Interfictions 2 (26 page)

"Let's not get crazy."

"You're the one with a crazy laugh, Sparky. I was just trying to get some sleep."

The Black Dog growled, but it kept its voice soft. It barely even raised its lip to show me its teeth. I stabbed a cigarette into the corner of my mouth and started rummaging through my pockets for the lighter. Finally I just looked up at the Black Dog and pointed. “You want to help?"

The Black Dog exhaled and burning ember bloomed at the cigarette's tip.

"Thanks,” I said. The Black Dog inhaled a strong whiff of cigarette smoke and then pulled a face.

"They smell bad,” the Black Dog said. It sneezed twice, then settled back onto the ground, its red eyes narrowed as it watched me. I smoked the cigarette and stared back.

"So, Black Dog,” I said. “Why aren't you off eating Vicky tonight?"

A big, red tongue lolled out of the Black Dog's mouth. “She's not my type,” it said. “Not yet; I'm not big on fast food; the pre-packaged stuff is never as filling as home cooked, you know?"

I nodded like I did, but I didn't. I hadn't eaten home cooking for months. “You,” I said, “are one fucked-up dog."

The Black Dog snorted; I could taste the ashes on its breath. “Look who's talking,” it said. “You should get going, kid. Your girl will be back soon."

It stood up, shaking itself off as if it'd been covered in water. Flecks of hot spittle dripped out of its mouth, creating black pits in the concrete sidewalk.

"It's been nice chatting, kid,” it said. “We should have done it earlier.” Then the Black Dog slunk back behind the bus shelter, settling its bulk against the side with a solid thump. A few seconds later it was snoring.

Victoria came home around six AM. She smelled of cold sweat, cigarette smoke, and the hunger of other men. I pretended I was asleep as she crawled into her bed.

I went and bought a portable fire extinguisher the day after I talked to the Black Dog. The extinguisher was small and compact, lightweight enough to fit in the bottom of my backpack. The guy who sold it to me said that they were designed to fit in the glove box of a car.

Victoria would spend her free evenings by the window in her bedroom, watching the looming shape of the Black Dog where it lingered behind the bus stop. She would write notes, smoke cigarettes, and sigh.

"What does it do?” she said. “It just sits there, day after day."

"It watches,” I said. “It waits, and it plans its attack."

I was dreaming of the Black Dog every night. Victoria was added as a new feature. The Black Dog would eat her before it breathed on me, reducing me down to a familiar pile of bones and ash. I found the regularity of this exchange comforting; it reminded me that the Black Dog was still there, still doing the things it used to do, even if it wouldn't eat my girlfriend this time.

I wasn't a particularly good boyfriend yet, even with some practice under my belt. I was a better kisser, sure, and I wasn't as nervous as I'd been with Suzanna. I knew how to have fun by then. Sometimes we'd have so much fun that Victoria would laugh. Victoria wasn't big on laughing; laughter was a sign of weakness and stupidity. She'd perfected the art of the deadpan expression specifically so she could avoid actively laughing when she delivered jokes. Her laugh was nervous and hesitant, like a frightened rabbit sitting at the threshold of the warren.

I made Victoria laugh, but it was a rare event. Most of the time we got by on awkward passion and the knowledge that the Black Dog was watching us. I clung to Victoria despite the black pit that had settled into my stomach. Victoria hung with me because the Black Dog was there, and that was enough to make me interesting.

In the end, the Black Dog didn't eat Victoria. I think she was disappointed. She took the decision out of the Black Dog's hands while I was down at the pub. One of our flatmates found her in the bathtub and called the ambulance. They pulled her out and put her on a drip and stitched up the bits that needed stitching. They took her away, and Victoria spent three weeks in the hospital. We'd been going out for six months. We still hadn't gotten around to having sex.

Victoria became a lesbian after she left the hospital. We broke up not long after that. I just couldn't compete with the allure of women, not even with the Black Dog's help. I got kicked out of our Southport apartment because Victoria's new girlfriend didn't like having me there. My flat-mates took a vote to see which of us would stay; they wanted Victoria gone after the suicide attempt, but her name was on the lease and mine wasn't. They figured a little more melodrama was a small price to pay in exchange for not messing around with the RTA and finding the cash to cover her share of the bond.

