The David Lynch Blues
Dead Man Walking
By Machiavelli
He's let his sense of time slip away. He can feel it in the stomach, the wrongness of it; he's eating irregularly, at the very least. Probably not sleeping right either.
But he lets it slide. Time's a communal thing.
He's got a cigarette lit when the call comes. It's to help him forget he's hungry; he just ate a pound of shitake five or ten minutes ago, or something like that, but here's his stomach growling again. So he lights up the cigarette and pulls out a blues album he hasn't listened to for years, or at least since yesterday. And he's just getting settled down when the call comes.
He hits the receive. "Yeah ?"
Static in the transmission; must be long distance. Low voice, sort of a British accent. "Jet Black ?"
"Yeah."
"Name's Lucien. Word has it you used to work with Fey Valentine."
He snorts. Takes another draft off the cigarette. Says, finally, "What about her ?"
"She's dead. Somebody thought you might want to know." Click.
Later, he tries to trace the call. But the guy knew a few tricks – bounced the signal off receivers on both Europa and Io – so in the end he just lets go of it in disgust.
Afterwards, Jet couldn't put his finger on where exactly his life turned into shit. All he got were a bunch of lines, drawn across his life like a hydrogen spectrograph. Lines he hadn't known he'd crossed at the time, but were as clear as day in 20/20 retrospect.
For example: Line crossed when he lost his arm. Line crossed when he left the force (though he'd had his reasons for that at the time). Line crossed when he started to do cowboy work (hey, everyone needed to eat). Definite line crossed when he and Spike started letting the woman in on things (what the hell had they been thinking ? Christ. Jet doesn't even know, looking back on it. Least they could've done is kick her out after a month of so. But no, had to let her stick around, and bring in a couple thousand times more trouble than she was worth. Christ.).
But anyway.
Line crossed when Ein and Ed took off. Line crossed when the woman went batshit and vanished (without paying her tab, room, repairs, board, or even the damn COD on those packages. Christ.). Line crossed when the bounties started getting tight. Line crossed when he got himself shot in the leg.
And yeah, line crossed when Spike went down (but there's nothing he could've done about that – you could just look at the guy and tell he'd been waiting for this for years. And when a man wants to die, there's nothing in heaven and hell that's going to stop him).
And here's Jet now. Not enough cash to buy fuel, not enough cash to even land, for Christ's sake. And nothing to do except orbit around Mars, waiting for the food stores to run out and the oxygen filters to collapse.
Jet hopes to hell this is rock bottom. But who the hell is he kidding – if there's something lower to be found, chances are it'll happen to him, sooner or later.
Some time later, between the last of the mushrooms and the first couple eggs, he got another call.
One of his old acquaintances on the Mars force. "Hey, Jet, got a proposition for you, man."
Which was a perfect setup for a joke or a one-liner. Jet didn't have the energy.
"Yeah, force is issuing bounties like crazy. Targets all over the place, what with the Dragons biting the dust. Power vacuum and all that shit – you come on down here. Get a piece of the action, man. There's cash all over the place.
Jet might have mumbled something about his leg.
"We need someone reliable, man – you should see these piece of shit cowboys we're dealing with. Most useless fuckers in the business, I'm telling you."
Jet might have said something about his partner being dead.
"Yeah, man, I was sorry to hear about that. But life goes on, y'know ? Listen, I got this one pusher in Lower Newcal – ten million, easy. Only catch is you gotta bring him to the prison on Phobos to collect. Transportation's tight, y'know – lost some prison transports in the last few months. Escape attempts, shit like that… anyway…"
No way in hell this guy was a pusher, thought Jet, looking at the guy sitting across the room. No way in hell.
He was sitting in a bar. Mars. Upper Newcal. Vague memories of getting an advance for the job. Landing the Bebop. Trying to get lunch at a café serving Chinese-Thai. Being told by the lady that it was four o'clock in the morning, and if he wanted breakfast he should come back in an hour or so. Talking to some people. Tracking down the pusher to this bar, at this time.
