Skin (9 page)

    "I know, I know," crossly, content with the elegance of wiring diagrams, the dripping sting of solder. The magazines had found them, the alternative press: the Surgeons were at the vanguard, now, they were "performance art" no matter how loudly Bibi said tanzplagen, no one could spell it anyway and anyway they had their own agenda: "fiercely feminist" or "reactionaries in an increasingly mechanized age" or "comic terrorists," it was all shit but they kept on printing it. And the pictures, dwarf and gargoyle, and the people who called and left messages, pornographic, worshipful, someone tied a half-filled condom to their outer door. Popularity was not hell, it was pudding, stuck to their skins, clotting in gears meant to roll in smooth silence absolute. Bibi could negotiate her way through this glue, but to Tess it was perpetual flounder: you said it yourself, reminding, I don't think like a performer. And Bibi back, astringent, that doesn't mean you can't talk like one.

    Now their destination, past closed stores and empty buildings, false Victoriana and an unlocked door into the heat of a hundred bodies, two very bright lights. Harsh digitized reggae and Bibi seemed to know everyone, introducing Tess, plumaged people and so much metal: multiply pierced, shiny and bristling in silvery steel. Rings through lips and nipples, nostrils and ears, long black tattoos and indelible color spiraling up arms, down bare backs and legs, bewildering visual treat but it was the metal she liked best; and beside her Bibi's own sparkle, the flash of long silver rings, matte-studded nostrils like extruded drops of iron, flesh for the machine age.

    A place was made for them, apparently something was just about to happen: the music adjusted and a thin muscled woman in white T-shirt and baggy sweats stepped forward, gently pushing people back from what seemed to be an examining table, carefully draped in clean white. On it, a bare-chested blond boy who resembled skinny Peter, all knobs and ribs and tiny pierced nipples small as a cat's.

    "She's going to do a cutting," Bibi said in Tess's ear.

    Stylized as a dance, the boy reclining and Tess saw the thin woman transfer a design, faintly Aztec in flavor, to the boy's back: venomous smiling bird and then the sharp edge, the scalpellike tool innocuous until: cutting, her gloved fingers very deft, the boy's eyes half-closed, breathing through parted lips. Lights surgery-bright and no one spoke, Bibi's consuming stare and Tess watching, only that, unsure of what to feel: it had to hurt, tears shiny in his eyes but the boy was not flinching; the woman's voice, calm and encouraging, moment to moment as the cutting went on, you're doing great, great, you can yell if you want to.

    The design complete, and the careful press of a fresh paper towel to the cut, the image in perfect reversal, beautiful and fine as filigree: "That's a blood rubbing," Bibi again and the boy shifted, small motion of his muscles, and suddenly everyone was talking, smiling, congratulating the boy, who came to his feet slow and proud. The man on Tess's left bent to her, deep serious voice beneath heavy shock of white-blond hair, "Wasn't that something? Linda Joy never does hamburger cuttings-her stuff is always real pretty. It's something you're proud to have." And then, suddenly shy, "Are you really Tess Bajac?"

    All the way home, Bibi's summation, now that was bodily expression, beside it plain dance was nothing; the static stalk of bone and the endless circuit of blood, that was the difference. If only there was a way to combine that intensity with pure movement, was there a way? The body itself, possibilities relentless, like remaking a machine each time, right, John Henry?

    "She knew what she was doing," cold inward headshake at the thought of ignorant hands and a razor. "That woman, she knew exactly what she was doing."

    "Well of course she did, it's her vocation." Rubbing one finger across her upper lip, "Maybe I'll ask her to do me. At a show." And then abruptly, her voice an octave bright as if to deflect attention from what she had just proposed, "That guy you were talking to, that big bleach-blond guy? He wants to join the Surgeons."

    Do you fool me, hedgehog? Not at all. At one with the performing disregard, crawling fast and bloody over surfaces never meant for human touch, back to the very first show: Shit, it's only blood. Although it isn't; it never is. But I can walk that way, too. For a while. "Know anything about him?"

    "Oh sure, I've seen him lots of times. He comes to all the shows, plus he's a regular with Linda Joy. His name is Andy, in case you forgot," and onto the idea of new members, how big should the Surgeons be; new blood, with one of her long grins. And Tess watching, alternate play of dark and light across those changing features, watching from the other side.