I moved back into my parents' house. I was taller than both of them by now. The Black Dog moved back with me. It seemed happy to have a fence to hide behind again, even if I was tall enough to peer over the top when I stood on tippy-toes.

My stuff didn't seem to fit into my parents' place anymore. I found the picture of Donald Duck that filled the wall of my bedroom annoying now. I still liked the reading light, though; it made the room feel like home.

One night, a couple of weeks after I'd come home, I ducked out back for a cigarette. My parents were inside. I could hear one of them washing up, the other taking a shower in their en-suite bathroom. I knocked on the back fence and held my cigarette up for a light. The Black Dog wheezed, produced a tiny ember of flame.

"Hey, Black Dog,” I said.

"Hey, kid,” the Black Dog said. He sounded happy.

I smoked. The Black Dog's heavy breathing rumbled on the other side of the fence. It sounded like it was waiting for something. I said: “Listen, stay out of neighbor's pool, huh? They've been complaining about the fur in the filter."

The Black Dog gave a low growl, a sound that was almost friendly. When I looked up, it was peering over the fence, its forepaws resting against the wood.

"I'm moving,” I said. “This place feels too small now. I'm thinking of heading toward Brisbane, seeing what I can find there.” The Black Dog didn't say anything. It just heaved big breaths, huffing and puffing, snuffling air through its smoke-filled nose. I finished my cigarette, stubbed it against the weathered fence.

"Hey, Black Dog,” I said. “Could you eat her for me? Vicky?"

"No,” the Black Dog said.

"What about me?” I said. “Is it my turn yet?"

"No,' the Black Dog said.

"But it's coming, right?” I said. “How fat do I have to be before I'm considered a tasty treat?"

The Black Dog shook his head. I reached up and scratched its ebon muzzle.

"So, Brisbane,” I said. “You coming? I'll have room in the truck."

"I'll think about it,” the Black Dog said. “You planning on getting a place with a fence line?"

And again, yes, there are lies here for the sake of convenience. It's a flaw of biography, the assumption of an ending and a satisfying conclusion. The end point is always false, an attempt at poignancy that real life rarely provides. This is not how it ends, not really, but it's the way it ends here.

I moved to Brisbane when I was twenty-one, not long after my birthday. I found a unit block that didn't have a fence line.

The Black Dog didn't travel in the truck, but it made it here anyway. It spends its days lurking in the car park of my unit block, hiding behind the dumpster that holds our communal garbage. The Black Dog complains about the smell a lot. I keep telling it to find somewhere better to hide. There are cars down there, another bus stop if it gets really desperate. It never moves; it just whines and snarls every time I drop off my garbage.

Sometimes I'll invite it into the apartment, offer it a few hours away from the garbage stench and the exposure. Sometimes the Black Dog accepts my offer, and we spend the evening reading the work of the great Russian novelists. The Black Dog likes Dostoyevsky; it has a penchant for
Notes from the Underground
. I like
Anna Karenina
, but I read the Black Dog's favorites to keep the peace. It can still breathe fire when it wants to, and all the books are flammable.

Some days it seems like we're stuck with one another, just me and the Black Dog forever. Sometimes it just feels like we're waiting, but I'm not sure what for. I haven't had a girlfriend in a while now, but I'm not sure I'm ready to start again. The Black Dog tells me it doesn't mind so much. On the cool nights you can hear its stomach rumbling, a soft gurgle on the breeze.

Though I wrote “Black Dog: A Biography” as fiction, it pillages from my own life with a kind of reckless abandon. I've always thought there's something intriguing about the relationship between biography and fiction—biography may have the luster of truth about it, but I've never been able to accept it as such. Biography makes the private aspects of life public by excluding superfluous moments and reframing others to highlight their importance. It seeks to create cohesive narrative and meaning amid the chaos of personal history and recollection.

Everything in “Black Dog” started from something I think of as personal. Not necessarily a single experience or event, but things I valued and felt had shaped me as both a writer and a person—a long-remembered nightmare, a particular friendship from my teenage years, a few images from my childhood that weren't quite memories of specific events. For me it's as much biography as it is fiction, treading the line between the two as best it can.

