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A Taste of Blood and AltarsA Taste of Blood and Altarsby Poppy Z. Brite1988 by Poppy Z. Brite"A Taste of Blood and Altars"In the spring, families in the suburbs of New Orleans-Metarie, Jefferson,Lafayette-hang wreaths on their front doors. Gay purple straw wreaths of yellowand purple and green, wreaths with bells and froths of ribbons trailing down,blowing, tangling in the warm wind. The children have king cake parties. Eachslice of cake is covered with a different sweet, sticky topping-candied cherriesand colored sugar are favorites-and the child who finds a pink plastic baby inhis slice will enjoy a year of good luck. The baby represents the infant Christ,and children seldom choke on it. Jesus loves little children. The adults buyspangled cat's-eye masks for masquerades, and other women's husbands pull othermen's wives to them under cover of Spanish moss and anonymity, hot silk anddesperate searching tongues and the wet ground and the ghostly white scent ofmagnolias opening in the night, and the colored paper lanterns on the verandahin the distance. In the French Quarter the liquor flows like milk and strings ofbright cheap beads hang from wrought iron balconies, adorn sweaty necks, scatterin the street, the royalty of gutter trash, gaudy among the cigarette butts andcans and plastic Hurricane glasses. The sky is purple, the flare of a matchbehind a cupped hand is yellow, the liquor is green, bright green, made from athousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know well enough to drink Chartreuseat Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns intheir bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, youreyes will turn bright green. Christian's bar was way down Chartres away from themiddle of the Quarter, toward Canal Street. It was only nine-thirty. None oneever came in until ten, not even on Mardi Gras nights, no one except the thinlittle girl in the black silk dress, the thin little girl with the short, softbrown hair that fell in a curtain across her eyes. Christian always wanted tobrush it away from her face, feel it trickle through his fingers like rain.Tonight, as usual, she slipped in at nine-thirty and looked around for thefriends who were never there, and the wind blew the French Quarter in behindher, Rue de Chartres warm as the night air slipped away toward the river,smelling of spice and fried oysters and rum and the dust of ancient bones stolenand violated. When she saw Christian standing alone behind the bar, narrow andwhite with his black hair glittering on his shoulders, she came and hopped ontoa bar stool � she had to boost herself � and said, as she did most nights, �CanI have a screwdriver?� �Just how old are you, love?� Christian asked, as he didmost nights. �Twenty.� She was lying by at least four years, but her voice wasso soft that he had to listen with his whole cupped ear to hear it, and her armson the bar were thin and downed with fine blonde hairs, and the big smudges ofdark makeup like bruises around her eyes, the ratty bangs and the bare feet withtheir toenails painted orange only made her look more childlike. He made thedrink weak and put two cherries in it. She fished the cherries out with herfingers and ate them one by one, sucking them like candy, before she startedsipping her drink. Christian knew the girl came to his bar because the drinkswere cheap and he would serve them to her with no questions to piss her off, noquestions about I.D. or why a pretty girl wanted to drink alone on the lastnight of Mardi Gras. She always turned with a start every time the door opened,and her hand flew to her throat. �Who are you waiting for?� Christian asked herthe first time she came in. �The vampires,� she told him, and came back the nextnight and the next, always alone, even at Mardi Gras. The black silk dress lefther throat and arms bear. She smoked Marlboro Lights. Christian told her thatonly virgins are known to smoke those, and she blushed, and came in the nextnight with a pack of Camels. She said her name was Jessy, and Christian onlysmiled at her joke about the vampires, because he didn't know how much she knew.And she had pretty ways, and a sweet shy smile, and she was a tiny brightness inevery ashen empty night. He certainly wasn't going to bite her. - The vampiresgot into town sometime before midnight. The three of them got hold of a bottleof Chartreuse and reeled down Bourbon Street swigging it by turns, their armsaround one another's shoulders, their hair in one another's face. They hadoutlined their features in dark blots of makeup, and their hair was tangled ingreat clumps, and their pockets were stuffed with candy which they ate noisily,washing it down with sweet green mouthfuls of Chartreuse. Their names wereMolochai, Twig, and Zillah, and they wish they had fangs but had to make do withteeth, and they could walk in sunlight as their great-grandfathers could not.But they preferred to roam at night, and as they roamed unsteadily down BourbonStreet they sang:�O show us the way to thenext whiskey barO don't ask whyO don't ask whyFor if we don't find thenext whiskey barI tell you we must dieI tell you we must die�and Molochai peeled the wrapper off a HoHo and crammed as much of it into hismouth as he could and kept singing, spraying Twig with crumbs of chocolate.