Borealis(2)

The girl shrugged and stepped away. A moment later, he heard the mattress springs creak.

A skeleton stared back at him from the mirror. Jesus Christ, is that me? Is that really me? He grimaced, inspecting the way his purplish gums had begun to recede from his teeth, the teeth themselves discolored and patchy with calcium deposits.

Bodine peered out into the room. The girl had turned down one corner of the bed and was now sitting on the edge, staring directly at him. She’d set her empty cup down on the nightstand.

“Did you want another milkshake?” he asked. His voice shook. Stop it, he thought. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

“Why did you tell the man at the counter your name was Thomas Hudson?”

Sweat stung his eyes. “There’s a soda machine down the hall. Do you want a Coke?”

“Your name’s not Thomas Hudson,” she said, swinging her legs.

“I don’t like playing these games.”

“What games?”

“These games where you ask all these questions and expect me to answer.”

The girl shrugged her small shoulders. “Your name’s Frank Bodine,” she said.

Bodine swallowed a hard lump of spit. Seconds ticked by. His own heartbeat was like a drum in his ears. “How do you know my name?” he said finally. He’d never told her.

Again, the girl shrugged.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, blinking the sweat from his eyes. “Yes, my name’s Bodine. Frank Bodine.” Sour, shaky exhalation. “You think you’re ready to tell me your name yet?”

The girl shook her head. Grinned.

“Why not?”

“I told you,” she said simply. “I don’t have a name.”

“Yes you do. Everyone’s got a name.”

“Nope. Not me.”

“Sure you do. You just don’t want to tell it.”

“You’re silly,” said the girl.

“What about your parents? Didn’t they give you a name?”

“I don’t have any parents.”

“You don’t have a mom or a dad?”

“No.”

“Everyone does.”

“No, silly.” She giggled.

Withdrawing back into the bathroom, Bodine toed the bathroom door shut. He lifted his pullover up, which stank of perspiration. The butt of the 9mm protruded from his waistband.

Can you do this? a voice spoke up toward the back of his head. It was the same voice that had followed him all the way from Durango. Are you really sure you can do this?

He plucked the 9mm from his waistband, set it down beside the duffel bag, and turned the water on in the sink. Just the hot water. He waited as the entire bathroom steamed up before shutting the water off. With one hand he carved an arc through the condensation on the mirror before him. Dead eyes stared back.

Can you do this?

Bodine removed his pullover and tossed it on the floor. Took a deep breath. A chill accosted him, pimpling his flesh with goose bumps. Grabbing the handgun, he eased open the bathroom door and stepped out into the room.

The girl hadn’t moved. She grinned at him as he took a single step toward the bed. His nostrils flared with each inhalation of breath. He stood unmoving, no more than ten feet from her, peripherally aware that the digital clock on the nightstand counted through several minutes while he simply stood there.

“You’re skinny,” she said after a while. “Your chest has red marks on it.” She said, “I can see your ribs.” As if this was funny, she giggled. “Your bellybutton looks funny.” Legs still swinging.

“Tell me who you are,” he breathed. Leveled the gun at her. His hand shook. His whole f*cking arm shook. “Tell me.”

“Your hair,” she said, wrinkling up her nose as if she suddenly smelled something awful—the room itself, perhaps. “It’s too long. Like a girl’s.”

He lowered his arm. The 9mm suddenly weighed fifty pounds. Without a word, he turned and retreated back into the bathroom. He felt cold, clammy, made of vulcanized rubber. The soles of his work boots creaked with each step.

In the bathroom, he set the gun down in the sink basin, which was still streaked with water. Staring up at his reflection, he thought the girl was right—that somewhere along the way, his hair had gotten too long. Like a girl’s.

Wearily, Bodine grinned at himself. Skeleton-faced, too-big teeth protruding from retreating purple gums…

Can you—

Grinned.

Next morning, a Puerto Rican housekeeper would discover Bodine’s body in the bathtub, a dried spray of blood on the tiled shower stall behind his head. Bodine’s hand, still limply holding the 9mm, was nestled into the thatch of black pubic hair between his legs.

The woman’s screams would bring the grizzled cowboy who would in turn alert the local sheriff. Suicide, the sheriff would say, and the grizzled cowboy would nod while he chewed on an unlit cigar stub no longer than a grown man’s thumb and greenish in color, and would recall nothing special about the man from the night before. There were all breeds of stranger who passed through his place, after all—all species of outlaw and lummox and daft buffoon—and who could remember one from the other?

“Name’s Hudson,” the cowboy would tell the sheriff, handing over the log from last night where the man had signed in. The sheriff, a grizzled old cowboy in his own right, took the log without so much as a grunt while fishing out a pack of menthols from his nylon coat with the faux fur at the collar.