Peter M. Ball

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Laments of a Muse

Camilla Bruce

There's a red, ripe moon, like a berry, in the sky. “Blood moon,” they call it, “berry moon,” I say. Juicy and full, that fat piece of fruit, makes me want to swallow it whole. A pearl of heaven's own blood in my mouth, and then ... The sky surrounding my glossy morsel is brimming with purple champagne, foaming with stars. I wait for them to fall down and cover me in shimmering dust. Will it crackle and hiss when it touches my skin? Will it burn? Taste perhaps like ice and water, vanilla and nuts, when I lick it off my hands? It is my duty, you know, to eat it all up. “Greedy,” you may say, but then, you still love me...

We grew up together, you and I, shaped by the same mold. We twisted and changed for a bit, learned our names and purpose. In the beginning we were equals; we had not learned our roles. We fed from what we saw, we grew, we shaped. We changed together, wove our worlds, created the universe all over again, with rocks and seashells, scissors and glue, thick crayons and cookie dough, glitter paint and colored paper. We made butterflies to hang from the ceiling, star-shaped gingerbread and faerie flowers. Those were times of wonder, dear sister. We were twins then, sharing a life. But then things changed again, and you became aware. You stiffened in a fixed shape, froze in your mask, and I was caught, beneath your skin, under the surface was I, glued to your form like a second skin ... I was yours, and you were—awake.

I feed. I eat the sun on your skin, the pear-shaped lightbulb in the satin lamp above your bed, the pink and silver balloons that the girl in the park held so tightly ... her dirty fingernails and brown braids. I feed, I eat it up, lick the traces of your memory and store it: The glossy red color of your new shoes, the scent of your boss's new perfume. We find a bubblegum wrap on the street; silver foil crushed into a froglike shape, tastes like mint and water lilies. The warm, glorious scent of your coffee at lunch; cinnamon and sugar. And you; blood and salt seasoning your skin. Artificial perfume; roses and orchids and musk. I feed, and when your silver-colored nails hit the keyboard at night, I spew it all out again: The balloons have become a state of mind, the silver foil frog leaps as mint-flavored kisses from the hero's lips onto the heroine's; her brown braids fall down her back, and he can smell the rose scent on her neck when he holds her tight. The hero's hands are dirty; he has been doing some serious work in the swamp, saving the heroine from grave danger—perhaps involving gators. He is bleeding from a shallow wound on his taut stomach, so she takes him home—and then, when they are all cleaned up, there are pears to be had, blushing with red, like
she
does when his gaze wanders, lingers ... His eyes are cinnamon brown and his semen tastes like sugar on her tongue. Clickety-click, your nails type it down until I am drained and empty.—Not that I complain, it is always a pleasure when your reach inside and touch me like that, when the two of us meld together and become one. When we create, when you type it all out with your clickety-clicks, the release is exquisite, mingled with pain—when you penetrate my being with your mind, electric blue flashes and red hot pulses. Like fireworks. Exploding suns.

"I don't know where my stories come from,” you say and sip your wine. Spill a little red drop of alcohol on your left stocking while you shift in your seat to cross your legs. Pure black silk, those stockings; you can't stomach anything else. You think it suits your artistic persona. “I don't know how I get my ideas,” you continue as you light a cigarette and blow out the smoke, bluish-white tendrils that float like serpents, Chinese dragons, up toward the bright white lights in the ceiling. I laugh then, for I know, and am slightly annoyed that you don't. That you have forgotten me so entirely, your second skin ... And you say: “It's almost magical how they appear out of thin air.” You laugh, your friends surrounding the table laugh, over wine bottles and candles, a vase with one single rose. And I feed: the hostess's earrings, black onyx stones—black moons crying tears of silver. The texture of the tablecloth: fine, ironed linen. The rose has the color of peach bleeding pink, like a virginal wound, an ear shell of a maiden. The vase is crystal, reflecting the candle flames; liquid amber dance in the water, gems of fire ... The man to your left, which your mind tells me is Bill, has a lavender-colored shirt on. It makes his eyes look a hazy blue, like bluebells, maybe, or the shadows under a willow tree at night after a rainy summer's day. “There is no secret,” you say and smile at Bill. He smiles back at you and lifts his glass in a toast. Ruby red the wine in there, red heaven, red ocean. The bright electric lightbulb in the ceiling is mirrored in his wine, floating on the surface, like a blood-drenched sun. He drinks it all up. Like me.