The Downtown Mobile Blues

At Some Point Later

Flies don't usually perch like that, sitting on the soap bottle lid like a show dog on a pedestal. The fly regarded me with raspberry eyes, rubies cut so small and fine. Eyes that saw the garbage can, the corpse, the unattended tooth brush sitting beside a spotless white porcelain sink. Eyes that stared up into mine and seemed to signal comprehension, even communion. I made a face and flicked it away. How dare he? Bow up to me like that, like an equal. Saucy scavenger. Stale toothpaste eater. But is that fair to me or him? A fly is a fly and behaves like a fly. I am me. Do I not struggle at living, do I not get by? Constructing an existence from scraps of experience, morsels of memory, dribbles of knowledge.



At Some Point in the Beginning

"Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"

The girl's face hung blank before me, apple white by the jukebox light. Her eyes reflected. a phosphorescent purple, a colour the room had never seen. Light that simply wasn't there. Her lips trembled and parted, dry as strips of paper from an old hornet's nest. Air hissed from between them, a punctured gas pipe's whispered issue, a lunar wind over the grey marble of her tongue. My hands went up to the sides of her head and bunched her brittle black hair in my bony fists. Not to tug but simply to shake.


"Hey, that thing's got you. Ok? Listen to me." 


Shake, shake, shake! 



 "That thing's got you again. So listen! Snap out of it! Do you hear me? Come on now. Come on!"


I didn't even know what I meant. The words were someone or something else's words. I picked them up like a radio signal. My brain was the antennae. My mouth, the amplifier. And my consciousness trapped between the two like a hostage with a gun to his head, reading a ransom note into the mouth piece of an unfashionable model of Nokia cell phone. The purple light poured over the arc of her irises and swirled around to make a full circle of reflection, as if a black and white tv were flashing off and on just over my left shoulder.


"I said, snap out of it!"      

In an excruciating instant, he eyelids fell like shutters blocking out the moon and stars. Blocking out the bar's secrets. Two pale smudges of light. There, then gone.


"Uhhhhhhhhhh.........."


The paper lips quivered, oiled and shiny with spit.


"Uhhh? Whhhhaaaatttt? Ohhh. Um, heyyyy...."


My hands traded her hair for the tops of her arms. I kneaded the sinew and muscle and gristle and imagined I heard grinding noises.


"Hey."


I looked at the holes where eyes used to be.


"Are you, like, ok?"


Filaments of real light returned to her eyes. Hazel with pinpricks of blue from the beer sign over the bar, red from the doorway, green from the neon sign in the window. Colours with readily traceable origins. She looked at me, wondering why a strange girl was touching her, I suppose. Trying to pick an emotion and dedicate to it. Pissed off or confused? Coy or repulsed? In the end, she chose ambivalence. Finally, she answered me.


"I guess. Who are you?"


I had so much to tell her. Where the hell should I start?

The Downtown Mobile Blues

Three men sat in the room, waiting for me. I could see them through the doorway as they waited for me. Their faces were three pale orbs hovering in the dark. Occasionally, a half moon sliver of hand would rise and flicker near a face like an albino moth then settle again in a lap or on the tabletop. From my vantage point through the scuffed doorway, the only eyes I could make out were the eyes that belonged to the man in the middle of the table. For the most part his eyes were downcast but now, sensing my presence outside the door, he lifted his gaze to meet mine. My boss had warned me about their eyes and he wasn't kidding by a long shot. A cold and unwavering look seemed to mark me from the bottom of the ocean. Eyes like these would be easier to deal with if they truly were what  they at first glance seemed to be, which was simply the alert eyes of a healthy predatory animal. But it wasn't that simple. Calculation coupled with emotion was what I saw in those freaky neon blue eyes. These were the eyes of  beasts yet also the eyes of rational men. And, if the on call doctor's notes were to be taken the slightest bit seriously, these were the eyes of vampires.

"Three men, all appearing between the ages of 20 and 40, Caucasian, native English speakers but not necessarily local. They all had ID, which we now know to be fakes, since the social security numbers are for dead people. All three were identified to have been within 10 miles of The Blind Mule on Saturday night.” The investigator kept his arms folded across his chest. He looked more cold than defensive. “We need blood samples to compare to what we found at the crime scene.” He gestured towards the men. “Officer Luckett will be in the room with you.” The room was cold. This time of year, the ac is always cranked up to high indoors everywhere you went, creating a false autumn in every building in the South. Down in the basement of the Mobile Metro Jail, the chill was more insistent. The closer I got to the men, the more the chill bit in with teeth and claws.  I shivered and pulled my hoodie up around my neck. The man seated in the middle, the one who’s eyes hadn't left me since I’d first stood in the doorway, raised his eyebrows slightly and almost smiled. His hands were folded neatly in his lap. He watched as I put my venipuncture kit on the table and opened it. “Evening, gentlemen.” I always introduce myself. It’s the professional thing to do and anyway, good manners are free. “My name is Leigh Hall. I’m here to collect blood samples from each of you.” I unsheathed a 10 mL syringe from its plastic wrapper. “It won’t take long.” I chose a 22 gauge butterfly needle and attached it to the syringe with a length of thin clear tubing. “And it won’t hurt much.” This time, the man in the middle showed me his teeth. “Efficient and professional.” His voice echoed slightly in the bare room. The melodious baritone sounded as if it were coming from far away like a train whistle after midnight. He chuckled softly. “I suppose. That is, unless it’s supposed to hurt.” I stood next to him now, holding the needle in one hand, an alcohol prep pad in the other. Exhaling, I imagined I could see a frosty puff of air suspended between us, if only for a second. Him first. Why not? Let’s see just how professional and efficient I am. “Roll up your sleeve, please.” With a few flicks of his hand, navy blue fabric folded back to reveal a white forearm. Even in the rooms shadows,  networks of veins like blue tendrils stood out clearly from the surrounding skin. It was my turn to show my teeth. An easy stick. Lucky me. I tied on a tourniquet and patted the vein as much as I dared. Cool, firm skin flushed under my fingers as the vein pulsed and stood to attention. This guy was very well hydrated.

 “Well...”

 I spoke slowly as I chose a spot and cleaned it with the prep.

 “ ...I guess it depends as much on the skill of the person wielding the needle...” 

I rolled the needle between my thumb and forefinger until the bevel faced the ceiling. 

 “...as it does on the pain threshold... "

 I pulled his skin taut with the thumb of my left hand.

 “...of the patient.”

 I slid the needle into his arm and immediately saw the flash chamber darken. Very efficient. The man was still  and composed throughout all this. No little jumps or twitches. He didn't turn away from me as I inserted the needle yet he also payed the matter at hand no attention. Instead, his eyes scrutinized my face intently as if he were expecting something. Blood left the flash chamber and shot through the tubing toward the syringe. His eyes never moved from mine and that near smile returned. I shook my head and pulled back on the plunger. What filled the syringe made me hold my breath. Even in the dark of that small, icy room, I could see there was something wrong with the blood. Light from the outside office reflected off the barrel of the syringe and dissipated in the blood’s froth of bubbles. I sighed, removed the needle and taped gauze to the man’s arm before taking the syringe back to the doorway. I held it up to the light. The blood was dark and inky at first glance, like arterial blood. Only two things were wrong with that. One, the blood had come from a vein. Two, the blood wasn't red at all. It was blue.