Another journal

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryActII

Six of them in the room, and him, slouched in the doorway, hands tucked in the pockets of his grimy sweatshirt. “That you spend time,” the withered old man is saying. “And I pay money, for that time.” A low, incantatory growl, a bellows-rasp of breath between each phrase. “That I buy, your time. How. How can I, buy time.” Sunlight glowers behind heavy ruddy drapes drawn over a picture window. “Hand me some time. Put, in my hands, an hour of your day.” He’s sitting in the big brown leather recliner, leaning forward, soft shoulders warmly wrapped in an old quilt. “See what good,” he says, and under the quilt a hand jolts, and another wheeze of breath, “it does. Either of us. Some of you.” One of those eyes squinted shut by a snarl of wrinkles, radiating from that sunken nose. “Think it’s your effort. Not time, but labor. Work. That if you try. That if you strive. That’s what I want. That’s what I pay for. But I don’t. Pay you. What I want. What I want.”

The XO’s there, across the room, frowning around the stiffness of his scar, and three men on the couch, the two of them at either end upright, elbows on knees, the one in a soft plaid workshirt, a steaming cup in his hand, the other in a brown and blue down vest, empty hands scraped rawly red about the knuckles, and between the two of them Jasper, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, grizzled head in his hands. “We, built,” the CO’s saying, from his recliner, “the finest country, the shining city, our green Jerusalem. We did that.” One hand springs from the quilt, clawed in a fist. “No one paid us. No one. Paid. Us.” There in the corner, Moody sips his coffee, watching the XO, who’s watching the CO. “We built it. It was ours. Until the others came, and took it.”

At that, he pulls his hood up, ducks back around the doorway, away down the unlit hall.

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryActII

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryActI

Harsh light on steel, his blade the length of it broadening from pointed tip to palm-width ricasso, there about the flatly cruciform hilt held lightly in both his gauntleted hands, hers a shorter, slender thing, needle-whip and wick about in her one hand netted by the glittering silver guard of wiry strands, thrust and thrust and slipping slice, and each assault brushed off by the merest twitch of his long impassive blade, that here and there tips forward, a simple riposte, wildly batted back, and every steely strike another clang wrung from some antique carillon.

She steps back, away, around, feet bare on polished concrete. Restlessly jagged slashes at the air. Her free hand in a fingerless cycling glove held up against her chest, her plain black T-shirt, her black tights, her wine-red hair. His bootheels click a stately tempo toward her, his blade held up and straight ahead, the flat of it parallel to the floor, tip of it squarely toward her eyes, one of his elbows crooked up at an angle, tight white tank and brown jeans and his cap of black hair shining. Jo springs right, jogs left her shoulder dipping, swing and up a thrust he bats aside with a slight twist, his sword still high, still flat, still stepping toward her, click and click as she scrambles back. “You let me control the field,” says Luys.

Another long step back and right again a straight hard thrust scraped off the tip of his blade turned to parry, to slice past, to poke at her. A leap back, her back toward the big white SUV parked near the wall, her blade up at an angle, guarded, “Like a goddamn tank,” she says.

“At least make me work for it,” he says, “my lady,” click and click, blade up, elbow cocked.

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryActI

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryOpening

Those wicked talons blackly shining relax their hold, lift, stretch, and he leans back, hands up in abeyance, as they resettle about the wooden dowel, rasp and clack, two curled about the front of it, and two behind. The insistent buzz of the electric lantern by his knee. He leans in close again. Wrapped about the knobbled yellow-grey leg above those talons a bit of olive canvas, and with great care he pinches it, the gleam of a brass snap winking in the shadow of his thumb. His other hand up to gently steady the feathered bulk looming above. Somewhere up there a shining eye, blinking, unconcerned, and the black curl of a wicked beak.

Setting the buzzing lantern on a rickety table of old grey boards, a crumpled leather notebook there beside it. That olive strap in his rough-edged palm, and pinned to it a dented metal capsule of that same olive color, absurdly small against his fingertips. Head tipped back and a breath sucked through his teeth, he sets to carefully unscrewing the wee top of it.

