed the influence to be more than moderate, and of a distinctly unsavory type. You must know, father, that nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, Thierry set me upon the path that brought me to this prison, but never did he behave in an inappropriate way toward me.

I remember well that spring afternoon, the warmth we had not felt for weeks. All the people we watched on the street walked, hopped, or skipped through the rain. Ears perked, tails swung freely enough that more than once we were splashed by someone’s enthusiasm. It was just the opposite of the stifling, restrained buildings you brought me to, and even though my fur was damp, I threw open my arms and laughed.

That afternoon, the rain lessened somewhat, and Thierry wished to introduce me to a friend of his. So he took us from under the umbrellas of the cafe and we made our way along the damp streets, so much narrower and more crowded than our grand boulevards. I believed I was getting a cultural education; in Thierry’s work, he appraises art quite often. As we walked past the artists practicing their craft on the street, he offered commentary on each one. The artists, far from being disturbed or indignant at these unsolicited opinions of their work, recognized his status and nodded gratefully to each one. I felt quite as important as when you took me through the halls of the Senate.

Thierry’s friend, a fierce Firenzan goat who signs his paintings Alazzo, creates beautiful perspectives despite being blind in one eye. He served us a sharp orange cheese on day-old bread while he and Thierry talked about the world of art. He lives in his studio, a room scarcely larger than your closet, where we all three sat on his bed. I sat beside the open window, and though I did not at first lean out of it as the other residents of the quarter do, it was from this window that I first saw the Moulin Rouge.

The clouds parted and the sun hit the red sails of the windmill. Though there was a breeze, the sails remained fixed and proud against the ragged clouds, glowing as if with their own inner light. The body of the mill, august despite its crimson color, held the ethereal sails to the world below when I could see that they ached to fly, fly, fly.

At that hour of the afternoon, of course, the only activity outside the Moulin Rouge comes from the vagabonds who always inhabit the street, the customers who sit with them waiting for the doors to swing open, and the occasional seller of food or favors, the small tokens purchased by regular visitors to bestow upon their favorite dancers. The regulars know each other, too; I saw a skunk and a squirrel clasp arms and engage in conversation, though at each pause they glanced up as though the cabaret might open at any moment.

I thought it odd that the regulars would gather in the street so early, hours before sunset. But after an hour’s worth of stimulating discussion about the direction of the art world, or perhaps two hours, I noticed a flurry of activity below the scarlet mill. The dancers were arriving, and this was what the regulars had been hoping for.

The passion in them! Even from blocks away, I could see their eyes gleam, their bodies animated with a spirit unlike any other. I confess, father, I hungered for it myself, to know what could drive these quiet citizens to the frenzy with which they pursued the arriving dancers. Many dancers hurried past them, shy of attention; three remained, coquettishly accepting favors and bestowing kisses upon a lucky few. I watched them let their clothing slip, creased fabric revealing just a touch more of a curve, a glimpse of the white-furred secrets that lay below.

The dancers were graceful works of art, their admirers naked and open in their lust and admiration. It is true that I did not lust after the dancers in the way the squirrel and the skunk and their compatriots in devotion did, and yet I leaned out of the window as though I were any other resident of the quarter, the better to see the scene below. The thought crept into my mind, father, that perhaps I might grow attracted to those dancers, and thereby learn to be content with a female companion, as you have so often wished. Now I know that it is no use pretending that my tastes draw me to the female form. I am as God made me, and I have done my best to live a virtuous life with what I have been given.

“Hey.” Meg had closed her laptop.

Sol jerked his muzzle up from the phone. “Huh?”

“I said, I’m going to burn one and then go to bed. You want a hit?”

“Nah.” Sol got up and slid the phone into his pocket. It was warm against his fingers, the weight of it comforting against his thigh.

“Mom made some brownies, if you want. No smoke.” She tapped her nose and then slid a practiced paw into her purse, coming out with a small tin that said ‘Solar Mints’ on it. “C’mon, after the day you’ve had, you could stand to relax a bit. Hang out, chill.”

Sol’s own nose twitched with the memory of one bite of Mrs. Kinnick’s brownies, months ago. “Y’know, you shouldn’t—”

Meg yawned loudly and obviously enough to shut him up as she pried the case open and tipped a small, hand-rolled cigarette into one paw. “Fine. Save it, narc.”

Now the smell of the marijuana made Sol wrinkle his nose. “What if someone at school catches you?”

“You can’t smell them inside that tin, right? Who at school has a better sniffer?” She had a lighter in her other paw that he hadn’t seen her get out of the purse. “Last chance.”

“See you tomorrow.” The lighter flicked as he hurried out her door, closing it carefully behind him.

The lights in the living room had been turned down or off. Meg’s parents still floated in the pool, lit only by the movie over their heads. Sol tried not to look, but in the brief glance he couldn’t avoid, he saw only the dark and light of otter fur amid the reflective water, unmarred by any clothing. Mr. Kinnick’s towel was certainly no longer in evidence. He lowered his head and half-ran through the dark, flower-scented space.

“Good night, Sol!” Mrs. Kinnick waved to him, or at least he sensed the motion.

He probably wouldn’t be able to see anything in the flickering highlights over the dark of the pool, but he kept his head down anyway and just raised a paw. “Night, Mrs. Kinnick. Night, Mr. Kinnick.”

If they said anything else, it was lost in the closing of their door. Sol walked along the street of old stone houses with the scent of algae and waterfowl in his nose, toward the dark mass of trees where fireflies blinked quietly, waiting for him.

Jean’s story, now, that was a story. Young noble, being seduced into sin by an older friend, and gay as well. Sol didn’t have anyone here to seduce him into sin, nobody else he even knew was gay, and nowhere in Midland to go that was as exciting as the Moulin Rouge or Montmartre at the turn of the century. They didn’t have a gay club for Sol to stand across the street from and stare guiltily at. The closest they had to sidewalk cafés were the Starbucks a couple blocks from the school; the closest thing to street artists were the old ladies who made yarn puppets and sold them in the mall. No, being gay in Midland in 2012 was just an endurance test, the challenge of whether you could pretend to be normal until you got out.