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Cassady finishes his story, and I don’t know what to make of it.
Though the real question is, what do I do with it? And that had been foretold long before our paths crossed. Now I only need to decide how I’ll tell his story at the end of the long road, in front of the last campfire. I’ve almost paid off my debt: I’ve told the Dire Wolf eleven true stories of eleven destinies – stories of loss and death, of acceptance and rebellion, of despair and even hope. My twelfth story is about love. Or at least Cassady thinks it a love story. A story of his great, tragic, unrequited love for a man who was too good for him and the world. At first, I’d believed him; halfway through his tale I saw it for what it was – a story of obsession and idolatry. A young poet with fire in his heart wouldn’t see things the way a middle-aged cardsharp does.
Now I’m looking at him through the Dire Wolf’s eyes, but that doesn’t make my decision any easier. The Dire Wolf gave me the gift of clairvoyance: I can see the true form of those who make the mistake of entrusting me with their stories. (Then again, is it still a gift if it comes at such a steep price? And how true can his truth be?) On my way I’ve seen monsters and martyrs, prophets and iconoclasts; I’ve met a few saints and even saw the Devil. I was unafraid, however, for I knew he wouldn’t harm me until I’ve paid off my debt to the Dire Wolf. After that I’m hellbound; the only one standing between me and the eternal fire is Cassady – the last apostle I haven’t yet betrayed.
Maybe that’s why I’m so attached to him. Maybe I became attached to him long ago, and that’s why I was postponing this moment as long as I could. Didn’t want to say goodbye to his human form. He is, how shall I put it, my type; would have been, were I still alive and in control of my desires. Now that I’m mostly dead, I only remember a gambler’s thrill, I still chase after the prizes that aren’t mine to win. I had known I would betray Cassady before we even met. But when he told me about Silas, I made another decision: to dethrone that idol and take his pedestal for myself. After all, what did I have to lose at that point?..
If only Cassady himself, lanky and sunburnt as he was, way too thin (who isn’t, nowadays?), alluringly shrouded in cigarette smoke and a slight sense of superiority. I don’t want to look at him through the Dire Wolf’s eyes; I already know he’s no saint, and probably not even a prophet.
Still, I can’t keep looking at him out of my empty eye sockets. I find him. It proves to be easy; he wants to be found and wants to tell his story. It lives inside him, raging and trying to break free, as the natural disaster it is. Like his love, too strong and destructive to be contained within one heart and one body. When he stops talking, I can hardly make out the gaunt shape of his body amid the wreathing and scintillating clouds. No, he isn’t a prophet, or even a saint. Out of all the characters I’ve met, he alone can be considered a deity.
The vision fades; when I start hearing his voice through the thunderstorm, he looks human again. Perhaps his face is less weathered now, and the voice less pained. He says he’d like to settle down in a city, someplace near the water. Maybe in San Francisco, he remarks pointedly, and it almost sounds like an invitation. I almost promise to find him there if I happen to pass by, but I choose the vaguest words. I’m not in any position to make more promises I know I won’t fulfill. The thunderstorm beckons me into the eye of the typhoon, but I remember: the last campfire awaits, and then the flames of hell. Maybe he is hellbound too, and maybe it’s all my fault.
I bid him goodnight before laying down atop my raggedy poncho. Cassady doesn’t follow my lead; he scrutinizes me through the flames before speaking up:
“You’ve told me nothing of yourself. What’s your story?”
I stall for time. What little common sense I have left, tells me to brush him off as I did with the others. I’m a gambler, and I’ve gambled away more than I’d had. It is a truth; the one part of it that I’ve already told everybody who would listen. Not the part he’d find interesting. He won’t feel lied to if he never finds out the rest of the story. And yet my instinct – a gambler’s nature and the Dire Wolf’s eyes – compels me to tell him more. But also even less. Just enough for my story to take root inside him. So that he can tell it the way he sees fit.
“My life has always been a mess,” I finally tell him. “But it went off the rails when I met this man.”
Cassady takes the bait at once, with an almost insulting readiness. His blue eyes stay wide for a few moments before the cynical squint returns. I reckon he’d make a lousy gambler; the guy can’t bluff for shit. Maybe that’s what makes him a poet.
“It’s always some man,” he sighs and takes a long drag of his cigarette, but there’s already something dreamy about his face, seemingly illuminated from within by an electric storm. “What was he like?”
“Unlike any other,” I reply truthfully. “And I’d thought I’d seen them all. He wore a gray suit and his eyes were yellow, like a wolf’s. His voice rustled like banknotes. He dealt me a royal flush and still cleaned me out.”
Cassady nods and exhales the smoke towards the starry sky. I see storm clouds gathering around his head and flashes of lightning on his fingertips. It’s not sympathy, and definitely not jealousy; it is inspiration. I can’t deny being intrigued by this development.
“He took everything I’d had,” I say in a lowered voice, watching closely as a new story is growing within his fathomless imagination. A new story of my demise, not devoid of mysticism, but enveloped in it; a story that is now also about love. Any story told by Cassady is a love story, as long as there is a place for tragedy in it.
“So now you’re looking for him?” He asks. “You want to kill him?”
I nod, then shake my head. “Yes. No. I don’t think I can do it. I just want to take back what’s mine. To get myself back together.”
A radiant understanding lights up his eyes. I twist my mouth into a lipless grin and continue in a half-whisper: “I gave him more than my heart, more than my soul. I gave him my body, my flesh and blood. Until I find him, I am but an animated corpse, frayed leathery skin draped over undead bones.”
I hear myself talking like the Dire Wolf, weaving figments of truth into a web of lies. And Cassady is already weaving my words and silences into his new, my new story. He is now looking through the fire, through my withered corpse, at the me who only exists in the eyes of his storm. One who might look like the original me, or like something else entirely. But he definitely isn’t addressing the dead body when he speaks up:
“There is, in fact, something macabre about you – and I’m not only talking about your impossible cheekbones.”
He sounds detached when he asks:
“What would you say if I offered to remind you how it feels to be alive?”
I hesitate little.
“I won’t say no”, I say and lick my teeth with my withered tongue.
Then he sits down next to me, pulls me closer by the shoulders and slides his tongue into my mouth. It’s dry and hot, with a bitter hint of tobacco. I embrace him, trying hard to ignore the scrape of sand, or my ashes, on the teeth. My bony hands dig hard into his angular shoulder blades and ribs. He is insistent; when I was alive, I loved that in a partner, and would have loved to be pressed against the scorching sand with his just as heated body. Electricity seems palpable now, prickling against the skin in places where there’s none left. It would have been enjoyable, if not for sudden disgust turning inside the stomach I don’t have. I know I’m not disgusted by him – only by what he is doing to my mummified corpse, no matter what he sees in its place. When his palm slides down to my thigh and squeezes the bone through the threadbare fabric, I can’t take it anymore and push the elegant hand away. Furious thunder booms inside my skull.
“I’ll take it as a no,” Cassady remarks hoarsely. “Is this because of the man? The one with wolfish eyes?”
I nod and avert my gaze. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I need to finish one story before I start another.”
The silence feels like forever.
“Well”, he finally says. “You know where you can find me. The invitation lasts until it doesn’t.”