A bit of yellow ribbon just a couple inches long, unrolled, weighted down at either end with pennies, and tiny symbols scratched in brown ink down the length of it. He’s squinting at them, writing pairs of characters on a leaf of the notebook, IS, LK, CI, GF, FO. Off in the shadows back behind him cages creak, a rattle of chains, claw-clacks and the fluffs of settling wings. He’s circling letters, sketching arrows and lines from this one to that, then lifts the pen, looks up, peers down at the floor there by his booted foot. He’s returning to the page when it happens again, the faint knock somewhere below, but then there’s the crash of breaking glass.

https://thecityofroses.com/story/HandsOfAnAngryOpening

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleClosing

Booming banging rattling crash she yanks down the overhead door to close with a clang, driving home the bolt with a shove, snapping shut a conspicuously shiny padlock. Up out of the dying echoes a slender guitar-line picks its way to a shambling arpeggio, out in the cavernous space all around the low walls of the narrow stall about her, lined with framed, postcard-sized drawings of street corners, storefronts, houses hatched in ink with fiendish care. She stumps her way through confetti and bobbing drifting balloons, blue and white and silvery mylar, skirts of her high-waisted gown bobbing and belling, her long black hair threaded with silvery ribbons and gathered in two great hanks.

Next stall over, the door’s already closed, an enormous photo hung over it, all silvery black bared legs and buttocks bunched and ropey with muscle in a plié, filmy skirt lifted high by a rusted hook at the end of a heavy chain. A woman stands before it, black jeans, a slick black jacket, turning at the rustle of skirts, “Oh,” she says, “are you closing? Is it time to go?”

“We’ll probably shut the lights off, in a bit?” says Gloria Monday, and off behind her that guitar’s settled into a swaying round of strums and plucks, climbing and falling and back again. “But we’re not yet kicking anybody out.”

“Okay,” says the woman all in black, and then, “but, do you need any help? Sweeping up, or anything?”

“What, this?” says Gloria, kicking a blue balloon away. “Nah, we got this, thanks.”

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleClosing

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleActIV

The question mark’s elaborately arabesqued, a boteh of curlicued ink on the goldenrod tab he holds up, fingers glittering with silver rings, an ankh, a skull, and the nails of them a deep chipped purple. “But where’s the question,” he says, turning it over. Setting it down on the bedspread by the handbill, a slashed sketch of a dancer, and one green dotted eye. “The answer’s pretty clear, tomorrow night, Southeast, Italian Public Market, Gardeners’ and Ranchers’, what does that even, you’re, you’re rubbing off, you rubbed off on me. Ranchers.” He sighs. “Ranchers’ what. No. The question.” He hasn’t looked up yet, his long black hair hung about like curtains. “Where is it, when is it, no. Am I, no, no, not that, not am I going, if it was then the answer.” His black T-shirt says Good-bye Robot Dinosaurs in round white letters. “The answer would be,” he says, looking up. Past the handbill, spread out one atop another a pair of neon green tights, some stockings lacy black but also bright pink fishnets, a tumble of skirts, blue denim and calico patchwork, emerald crinolines, and propped in the corner where the bed’s been jammed a fluffy orange sweater, a yellow slicker, an unlaced corset printed with faux-embroidered flowers. Set atop it all a pink meshback cap, the front and bill of it a hash of pink-and-black camouflage. “You could go,” he says. “You should go. Go on,” he says. “Go. Go.”

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleActIV

Posted by Kip Manley

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleActIII

Eyelids twitching over mud-colored eyes that widen, startled, but then she smiles, stretching under the comforter, lifting her bare arms up and out and sighing deeply, turning on her side. There’s Ysabel sitting on the floor by the futon, chin on her folded hands. “You’re awake,” she whispers.

“Yup,” says Jo, reaching out to stroke her cheek, leaning in for a kiss.

“He isn’t,” mutters Ysabel, against her lips.

Jo rolls back. There on the other pillow a cap of black hair turned away, a broad brown back, hillocks and bunches of muscle soft and still. “Poor tuckered boy,” she says.

“This must be the first he’s slept since you were struck.”

“He stepped out, just for a minute, and that’s when I woke up. He was, so apologetic,” her hand laid gently on that great shoulder.

“Come,” says Ysabel, getting to her feet, and Jo rolls back, looks up to her standing over the futon, a bulky fisherman’s sweater over a loose white gown, a hand held out. “I’m,” says Jo, the comforter clutched to her chest, “I need to,” and Ysabel steps back, “If you must,” she says, headed for the door. “But come.”

Jo sits up. Drops the comforter. Luys doesn’t stir. She’s looking down, at the clean pink line drawn down her skin, and her fist pressed over her heart.

https://thecityofroses.com/story/TendsToCrumbleActIII