The black stallion broken. Goodnight, Manny Face
I rushed in through the apartment door, finding the incredibly pregnant Tango Baby screaming amid the broken glass from the skylight, exploded in the first crash above of fire against ice, hooves rearing frantically inside the killing flames.
And I knew that I was afraid for my own life, yet I wanted to stop it – desperately, desperately…
I began my climb up into the skylight, but as I thrust my head into a roar of godless cries and blinding fire, as beautiful to behold as it was horrific – and I knew I was already within a few seconds of my own death – I was pulled back down by my legs and somehow thrown into a wall by the same awesome violent motion, my gums and lips smashed open, my broken nose pouring blood.
“You dumb shit” – it was Jack Step. But it had been Dirk Dickerson next to him, crazed, mad as a hatter, ready to die – it didn’t matter to him, it never did – who had taken me out. Wailing, looking nowhere, staring at nothing, peering into desolation, he formed no words; the froth of his lunacy flowed from his mouth, as animal sounds, agonized and pitiful, rose from his throat, which was seized with a gurgled seething.
Then Step said: “Take care of the girl, Smith. Get her the hell out of here and watch her. Give the baby life. Smith – it’s your game now. You stupid, puritanical fuck. Now take her, damn you, and go! Get the hell out of here! Go, go, go…!!!”
They turned and threw themselves up through the skylight, into their deaths.
But I couldn’t help it. I followed. I simply wanted to see. Nor was it that simple. I felt, I knew, I had to bear witness – and to write it all down, as much as I could – for the record, whatever it was I’d see, without interpretation or embellishment, to write it down for the record, to write it all down.
Tango Baby cowered in a corner, shaking and crying. I’d thrown a blanket over her, but she grabbed for me, and I sat her on the bed to settle her down. Holding her by the shoulders, I gave her the kindest eyes I had in me. “I’ll get you out of here,” I said, mauling the words through a swollen mouth. “I won’t go anywhere. I won’t leave you. I’ll get you out. I promise you – I will.” And I put my arms around her and brought her close, pressing my head against hers, forgetting about the blood. When I saw I had dripped on her and stained her, I pulled away. “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed, ashamed, only smearing some blood across her cheek I had tried to wipe away. But she laughed, and her tears trickled down through the blood, and she wiped them away, a mix of my blood and her tears on the heel of her hand, which she wiped, unthinking, against her dress, and I knew she believed me. I hoped I was right.
On the roof a black horse reared neighing, entwisted in the monster’s hands, snorting jets of cold steam, ridiculous, to freeze the fire, encasing The Hunched Cornish in blocks of ice, burned off again and again, the ice futile, as instantly vaporized by a flame burst as formed; the horse, relentlessly reached for; the neck grabbed, the horse still breaking the holds; juggernaut arms seeking to encircle its back and barrel – and slowly, methodically, unstoppably, monstrously succeeding.
Against Step and Dickerson, The Cornish had raised a wall of flame.
But from Dickerson rose a horrid, choking cry, and as he charged into the flames he finally screamed: “I’ll kill you, you fucking nightmare, I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll kill you…,” and lunged burning at The Cornish, who grabbed him, and I heard only a miserable, sickening cracking, but saw Dickerson no more.
It was not fear that kept Step out. He’d wait for Manny Face’s death – his murder. But then he had an appointment to keep. With The Cornish.
And then, inside the flames, I saw The Cornish finally grip the stallion around the neck and flanks, and I heard the horse whinny and grow still. The Cornish drew the still living, thrashing body nearer, but through the fire I did not see the exact placing of the pressure against its back, but I knew he was doing it, cruel and slow. And then I heard it cracking, and then there was one final break.
But as it started going through its death throes, from the head down it began changing back into Manny Face. But then the change stopped, freezing halfway, so that Manny Face took on his final shape as something like a centaur, with two arms and four legs, the change apparently stopping where the back had been broken. His head slumped forward limp into the crook of The Hunched Cornish’s arm.
As the flames died, The Cornish seemed to hold Face as though regarding him in pity, as though compassion was welling up from a primordial reservoir of love deep, deep inside him. Manny Face’s beautiful hair, black, shining in the star and glowing city light, had fallen clumped from the sweat and oil of his death over his beautiful face, covering his beautiful eyes. I saw the flash and gleam of an emerald stud in the pointed tip of one ear pulsing like a signal into space.
The flames dropped and Step walked toward The Cornish.
“You coward,” he said. “Dickerson didn’t finish you off, but I will.”
The Cornish’s mouth opened, his big square yellow teeth clenched in a silent brutal laugh.
I don’t know – maybe The Hunched Cornish saw me and decided to let me go.
I lowered myself back into the apartment from the skylight. I put an arm around Tango Baby and we made our way out and down, into the street, and walked away.
I wondered what The Hunched Cornish might do with Manny Face’s remains. Maybe crush them into some city dumpster, or incinerate them in his fire, leaving the heap of char and ash open to the sky and wind.
John Smith, October 4, 2014