Fuck, thought Jet. What the hell am I doing down here ? This guy can't be a pusher – he looks like a god-damn professional.
Police report said the guy went by the name of Johnny Keats (obvious pseudonym, after a nineteenth-century poet Jet had never heard of before). Minor trafficker and smuggler, decided to settle down and get a piece of the pie previously owned by the Red Dragons. Police wouldn't have even bothered with him, if it wasn't for the two or three high-profile turf murders in the past week.
But this guy wasn't a pusher.
There's ways you can tell. Just the general look of the guy, for one thing. He sits upright at a precise right angle; he's got at least one gun underneath his coat, hidden in the sleeve. Chances are there's a quick-release holster underneath there – you only see that with a few people. Professionals, ex-military – also kids too stupid to realize that kind of setup only works if you've got the training for it. But Keats doesn't look like a kid. He looks like a killer, born, bred, and trained.
What the hell am I doing down here ? I can't take this guy – Spike could've, maybe. But it hurt just to stand up on the subway on the way here.
Just walk away. Let it go.
Hell.
And that's right about when the bar window exploded. And Jet was behind the bar a second later, next to the screaming bartender, with the bullets and the broken glass pounding into the wall behind him. No way, he thinks. No fucking way I'm this lucky.
But he was. Except Jet was nearly ninety percent sure this whole thing was a setup.
He had his reasons. First off, Keats survived the whole thing without a scratch. No one just survives a drive-by shooting. Shit goes down like that, you're going to get shot – maybe just grazed, if you've really got talent. But Keats didn't have so much as a bruise on him.
Second, it doesn't matter how professional you are – there's no way you can take cover, then get back on your feet and hit back at a drive-by shooter with just a pistol and hope to do anything more than waste ammo. And even when you do, there's no way in hell you can hit the driver – the shooter, maybe, but even that's a one in a million chance. The driver's impossible. But when Jet had gotten up from the bar, there was Keats with his gun out, and there was the car, crashed into a storefront on the other side of the street with the driver's brains spilled out halfway down the street.
And third – if you are that professional, if you've got that kind of luck and skill, there's no way in hell you're going to be caught after a gunfight with an empty clip. And if some guy – say a bounty hunter – just walks up behind you and puts a gun to your head, you don't just drop your gun on the ground, precisely at the exact point where it's impossible to recover. You turn around and hit the guy behind you, or make a dive for it and change clips. But it doesn't ever get that easy.
Except here's Jet, holding a gun to the guy's head. And there's the gun, halfway across the room. And there's Keats with his hands up, not saying a word, just staring straight out in front of him.
Just like a guy who knew all of this was going to happen.
But he couldn't talk to Keats about it. First law of the bounty hunter: don't talk to the mark.
"Hope you don't mind the Mimetics," said Jet. Keats was handcuffed to the more comfortable chair; he was staring straight ahead blankly. "I've had this album for years. Been meaning to listen to it – just haven't had the time. You want a smoke ?"
He noted a nearly imperceptible motion of Keats' head, from side to side.
"Smart man. Always've meant to quit, personally. Not like that counts for anything. Only way to quit is not to start, y'know ? Could've, should've, would've." He blew out a thick cloud of smoke. "'sides, this line of work, you enjoy what you can, while you can, y'know ? My partner being a case in point."
The Bebop was in orbit now. Phobos was close, at this time of the year. Give it maybe two or three hours to the gate, then a couple minutes transit time.
Eventually, Jet gets bored with the album; he moves into the observation deck and stared at Mars for a while. He can't remember when he moved the couch in here; it must have been a while ago, but he doesn't think he's used it since then. He isn't even using it now; he just leans against the window and watches the planet turn slowly below him.
And it occurs to him, for the first time in months, that something's wrong.
He can't put his finger on it; it's just a vague sense of something troubling on the edge of his consciousness. Something to do with Keats ? Well, yeah, but he knows about that, kinda. What else ?
Something about Spike ?… well, heard he was buried somewhere. Should probably go and track that down sometime.
Something to do with the woman ? Nah, wouldn't bother with that. Well… wonder if that guy was right about her. What was his name again ? Lucius ?… shit, where's he heard that name before ?
