Here Comes the Man Called Clade
The man called Clade arrived in a one sentence story about five years ago.
It went like this:
Clade was a glitchslinger, and that meant trouble.
Here’s what happened next …
Praxis O’Riley
Clade walked the street of my childhood, during that time when I gave way to adolescence, and he hummed and whispered to himself, “I put my back into my living ...”
Across the street from that big blue Victorian house with the bleeding door, Mrs. Miamasso caught sight of him.
He gave a dandy wave and a cheery smile, met by her squinting eyes and parted lips, then threw a dart in her right eye. She went totally upright and still, water hose leaking in a gush, darkening her concrete driveway, large breasts straining the fabric of her slightly small gradient fade t-shirt, her seashell thongs getting splattered and the loose bits of grass and mud washed away.
Clade nodded, satisfied, whispered, “I don't need a fight, to prove I'm right ...”
He made a right, into my driveway—a steep bitch of a hill, not straight up and down, but enough to work out your shins on the way up. Of course, he was on the way down, and he put a little skip in his step, copying and pasting it all, cutting the parts he found dull or uninteresting.
For example, as he approached the open garage, Chains sat on an amplifier, strumming out a tune. He's deaf in one ear, so he had his eyes closed, but when he opened them, he saw Clade and smiled. “Wassup, dewd?”
Clade angled his head, considering ole Chains from another perspective.
“You a friend of T’s?”
Clade made an L-shape with each hand and framed Chains' face with his fingers, nodded no.
Chains looked around, dipped his head, then asked, almost reverently, “You a friend of D’s?” After Clade didn’t respond, Chains said, “Salvation through damnation.”
Clade dropped his hands, smiled quaintly, then cut Chains out. He whistled and hopped into the garage, surveying the ping-pong table set up on one side, TV on it, stack of VHS tapes of horror films, past the captain’s chair where I held court, past the ashtray Dani stole from the Bee Very Quicklike, and into the back mud room. He whispered, “I don't need to be forgiven ...”
The back door was locked because I was upstairs masturbating and didn’t want to be disturbed. I was trying to focus on the mirror, on the other side, the other life where I had run of the world, where my powers were true and real, where bravery and courage meant something and love flowed like rivers. It wasn’t working.
The lock opened for Clade, who simply caused it to fail, then entered the house, the kitchen, and went to the fridge.
“Don’t Cry” was filling the house from the stereo in the plush living room.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered as he peered in the fridge, grabbed a Kors Lite popped that bad girl open, slurped her on down. He looked at her empty silver husk, whispered, “Don’t raise an eye.” Then he went to the laundry room off the kitchen, placed her corpse in the device on the wall, poked her flat belly in, and crushed her flat.
I heard something right as I was coming. I hated that feeling, when lost in ecstasy and I have my attention drawn to some bullshit in this world. It totally flattens it.
I put on my blue velvet robe, pulled my hair back, grabbed my gun, chambered a round. Sixteen was old enough to see folks die apparently.
Clade met me on the steps, and I pointed the gun at him, my robe still open. He looked me up and down and smiled. I was oddly flattered, but kept my focus.
He put his hands up, smiled.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I said.
He turned around and walked out with me right behind, pistol pointed at the back of his head but not so close that he could grab it should he turn around. Clade opened the bleeding door from the snow-white side, then went out onto the covered front porch. It’s small, but had a couple of steps. He went onto them, then turned back to me, still smiling, looked down again.
I pulled my robe closed with my other hand. “Peep show’s over, asshole. Now piss off.” I waggled the gun.
Clade shrugged and wandered off through my front yard into the empty side lot next door, headed for the one beyond that, a large patch of muddy nothing. He hummed to himself and whispered, “It’s only teenage wasteland ...1”
I waited until he was out of sight, then closed the door. Nothing more to see here.
(untitled)
As Clade’s boots hit the island shore, he whistled a tune and walked from the sea cave, still a dim blue light within, up Processional Place to the Southern Palazzo, turned east, then north, caught a streetcar to the Pumpernickel Plaza Building, then rode an elevator all the way to the top, got out, walked up to the man seated behind the desk, copied him, turned and went back out the way he came, editing the man all the while, tweaking the face and name, the origin story, the relatives, the cock, the eye color and clothing labels, ducked back into the cave and re-entered the swollen orifice, disintegrated, and returned to the City.
