The Night Watchman(34)

Patrice woke to Doris Barnes, Doris Barnes, someone shaking her arm, the smell of strong acidic coffee. She cried out and thrashed. No idea where she was. For a splitting moment, who she was. Then Jack’s voice. “Settle down! You’ll spill hot coffee all over yourself!” The awful shape of her reality.

“I can’t do it.”

“That’s not what we agreed,” said Jack. “Drink the coffee. Eat the danish. Visit the bathroom down the hall. Then put on the suit.”

He left her dressing room, leaving the lights on. The door creaked loudly. She ate the danish, which was cherry. Drank the coffee, black. She reached into her bag and took a handful of pemmican. Ate it slowly, pressing the tiny shreds up with a finger. At last she used the dirty bathroom down the hall. When she returned, the ox suit confronted her, unfolded in its open box.

“Fifty dollars,” she said to the suit. “Plus tips. Every night.”

She shoved a chair against the door, which creaked again. She took her clothing off carefully. There were nails in the walls, empty hangers. She hung up her blouse, skirt, light sweater. Her coat was already hanging and she could not remember having removed it. Her satchel sat on the extra chair. She was down to her brassiere and panties. Her money was in her brassiere. Unhappily, she removed her underwear. She looked around the room. Finally she folded her brassiere into a clump around her money, and wedged it into a space behind a drawer in the dressing table. She lifted the blue rubber suit out of its box and thought that she should start from the bottom.

Her feet fit comfortably into the painted hooves. She tugged the warm, pliant rubber. Smoothed it carefully along her ankles. The ox legs gripped her calves, knee, thighs, encasing her in a firm and resilient extra layer of flesh. She rolled the suit up her hips, across her belly, then moved her arms into the front legs. The suit fit ingeniously, and fastened in such a way that no water could enter. The hooves were cleverly split so she could use her thumbs and fingers. The hood, which fit below the horned cap, was snug and fastened easily below her chin, tightly over her ears, muffling sound. The dressing room contained a full-length mirror like the one in the Rolla store. She stepped before it and saw herself as alien and fascinating. The white targets over her breasts were different once the suit was on, and didn’t bother her anymore. The shadow between her legs was just a trick of the light. A sinuous blue tail curled behind her, a droopy brush of hair at the end. She lowered the cap with the horns. Fastened the straps beneath her chin. The effect was not uncharming.

Jack knocked on the door. When she opened it, he pulled the cigarette he was about to light from his mouth, and held it pinched between his fingers for a frozen moment.

“Damn,” he said softly, eyes wide. “Damn.”

“I am ready.”

“Yes you are you are you are. The first show’s in half an hour. Does the suit feel okay?”

“It’s comfortable.”

“See? Quality.”

He fiddled with the horned cap, adjusting the straps. She batted his hands away.

“The objects at the bottom of the tank are weights. Pick one up to keep you down. Drop it when you need to surface. Oh, I forgot, do you know how to swim?”

Patrice gave him a baffled look.

“Just asking.”

“Late to be just asking.”

“I’ll assume yes. Now let me show you the standard waterjack moves.”

Smoke eddied and wreathed around his head as he gripped his cigarette between his teeth and crooked his arms. Held both hands out as though cradling bowls of crystal goblets.

“Up right shoulder. Down right shoulder. Swivel hips. Over-the-shoulder peek. Tush wag. Bubbles. Kisses. Surface. Breathe. Down again. Playful peekaboo. Tush wag with seesaw shoulder. Swivel hooves. Dukes up. Mock fight. Barrel roll. Ox writhe. Bubbles. Kisses. Surface. Breathe. Repeat and modify for twenty minutes. I’ll signal. You have half an hour break. Then on again. Four shows.”

“Right after I get my fifty dollars,” said Patrice.

“Did I say that?”

“Plus tips.”

“Really?”

“That’s what we agreed to, Jack. And dinner afterward. Plus of course I sleep in this dressing room. Or I walk out of here, right now.”

Jack laughed. “In the ox suit? I doubt it.”

“Why don’t you try me?”

“Such brinksmanship,” said Jack. “I was kidding. Of course that’s what we agreed to.”

“Plus I want a bolt on my door. A key to the lock. If I don’t get it, then I’ll poke a hole in this suit.”

“You’re not very trusting. Are you sure you haven’t been around here before?”

“My dad is a drunk.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Jack. “Mine was too.”

He unhooked a key from his key ring, and gave it to her. She tested it in the door. He promised the bolt tomorrow. They walked out and she locked her door. She fit the key beneath the blue hood, behind her ear, and followed him to the end of the hall.

“Sit down,” said Jack, touching a chair. Then he labored to pull open a trapdoor in the floor.

Noise surged up. And light. Wavering water light. Clinking of glass. Laughter. Bursts of talk. Jack left. Patrice sat in the chair alone, waiting to be lowered into the tank. One day ago, overnight ago, she had laughed with her mother. They had enjoyed the impudence of her disguise. What would her mother think now? Mayagi. Strange. Maama kaajiig. Strange people. Gawiin ingikendizo siin. I am a stranger to myself. Another person, harder and bolder than the usual Patrice, had taken her over. This Patrice was the one who forced Jack to bring her places, the one who bargained for a key. This was again the sort of feeling and thinking that could only be described in Chippewa, where the strangeness was also humorous and the danger surrounding this entire situation was of the sort that you might laugh at, even though you could also get hurt, and there were secrets involved, and desperation, for indeed she had nowhere, after her unthinkable short immediate future rolling in the water tank, nowhere to go but the dressing room down at the other end of the second-floor hall of Log Jam 26.