Then it occurs to Jet that the phone in here is ringing, and has been for a while. He finishes off the last of his cigarette, and without concern reaches for the phone. Hits RECEIVE.
"I think the Mimetics show promise," says Keats. "I have to admit that I personally consider this album a disappointment, but as a group they have a chance to recover."
Before Jet knows it, he's back in the living room. The chair's empty, save for two handcuffs hanging limply from the arms. And the album's repeating itself in the audio player.
Jet, you fucking moron. I don't know what's wrong with your brain, but you and me, we're gonna have us a talk after this.
Here he is now, gun in one hand, phone in the other. At the least, he's got to keep Keats talking. He's in the hallway now, slowly working his way to the back of the ship.
He's just asked Keats what he means.
"When they first came out, the Mimetics had an original sound," says Keats. "Hard-rock blues in the Jimmie Morrison tradition, but with a heavy zydeco influence I appreciated. The group peaked, in my personal opinion, with 'Blue Light, Green Light' on their second album. Unfortunately, after that, the group's guitarist – their Brian Wilson, essentially – developed a taste for processed heroin. Since then, the quality and quantity of their output has substantially decreased, at least in my opinion."
"Uh-huh," says Jet. He's checked both the kitchen and the bridge by this time.
"Mind if I changed the subject ?"
"Go ahead."
"I was there when your boy Spike died," says Keats. "Wasn't wounded bad; best bet is Vicious salted a little poison on his blade. Anyway, right before he kicked, he did that thing with his hand, you know, said 'bang' and collapsed. Bullshit gesture, of course, but who can blame a man who's dying ?"
Jet's checked the bathroom and the storage room. Still no sign of the guy. Not even a footprint.
"Now, what was that woman's name again ?" says Keats. "Valentine. That's right. She had a particular look when she died, right in her eyes. Fear, of course; that's to be taken for granted. But also a certain world-weariness; almost like she understood the necessity of the action, even as it occurred. She always struck me as one of those people who build themselves up as a puzzle, in the hope that someone will solve them. But who has the time for that kind of bullshit in this day and age ?"
Why the hell didn't Jet check the hanger to begin with ? He's on his way there now, checking the hallway.
"Remember my eyes," says Keats softly. "That's what the surgeons always say – if you want to recognize them, look them in the eye."
Jet swings around a corner and suddenly his gun is pointed directly at Keats. Keats is holding a phone in his right hand, and is standing against the far wall of the hanger.
And Jet can't help it. He looks.
There is a moment there where they just stare at each other. Keats has this look of unnatural preciseness – like someone who is examining and analyzing your every move, and from that knows exactly who you are. Jet's leg hurts like a bitch.
"If you think you're Udai Taxim," Jet says, "you're insane."
Keats smiles.
And pulls something out of his left pocket.
Jet opens fire before he can even see what the thing is. And the next thing he knows, the hanger airlock's opening. Jet swears, hooks his cyberarm around a pipe running down the back wall before he even knew he reacted.
And Keats, in front of him, is still smiling. He lets go of what he's holding – out of his left hand, the hanger door remote from the Hammerhead drops into oblivion. Keats crosses his arms across his chest, like Tutankhamen. He looks right at Jet, right into the eyes smiling.
And jumps backwards.
Later on, Jet couldn't recall how he shut the door, or what he did afterwards. The next thing he knew, he was back in the observation lounge, eating leftover Thai from breakfast because there wasn't enough oxygen for him to light a cigarette up. In between bites of noodles, it occurred to him for the first time that this wasn't like him. A couple of months ago, he would have analyzed, gone looking for Keats' corpse, contacted the Mars police, gone looking for information.
But he can't, for some reason. His mind just avoids the subject, like an awkward conversation.
Spike would've been proud. Maybe.
Footnotes:
Maybe you remember Udai Taxim from Session 16, "The Black Dog Serenade." Maybe you don't. Try http://rfblues.aaanime.net/Sessions/session16.htm.
I may write more of this story. Maybe.
