The Great Batsby
Chapter 3
I love the chaos you create Jack, you remind me of a – of a plague, an absolute plague. Doesn't he? She turns to Miss Gordon for confirmation. An absolute plague yes indeed.
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a plague, I am much more deadly. She was only extemporizing but stirring warmth flowed from her crotch as if it were trying to come out to you like a baby's breath. Then suddenly she smashed her hand on the table and ran inside the house.
Miss Gordon and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said shut the fuck up in a warning voice. Screaming was clearly audible in the room beyond and Miss Gordon leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The screaming trembled my soul sank down mounted into a full roar then ceased altogether.
Batsby really has a secret lair at the power plant? - I said
Shut the fuck up. I want to hear if he kills her.
Kill her, I inquired with a fright.
You mean to say you don't see it? Said Miss Gordon, honestly surprised you must be blind.
I don't.
Why- she said hesitantly, Al got some boy toy in New York
Got some boy toy? I laughed with delight.
Miss Gordon her first of the day laughed also.
He might have the decency not to call him every five minutes. Don't you think?
Almost before I had begun to grasp the situation there was a load roar then a thunders' crash and Al and Selene came back to the table.
I can't live like this no more, cried Selene with gayety.
She sat down, glanced at Miss Gordon and then at me, I knew right then and there Al days were numbered. I looked at the filth that was Gotham for minute and its overall sense of doom boy it was beautiful. There's a dead bird on the lawn that I think died of mercury poisoning he's rotting away- her voice sang – death is romantic isn't it, Al
Death is very romantic, he said, and then miserably to me, she should try it sometime, let's go down to my stables Jack, I would love to show you some of my doped up horses and crooked fucking zebras I got wasting away down there.
Al cell phone rang again, and Selene shook her head decisively at Al the subject of the crooked horses, in fact all subjects, vanished like a fart on the wind. Among my drug induced haze of the last five minutes at the table I remember the butane torches being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to shot everyone squarely between the eyes. I should have killed everyone right there and then, and I has no doubts that Miss Gordon was thinking the same thing. To a certain temperament like mine this situation was fucked- my own instinct was that for them death would be a sweet release.
The doped up horses and crooked fucking zebras, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Al and Miss Gordon with several feet of space between them stumbled their way back into the house, as if to strangle each other in a most romantic way, while trying not to vomit I tried to look pleasantly interested I followed Selene around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a crumbling wicker settee.
Selene took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape and her eyes moved gradually out into the poisoned smog. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about Al.
I love you Jack, she said suddenly, you have to kill him, and then we can be together for all eternity.
That will start world war three.
That's true she hesitated well think about it jack, you know I would do it myself if I could.
Evidently her drug problem was keeping her from killing her asshole husband I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of Batsby.
I suppose he does stay at the power plant from time to time, oh yes he does, she looked at me absently. Listen Jack let me tell you about the day we kissed and we made love. Would you like to hear?
Oh yes very much so.
It'll show how my feelings for him have gone down the toilet- well we were high atop a skyscraper and our battle was less than an hour old and we were laying on each other like lovers after an argument, and then we made love it was wonder's, and then we slept in each other's arms, but when I woke he was gone, I felt utterly abandoned, and I wanted to jump to my death right there and then. I was a fool like every other woman in this world, that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
You see how terrible he made me feel? She went on in a convinced way, her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. Fucking asshole- god- fucking asshole I hate him.
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a joke of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society of nut jobs to which she and Al belonged.
Inside the darkened room, Al and Miss Gordon sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him the list of people who were late on their payments, the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The gloom shined bright on his boots, and glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
To be continued, she said, tossing the list on the floor.
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
Twelve o clocks she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling time for a good girl to go to bed Gordon's going to kill for the first time tomorrow, explained Selene Oh I knew it was Barbra Gordon.
I loved her face—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the privileged life she had in Gotham. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
Fuck you all she said softly, I hope I die in my sleep.
Don't be a bitch, said Selene in fact I think ill arrange a marriage. Come over often, Jack and ill sort of – oh- fling you together. You know- lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat and all that sort of thing.
Good night, called Miss Gordon from the stairs, you all once again go fuck yourselves.
She is a real cunt said Al after a moment. They ought to rape her every day in Arakum. Who ought to rape her? Inquired Selene coldly, everyone.
She has been raped enough by her family if you catch my drift. Selene and Al looked at each other for a moment in silence.
Did her father rape her, I asked quickly.
Did he? She looked at me I can only remember what was said in the papers. What did you and Jack talk about on the front porch? Demeaned Al suddenly, none of your fucking business.
Don't believe everything you hear about me Jack, he advised at this I laughed lightly. And a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a deathly square of light. As I started up my rusted out shit box Selene peremptorily called wait! I forgot to ask you something and it's important. We heard the Riddlers back in town. That's right yelled Al we heard you stayed with him for awhile.
And what business is it of yours? He has to come see us, we have unfinished business insisted Selene, surprising me with the venom she was spewing my way. We heard it from three people Al said, so if you see that cock sucker tell him I am looking for him.
Their interest in Riddler rather touched me and made them less human- rich- but less human never the less, I was seething and more than a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Selene to do was burn the house down and kill everyone-but apparently there was no such intention in her head. As for Al the fact that he had some boy toy in New York was less surprising then that he had not been taken out yet. Something was making him nibble at his lover boys boots as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was a deep black on roadhouse roofs and in front of burnt out garages were red embers still lay in the ash. And when I reached my shit heap I put a match to the interior of my junk wagon and laughed with delight join the party I yelled. I sat for awhile and watched it burn on an abandoned lawn mower in my so called front yard. The stench had blown off, leaving a green haze on the darkened night with howls in the leafless trees as the soundless bellows of the earth blew the dead frogs to full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head I thought my love and come to see me again, but what I saw was that I was not alone- two hundred feet in the air on the edge of the rotting reactor a figure had emerged from the shadow of its massive dome and was standing with his cape wrapped around his body like a cocoon. Something in his leisurely non movement and secure position on his feet suggested that it was Batsby himself, come out to determine what chaos Gotham has gotten itself into tonight.
I decided to call him out, it was time to reintroduce our selves but I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content on this night to be alone- he stretched his wings out towards the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntary I glanced up at the Batsby signal minute and far away. When I looked once more for Batsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the un-quiet darkeness.
To be continued