    Andy was not a dancer, but he knew how to move, a big man light on his feet; instantly likeable, even Paul accepted him at once, jealous Paul whose moods were beginning to wear. After a night's rehearsal, Bibi flopping down in sweat and bad temper, complaining about Paul to Tess half listening, her abstract nod as she soldered a tricky circuit, the chrome crab must be able to turn completely around.

    "I'm serious," popping ice into cups of scalding coffee, one for her, one for Tess. Outside the temperature kept going down, windows rippled with ice and shifty snow. "Paul's getting to be a real asshole," wanting more of her time, wanting to help with the decision making, to choreograph. "And it's not like he even wants to do this stuff, he says he does but I know he's lying. What he wants is to be my boyfriend," making of the word a dreadful sneer. Long swallow, the sweaty throat working. "And I don't want a boyfriend."

    "What do you want?" Besides this question.

    "I want," and a smile, "period," but beneath her flippancy Tess smelled impatience hungry as an ulcer, a ferocious disregard for what was possible, available, in favor of what might be, past the limits, past the dark. Since their visit to Linda Joy's Bibi had been back twice that Tess knew of, returning not less impatient but more, there was so much to do. Even in her sleep she chased it, bunched in the ratty blue blankets, mouth clenching on nightmare words for dreams and edges; sometimes she grew so loud that Tess would wake her, shaking her shoulders till those owl eyes opened in the dark, Bibi letting out a breath and sitting up to hold Tess's warm hand with her cold one, inexplicably cold though fresh from the fever-heat of the blanket sea.

    

    

    In the morning, Tess back at the worktable and Bibi off, overseeing, interviewing, working on setup: another show, Shock Loads back downstairs but this time they would limit the crowd, they would charge admittance, Andy incredulous that they had waited so long. Jerome thought it was a wonderful idea, he and Peter had all sorts of plans, and there was this guy, Tess had met him, he came to all the shows.

    "Right," from beneath the hood, distorted green-shade grin. The windows opened to the cold, stink and burn in the air and Tess happy, supremely so, bringing the Promethean gift of motion inherent in the liquid fire to her sculptures; she needed very little else; besides Bibi, who somehow in this new dissatisfaction burned brighter still. (And where was Bibi now? Linda Joy's?) "So what's he got to show me?" and Jerome at once, it's really torqued, this high-power carbon dioxide laser, it can burn a hole through eighth-of-an-inch plate.

    "Tell him to come see me," and the Surgeons had another member: Nicky, shaggy salad hair and slippery overbite, enough bounce to be one of the dancers. Tess's techies, Raelynne called them, Tess's metal freaks who stayed obligingly apart from the sweaty grind of the dancers, planning elaborate carnivals of fire and steel; who thought of Tess as their leader. Their only leader, which disturbed her. It made Bibi laugh: "Who cares who they listen to? As long as they don't fry me in the middle of a show," and back into plans for Shock Loads.

    Ambitious, there in the cold, the winter that already seemed to have lasted so very long, toes and fingers eternally numb, some tools unworkable in that temperature, or lack; Bibi alone did not complain about the icy floors, the cavernous damp at rehearsals. And there were many rehearsals, there was a lot to do, four months' worth of plans, ideas hatched cold as lizard's eggs there in the warehouse dark.

    Biggest plan of all, of course, was the cutting: Bibi upfront and on a table, spotlight as Linda Joy cut a long ribbon of blood down her back, slim sinuosity and so beautiful, it would be very beautiful.
See?
showing the design to a stubborn Tess, lips set and sarcastic: "Well, how about if I burn myself, huh? How would that be? A nice big red burn," and Bibi angry, stop making fun! I'm not. Yes you are, and the longest silence ever, Tess banging furious and Bibi stretched and equally enraged; silence almost till morning, till Bibi's small weight on Tess's couchbed, cold hand out in the dark: "Listen. Will you just do that? Will you just listen a minute?"

    Yes. And Bibi telling of watching Tess work, day after day drenched in work, consumed and Bibi dry beside her, dance was so limiting, there was only so much she could do with it and here a way to make her own kind of fire, her own consummation. To go further.

    "It's not like I'm going to be killed or anything," strong hand on her wrist; squeezing, and, "I don't want to do it with you mad."