A Meal of Secrets
The spiller2 touched the card with a fingertip three times, then asked, “What does the tee stand for?”
Praxis smiled and said, “Transcendent.”
The spill shrugged and pocketed the card and sat down. “I’ve never done this before.”
“You’re not alone.”
“I'll bet you hear that a lot.”
Praxis saw then the spill had begun, so nodded instead of replying in words.
“If I could go back in time and tell myself I’d be here today, I’d probably knock my own teeth out.”
“Ouch.”
“Not literally, of course. But I’d beat myself up about it.”
Praxis took a sip of tea. “That what’s happening now?”
The spiller chuckled. “I guess it is. My sister went in for secrets.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“And she’s still with us?”
Another chuckle, this one heartier, from the belly a bit. “Yes, she’s good. Got rid of that notch who beats her. Beat her.”
Tension along the mouth. Tightness back at the eyes.
“Oh, dear,” Praxis said.
Some lightness in the mouth, fake smile.
“Good riddance, right?”
Praxis smiled, sadly.
“I mean, those kids ain’t gonna have a father now. I mean ...” hand out, meant to reassure, “father was a woman, too, but I’m okay with that. That wasn’t the problem. The hitting was the problem.”
“Yes, that’s a big problem.”
“Yeah, so ...” Thin line of tears, crack in the voice as real sadness is reached. “And you can’t hit a lady.”
“You couldn’t protect your sister, you mean.”
He nodded, crying, then sobbing.
Praxis ate the sadness, chewed the secret that this man felt, and said, “It’s okay to feel this. Anyone would. You can let it out here.”
And so he did, filling the space with more secrets, more untold truths and past pains. Praxis ate them all up, and the man left clear, empty of that weight.
Clade walked in, chewing gum.
Praxis smiled. “Hello, dear. I have something for you.”
In a small black box, was a key. Praxis took the key, gave it to Clade, who turned it one way then the other, chewing and chewing the gum.
“Ono neto gontobo, azara azara,” Praxis said. A long plume of smoke came from each nostril, filling the room and hanging heavy on the air. “Cogonum etu. Jabuza.”
Clade smiled, blew a bubble, popped it. He tossed the key in the air, caught it, then put his closed fist over his heart, and left.
Praxis sat in the smoke with legs crossed on the floor.
“Azzajahna, mesophita donah. Omeno. Omeno.”
A Wake Up Call
Clade used the key to decipher the code. A face. A name. A story. An address. A directive.
He skipped down Cherry Lane to North Windorfell, then took steps two at a time, up to Faltwell Armor Estates. The door had a keypad.
Clade looked at the key, read the number from it, then typed it in the pad. The door clicked open, and he hopped through.
The elevator call switch, too, was locked. The key fit there, released it. Clade called the elevator, whistled while the cables wailed and brought the lift down. A ding, then parted doors. He retrieved the key, went in.
He saw a small girl there, looking up with big eyes, cautious.
He smiled and held up the key.
She looked at it, then at him.
He waved his other hand a bit, then passed it over the key, showed both hands empty.
She cracked a tiny smile.
Ding.
Clade smiled and whistled, left the girl in the lift, and went to apartment 4-D. He looked from side to side to see, then saved there.
The key slipped in the lock, three quiet metal kisses, then a roll in the hay. Spread wide open. He came inside, pulled out the key, shut the door softly.
On the green velour couch was a sawed-off shotgun with tactical fittings. He arched an eye, then scouted out the apartment, checking room after room until her found her, passed out drunk, dispatching apneic snores, pistol resting on her belly.
Clade wiggled his fingers, keeping them light, eased the pistol off her.
She snorted and moved her head side to side, but did not wake.
He paused to be sure, then went back to the living room, dropped the magazine, cleared the chamber. He sat at the kitchenette table and collected each bullet. Using the key, he reformed each one into a new truth, a better idea. Then he stacked them back in, alternating atop one another, gently loaded the mag back in the pistol, chambered the first idea.
Clade went to the bedroom again, took aim, and fired. He traced the sound waves, highlighted them, then cut and discarded them.
The bulletpoint entered her through the forehead, right into the prefrontal cortex. Her eyes popped open, and she wept at the insight, at the plain truth of what she’d done and now needed to do to make things right again.
Clade walked to the door, set the pistol down on the skinny stand where the car keys rested, then left, filling the hallway with whistles.