Dead Man Walking
By Machiavelli
He's let his sense of time slip away. He can feel it in the stomach, the wrongness of it; he's eating irregularly, at the very least. Probably not sleeping right either.
But he lets it slide. Time's a communal thing.
He's got a cigarette lit when the call comes. It's to help him forget he's hungry; he just ate a pound of shitake five or ten minutes ago, or something like that, but here's his stomach growling again. So he lights up the cigarette and pulls out a blues album he hasn't listened to for years, or at least since yesterday. And he's just getting settled down when the call comes.
He hits the receive. "Yeah ?"
Static in the transmission; must be long distance. Low voice, sort of a British accent. "Jet Black ?"
"Yeah."
"Name's Lucien. Word has it you used to work with Fey Valentine."
He snorts. Takes another draft off the cigarette. Says, finally, "What about her ?"
"She's dead. Somebody thought you might want to know." Click.
Later, he tries to trace the call. But the guy knew a few tricks – bounced the signal off receivers on both Europa and Io – so in the end he just lets go of it in disgust.
Afterwards, Jet couldn't put his finger on where exactly his life turned into shit. All he got were a bunch of lines, drawn across his life like a hydrogen spectrograph. Lines he hadn't known he'd crossed at the time, but were as clear as day in 20/20 retrospect.
For example: Line crossed when he lost his arm. Line crossed when he left the force (though he'd had his reasons for that at the time). Line crossed when he started to do cowboy work (hey, everyone needed to eat). Definite line crossed when he and Spike started letting the woman in on things (what the hell had they been thinking ? Christ. Jet doesn't even know, looking back on it. Least they could've done is kick her out after a month of so. But no, had to let her stick around, and bring in a couple thousand times more trouble than she was worth. Christ.).
But anyway.
Line crossed when Ein and Ed took off. Line crossed when the woman went batshit and vanished (without paying her tab, room, repairs, board, or even the damn COD on those packages. Christ.). Line crossed when the bounties started getting tight. Line crossed when he got himself shot in the leg.
And yeah, line crossed when Spike went down (but there's nothing he could've done about that – you could just look at the guy and tell he'd been waiting for this for years. And when a man wants to die, there's nothing in heaven and hell that's going to stop him).
And here's Jet now. Not enough cash to buy fuel, not enough cash to even land, for Christ's sake. And nothing to do except orbit around Mars, waiting for the food stores to run out and the oxygen filters to collapse.
Jet hopes to hell this is rock bottom. But who the hell is he kidding – if there's something lower to be found, chances are it'll happen to him, sooner or later.
Some time later, between the last of the mushrooms and the first couple eggs, he got another call.
One of his old acquaintances on the Mars force. "Hey, Jet, got a proposition for you, man."
Which was a perfect setup for a joke or a one-liner. Jet didn't have the energy.
"Yeah, force is issuing bounties like crazy. Targets all over the place, what with the Dragons biting the dust. Power vacuum and all that shit – you come on down here. Get a piece of the action, man. There's cash all over the place.
Jet might have mumbled something about his leg.
"We need someone reliable, man – you should see these piece of shit cowboys we're dealing with. Most useless fuckers in the business, I'm telling you."
Jet might have said something about his partner being dead.
"Yeah, man, I was sorry to hear about that. But life goes on, y'know ? Listen, I got this one pusher in Lower Newcal – ten million, easy. Only catch is you gotta bring him to the prison on Phobos to collect. Transportation's tight, y'know – lost some prison transports in the last few months. Escape attempts, shit like that… anyway…"
No way in hell this guy was a pusher, thought Jet, looking at the guy sitting across the room. No way in hell.
He was sitting in a bar. Mars. Upper Newcal. Vague memories of getting an advance for the job. Landing the Bebop. Trying to get lunch at a café serving Chinese-Thai. Being told by the lady that it was four o'clock in the morning, and if he wanted breakfast he should come back in an hour or so. Talking to some people. Tracking down the pusher to this bar, at this time.
Fuck, thought Jet. What the hell am I doing down here ? This guy can't be a pusher – he looks like a god-damn professional.