    And eyes closed in the dark, pale morning seepage and knowing Bibi would do it anyway, mad or not, furious or not; burn or. not and that was an empty threat, wasn't it? Wasn't it? Then why say it?

    
Because I don't want her to do it. Because it isn't beautiful because it isn't beauty she's after.

    
What is she after?

    Raising her gaze, taking both hands in a hard cold grip: "All right. But I don't have to like it, all right?" and Bibi's instant grin, arms tight around Tess's neck and then to satisfied sleep while Tess lay awake, finally moving in slow silence to the worktable, to turn over and over in numb considering fingers the slick carapace of the crab.

    They charged what seemed to Tess to be a ridiculous price, she argued against it but Bibi was adamant: you'll see. And she did: the big room was full, they could have filled it twice; but why be surprised? the magazine popularity, the notes and phone calls should have prepared her for such a concrete unreality: next time there would probably be even more. People talking, yelling; a feeling of anticipation; and the skeptics' contingent, they were easy to spot. Fine. Let them wait. A curtain all the way from the ceiling, black cataract of stain-rippled fabric and Tess and Bibi behind; everyone else in place, nervous flexing and jokes and Peter already filming, quiet circles like a tracking eye. Behind them all, Linda Joy, muscled wraith in white and white gloves and Tess to Bibi for the tenth time, "Are you sure?"

    "Yes, I'm sure," squeezing Tess's shoulders, hands strong and dry and shaking. "Don't worry-it's at least as safe as that kid's fucking laser."

    Pale eyes burning, excitement's white light, taking her place and Tess turning to Nicky:
get ready.
Overhead lights down, strobes on, soundtrack on-weedy groans, three ominous notes repeating-and the big curtain down to a roar, they were ready already. Tess backlit, her chrome crab walking beside Mme Lazarus like an evil pet, Bibi behind. On a table, beneath pure light.

    It went so fast, Mme Lazarus as moveable menace and prop for the dancers, pursued and pursuing and working as well the crab, big shiny body and heavy steel-tipped pincers roaming close to the crowd, feinting, snapping, its ground-level mobility an unexpected asset: so much easier to sneak up on you, my dear. No eye for the background, trying instead to see what was happening to Bibi; but it was all too quick, the slim back bare and a ragged cheer at the long-drawn serpent of blood, spatter, the wet tension of Bibi's muscles, sweating, sweating in the path of the knife. Tess's own jaw in sympathy lock, ground it open as one of the watchers watching her, rolling eyes and a nudging elbow, big carroty burst of moussed hair and in a sudden jab of viciousness the crab was pinching, it was made to pinch and it hurt, the woman shrieking in painful polka and Tess drew back on the controls, sent the crab skittering another way. The knife in retreat and Bibi rising, queen cobra to flex and turn, showing it, showing: and from beneath the table the blood pellets, a river of blood, heavy and the crab deliberately through it, bloodprints, Linda Joy withdrawing into darkness and the drilling eye of the laser, bloody grinning Bibi and the crab clambering home at last as the soundtrack unwound to its last dry quivering scream. And the black curtain rising. And the whooping cries of the crowd as Bibi wrapped herself calm and careful in clean linen, sheet across her shoulders bleeding through in patterns complex and oblique, moving away and Tess turning at once to follow; she could feel, still, the heavy tension in her jaw, in the stretched ridge of her shoulders, as if she had carried something insupportable for a time insupportably long.

    And combative in her path the woman who had been bitten, red scowling mouth and leather pantleg rucked to show the spot, already a puckered blue. Tess's gaze blink-less and absolutely flat, tension rising from shoulders to throat to the tunneled gray throb of her head, "So what's your point?"

    "My point is, your machine injured me," loud and encouraged by attention, others were listening now. "This is definitely an injury and I'm going to need-"

    "Your ticket's a waiver. Read the fine print," dismissive turn and the woman's escort, hey bitch and hand restraining on Tess's arm and before she knew she had done it the crab's control box hard against his cheekbone, singular sound of slammed plastic and her grip at his throat, dragging him eye-to-eye-he was just her size-and "Don't you ever put a hand on me, motherfucker," the watching circle now startled silent and from nowhere Andy and Paul, still moist with fake blood and real sweat: pulling them apart, what's the problem here? Huh? "Tess, hey, what's the trouble?" Andy's gentle calm and Paul glowering, Tess head down and turning away. Shaking.