�Give me a bite,� Twig demanded. Molochai scooped some of the HoHo out of hismouth and offered it to Twig. Twig laughed helplessly, clamped his lips shut andshook his head, finally relented and licked the creamy paste of Molochai'sfingers. �Vile dogs,� said lovely Zillah with the sexless face, with the eyes asgreen as the last drop of Chartreuse in the bottle. Zillah's hands gave away hisgender; they were large and strong and heavily veined below the thin white skin.He wore his nails long and pointed, and he wore his hair tied back with a purplesilk scarf. Wisps of the ponytail had escaped, framing the stunning face, theachingly green eyes. �Shut up, beautiful,� said Molochai happily, and bared histeeth at a tall boy in full Nazi uniform. Molochai's teeth were unremarkableexcept for the film of chocolate that webbed them, but some small bloodlust inhis eyes made the boy turn away, looking for trouble somewhere else, someplacethat vampires would not want to go. They made their way through the gaudythrongs to the sidewalk, bracing themselves against the posters that screamedMEN WILL TURN INTO WOMEN BEFORE YOUR EYES!!!, pictures of blondes with tiredbreasts and five o'clock shadows. They stumbled past racks of postcards, racksof T-shirts, a bar that served drinks to passersby on the sidewalk like a hotdog stand. Overhead, fireworks blossomed and turned the sky purple with theirsmoke, and the air was thick with smoke and liquor and breathe and river-mist,and Molochai let his head fall back on Twig's shoulder and looked up at the sky,and the fireworks dazzled his eyes. They left the sleazy lights of BourbonStreet behind, swayed left onto dark Conti and right onto Chartres. Soon enoughthey found a tiny bar with stained glass windows and a friendly light inside,and the sign above the door said CHRISTIAN'S and had a tiny moon and starpainted on it, so they went in. - They sat on three bar stools and drank anotherbottle of Chartreuse and whispered to each other, looking at Christian,laughing, shrugging. His forehead was very high and pale and his nails were aslong and pointed as Zillah's. �Maybe � � said Molochai, and Twig said, �Testhim.� They paid no attention to Jessy, although she stared at them ceaselessly,her eyes bright, her lips moist and slightly parted. But when Christian gavethem their tab, Molochai dug deep in his pocket and produced a coin. He did notput the coin in Christian's hand, put held it up to the light so that Christianmight look well at it. It was a silver doubloon, of the sort that are thrownfrom Mardi Gras parade floats, along with the treasure trove of other trinkets �the beads, the bright toys, the sweet sugar candy. But this doubloon washeavier, and far, far older. Christian could not make out the year; the silverwas scarred, tarnished, smudged with Molochai's sticky fingerprints. But hepicture was still clear: a man, a beautiful man with enormous sensuous lips.Lips that would be red as blood, were they not carved in cold heavy silver; lipspricked by long, sharp teeth. Below the man's face, in ornate letters, the wordBACCHUS curved. �How � how do you come?� Christian stammered. Molochai smiledhis chocolaty smile. �In peace,� he said. And he did not take his eyes fromChristian's as he picked up the empty Chartreuse bottle and broke it against thebar and drew a razor edge of the glass across the soft skin of his right wrist.A shallow crimson mouth opened there, nearly obscene in its brightness. AndMolochai, still smiling, offered his wrist to Christian. And Christian pressedhis lips to the gash and closed his eyes and sucked like a baby, tasting theGarden of Eden in the drops of Chartreuse that mingled with Molochai's blood.Twig watched for a few moments, his eyes dark, his face lost, bewildered. Thenhe picked up Molochai's left arm and bit at the skin of the wrist until theblood flowed there too, and his hand clutched Molochai's as if Twig weredrowning, and the tears that beaded Twig's eyelashes were tears of comfort, ofjoy, of blissful safety. Jessy watched with eyes wide and disbelieving. She sawthe mouth of dignified Christian smeared with blood, trembling with passion. Shesaw Twig's teeth at Molochai's wrist, saw the flesh part and the blood flow. Andher ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]