Police report said the guy went by the name of Johnny Keats (obvious pseudonym, after a nineteenth-century poet Jet had never heard of before). Minor trafficker and smuggler, decided to settle down and get a piece of the pie previously owned by the Red Dragons. Police wouldn't have even bothered with him, if it wasn't for the two or three high-profile turf murders in the past week.
But this guy wasn't a pusher.
There's ways you can tell. Just the general look of the guy, for one thing. He sits upright at a precise right angle; he's got at least one gun underneath his coat, hidden in the sleeve. Chances are there's a quick-release holster underneath there – you only see that with a few people. Professionals, ex-military – also kids too stupid to realize that kind of setup only works if you've got the training for it. But Keats doesn't look like a kid. He looks like a killer, born, bred, and trained.
What the hell am I doing down here ? I can't take this guy – Spike could've, maybe. But it hurt just to stand up on the subway on the way here.
Just walk away. Let it go.
Hell.
And that's right about when the bar window exploded. And Jet was behind the bar a second later, next to the screaming bartender, with the bullets and the broken glass pounding into the wall behind him. No way, he thinks. No fucking way I'm this lucky.
But he was. Except Jet was nearly ninety percent sure this whole thing was a setup.
He had his reasons. First off, Keats survived the whole thing without a scratch. No one just survives a drive-by shooting. Shit goes down like that, you're going to get shot – maybe just grazed, if you've really got talent. But Keats didn't have so much as a bruise on him.
Second, it doesn't matter how professional you are – there's no way you can take cover, then get back on your feet and hit back at a drive-by shooter with just a pistol and hope to do anything more than waste ammo. And even when you do, there's no way in hell you can hit the driver – the shooter, maybe, but even that's a one in a million chance. The driver's impossible. But when Jet had gotten up from the bar, there was Keats with his gun out, and there was the car, crashed into a storefront on the other side of the street with the driver's brains spilled out halfway down the street.
And third – if you are that professional, if you've got that kind of luck and skill, there's no way in hell you're going to be caught after a gunfight with an empty clip. And if some guy – say a bounty hunter – just walks up behind you and puts a gun to your head, you don't just drop your gun on the ground, precisely at the exact point where it's impossible to recover. You turn around and hit the guy behind you, or make a dive for it and change clips. But it doesn't ever get that easy.
Except here's Jet, holding a gun to the guy's head. And there's the gun, halfway across the room. And there's Keats with his hands up, not saying a word, just staring straight out in front of him.
Just like a guy who knew all of this was going to happen.
But he couldn't talk to Keats about it. First law of the bounty hunter: don't talk to the mark.
"Hope you don't mind the Mimetics," said Jet. Keats was handcuffed to the more comfortable chair; he was staring straight ahead blankly. "I've had this album for years. Been meaning to listen to it – just haven't had the time. You want a smoke ?"
He noted a nearly imperceptible motion of Keats' head, from side to side.
"Smart man. Always've meant to quit, personally. Not like that counts for anything. Only way to quit is not to start, y'know ? Could've, should've, would've." He blew out a thick cloud of smoke. "'sides, this line of work, you enjoy what you can, while you can, y'know ? My partner being a case in point."
The Bebop was in orbit now. Phobos was close, at this time of the year. Give it maybe two or three hours to the gate, then a couple minutes transit time.
Eventually, Jet gets bored with the album; he moves into the observation deck and stared at Mars for a while. He can't remember when he moved the couch in here; it must have been a while ago, but he doesn't think he's used it since then. He isn't even using it now; he just leans against the window and watches the planet turn slowly below him.
And it occurs to him, for the first time in months, that something's wrong.
He can't put his finger on it; it's just a vague sense of something troubling on the edge of his consciousness. Something to do with Keats ? Well, yeah, but he knows about that, kinda. What else ?
Something about Spike ?… well, heard he was buried somewhere. Should probably go and track that down sometime.
Something to do with the woman ? Nah, wouldn't bother with that. Well… wonder if that guy was right about her. What was his name again ? Lucius ?… shit, where's he heard that name before ?
