Butcher Bird

"There's a naked, burned man walking down the street. No, not burned. Cooked. Glazed and cooked like a ham. There's a swarm of little sort of bat things flying around him taking bites. He doesn't seem to mind."

"I'm letting you out at the corner, guy."

"Keep going or you don't get your tip."

Barry shook his head. "Keep it. Getting stabbed by some psycho fuck isn't worth twenty dollars."

"Do I seem like a psycho to you, Barry?" asked Spyder.

"I dunno. Sure talk like one."

"I understand. This is weird for me, too."

"Then maybe you just want to be quiet and not talk about it anymore," Barry said. "Anyway, we're almost to your drop."

"Do you see that building on the corner? I can't tell what it's made of. It's like pink quartz, but the walls are shifting like the whole thing is liquid," said Spyder.

"It's a vacant lot, man."

"Maybe I'm just dreaming."

"If it's a dream, you can give me a fifty-dollar tip instead of twenty."

Spyder smiled. "Or I could stab you in the head, suck out your eyes and skull fuck you. I mean, if this is just a dream."

The cab screeched to a stop. "Get out."

"Let me get my money," said Spyder.

Barry turned around to face him. He had a lime green windbreaker draped over his arm to hide the old Browning. 45 automatic he was holding. "Get the fuck out."

"Jesus, Barry. Tell me that's not your daddy's gun," said Spyder. "Pretty Freudian, don't you think?" The cabbie's eyes narrowed. "I'm kidding, man. I'm just having a weird day. Let me give you some money."

"Keep your hands where I can see them and get out. I'll shoot you and tell the cops you tried to rob me. When they find all the dope in your blood, they'll believe me."

"Sorry I scared you."

"You didn't scare me, you pissed me off," said Barry. "Can't you tell the difference?"

Spyder got out of the cab and leaned in the front passenger window. Barry kept the gun pointed at him. "Funny, my ex said something like that when she split."

Barry gave Spyder the finger, gunned his engine and shot straight down Haight Street before being caught at the next corner by a half-dozen jaywalking punks.

That guy was going to shoot me, thought Spyder. He considered that as he walked the last half block to the studio. Maybe it wasn't such a bad option. The hallucinations weren't letting up. Maybe being shot was what he needed to kick his brain out of the peculiar abyss into which it had fallen. Spyder had the feeling that the day wasn't going to get any better.

Six

A Trick of the Light

Spyder walked with his head down, not allowing himself to look around no matter how odd or enticing the visions: black hooves, crows chatting with rats, the suddenly sinister insect-silhouettes of panhandlers he'd seen a thousand times before.

He smelled musk and ambergris, cook fires and sewage. It reminded him of the Moroccan souks, but he was very far away from Morocco. In fact, very far away from anything familiar right now.

A sense of relief came over Spyder when he entered the tattoo studio and closed the door behind him. A couple of college girls were inspecting the flash designs on the walls and giggling nervously to each other. They didn't have wings or horns or extra eyes. They were a beautiful sight. Spyder could hear Lulu in the back with one of her piercing customers. "You'll feel some pressure, then a slight sting," she said. "Just like popping your cherry."

Hungry for a normal moment he spoke to the college girls. "If you have any questions about the tattoo work, that's what I do around here, so you can ask me."

The girls looked at him and the taller one, a cafe-au-lait brunette with bright green eyes, said, "How much for the black panther? That's a real traditional one, right?"

"Yeah. All the pieces on that wall go way back. And we charge by the hour, so the price depends on how big and where you want it. We have a hundred-dollar minimum."

The girls whispered to each other, then turned to Spyder. "We're going to think about it. Do you have a card?"

Spyder went behind the counter and found one of the studio's cards. He felt self-conscious handing it to the brunette. The card had a symbol on it. Spyder knew it was something Celtic, but he had no idea what it meant.

"Thanks," said the dark-haired girl, letting her fingertips brush against Spyder's as she accepted the card. Under normal circumstances, Spyder would have taken that as a signal to go into his charming act, complete with self-effacing patter and a certain calculated awkwardness that gave him the look of someone who might need just a little looking after. Today, however, all he could muster was a tired smile. "Any time," he said, and turned away from the girls, looking for his appointment book so he could cancel everyone set for that day. Maybe for the rest of the week, he thought.

His head and body ached and his hands shook a little as he leafed through the appointments. "Every rabbit hole has a bottom," he said quietly, remembering something that Sara Durango had told him after giving him his first hit of acid when he was fourteen.