Then it occurs to Jet that the phone in here is ringing, and has been for a while. He finishes off the last of his cigarette, and without concern reaches for the phone. Hits RECEIVE.
"I think the Mimetics show promise," says Keats. "I have to admit that I personally consider this album a disappointment, but as a group they have a chance to recover."
Before Jet knows it, he's back in the living room. The chair's empty, save for two handcuffs hanging limply from the arms. And the album's repeating itself in the audio player.
Jet, you fucking moron. I don't know what's wrong with your brain, but you and me, we're gonna have us a talk after this.
Here he is now, gun in one hand, phone in the other. At the least, he's got to keep Keats talking. He's in the hallway now, slowly working his way to the back of the ship.
He's just asked Keats what he means.
"When they first came out, the Mimetics had an original sound," says Keats. "Hard-rock blues in the Jimmie Morrison tradition, but with a heavy zydeco influence I appreciated. The group peaked, in my personal opinion, with 'Blue Light, Green Light' on their second album. Unfortunately, after that, the group's guitarist – their Brian Wilson, essentially – developed a taste for processed heroin. Since then, the quality and quantity of their output has substantially decreased, at least in my opinion."
"Uh-huh," says Jet. He's checked both the kitchen and the bridge by this time.
"Mind if I changed the subject ?"
"Go ahead."
"I was there when your boy Spike died," says Keats. "Wasn't wounded bad; best bet is Vicious salted a little poison on his blade. Anyway, right before he kicked, he did that thing with his hand, you know, said 'bang' and collapsed. Bullshit gesture, of course, but who can blame a man who's dying ?"
Jet's checked the bathroom and the storage room. Still no sign of the guy. Not even a footprint.
"Now, what was that woman's name again ?" says Keats. "Valentine. That's right. She had a particular look when she died, right in her eyes. Fear, of course; that's to be taken for granted. But also a certain world-weariness; almost like she understood the necessity of the action, even as it occurred. She always struck me as one of those people who build themselves up as a puzzle, in the hope that someone will solve them. But who has the time for that kind of bullshit in this day and age ?"
Why the hell didn't Jet check the hanger to begin with ? He's on his way there now, checking the hallway.
"Remember my eyes," says Keats softly. "That's what the surgeons always say – if you want to recognize them, look them in the eye."
Jet swings around a corner and suddenly his gun is pointed directly at Keats. Keats is holding a phone in his right hand, and is standing against the far wall of the hanger.
And Jet can't help it. He looks.
There is a moment there where they just stare at each other. Keats has this look of unnatural preciseness – like someone who is examining and analyzing your every move, and from that knows exactly who you are. Jet's leg hurts like a bitch.
"If you think you're Udai Taxim," Jet says, "you're insane."
Keats smiles.
And pulls something out of his left pocket.
Jet opens fire before he can even see what the thing is. And the next thing he knows, the hanger airlock's opening. Jet swears, hooks his cyberarm around a pipe running down the back wall before he even knew he reacted.
And Keats, in front of him, is still smiling. He lets go of what he's holding – out of his left hand, the hanger door remote from the Hammerhead drops into oblivion. Keats crosses his arms across his chest, like Tutankhamen. He looks right at Jet, right into the eyes smiling.
And jumps backwards.
Later on, Jet couldn't recall how he shut the door, or what he did afterwards. The next thing he knew, he was back in the observation lounge, eating leftover Thai from breakfast because there wasn't enough oxygen for him to light a cigarette up. In between bites of noodles, it occurred to him for the first time that this wasn't like him. A couple of months ago, he would have analyzed, gone looking for Keats' corpse, contacted the Mars police, gone looking for information.
But he can't, for some reason. His mind just avoids the subject, like an awkward conversation.
Spike would've been proud. Maybe.
Footnotes:
Maybe you remember Udai Taxim from Session 16, "The Black Dog Serenade." Maybe you don't. Try http://rfblues.aaanime.net/Sessions/session16.htm.
I may write more of this story. Maybe.