Glimmering

Jack shuddered each time he heard the car entering Lazyland’s compound. He had long since forsaken going outside to greet his friend, for fear of finding himself face-to-face with lepers flown in from Bangladesh or some convicted serial murderer sprung from prison by Leonard’s army of legal counselors. Instead Jack tracked Leonard’s current cult status by means of outdated tabloids or patter overheard on TV. Leonard himself he always recognized, because in twenty years Leonard had not altered his uniform of gold and black leather. Though the gold was more subtle now, the leather was cracked and faded as old gesso, and Leonard’s flamboyant mane of curling black hair was streaked with gray and braided into a single long plait.

“Jack? Oh Jackie-boy!”

Leonard’s voice echoed through the house, his footsteps pounding as he took the stairs two and three at a time, as he always had. In his bed Jack moaned.

“Please, Leonard,” he called out into the hallway, coughing for effect. “I’m sick—” “Of course you’re sick. That’s why I’m here!” With a thump Leonard gained the third floor. Jack heard the familiar boom as his friend slid across the landing and crashed into the wall opposite. Then, grinning like Mister Punch, Leonard’s head popped through the open doorway. “Please say you’re glad to see me, Jackie.”

In spite of himself Jack laughed. “Christ, Leonard. What is that—?” He pointed in revulsion at Leonard’s back.

“It’s a leopard skin. D’you like it?”

Leonard whirled so that Jack could admire his slight rangy form in its cracked leathers, hair braided and ornamented with an array of bones—Jack knew better than to ask about them—hands and cheeks so tattooed, scarified, beaded, bruised, and bedecked with light implants that the press had named him The Illuminated Man. Mirrors hung everywhere from his clothes. His left eyebrow had been shaved and replaced with a series of chips representing the weighing of souls in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. A camera bag hung from his waist. Draped over his shoulder was a huge if moth-eaten pelt, complete with eyeless mask and dragging tail and two front paws tied loosely about his neck, like a sweater.

“Leopard?” Jack looked horrified. “Aren’t they endangered?”

Leonard pranced to the bedside, his feet in their steel-toed boots scuffing at the oriental rug. “Snow leopard, Jackie. Not endangered. Extinct.” He unlooped the two paws and let the pelt fall to the floor with a thud. “It was a gift.”

At least it wasn’t a human head, which was what Leonard had worn to the opening of the last Whitney Biennial. “So that makes it okay—”

“Oh hush. Here, I brought you a present.”

Jack instinctively yanked the covers up around him as Leonard thrust his hand into a pocket of his leather kilt. “Wait a minute—okay, here it is—”

Jack peered into Leonard’s open palm and saw a small highly polished stone, incised with a few lines. “It’s a kind of dream-catcher,” Leonard explained. “I got it in Nepal. One of the priests gave it to me, because I was—well, Jule told me you had been having nightmares. I figured you could use it more than me. I’m used to bad dreams.”

Leonard put the stone into his friend’s hand and closed Jack’s fingers around it. Then he raised the hand to his mouth and kissed Jack’s knuckles, one by one. “I’m sorry you’re sick, sweetie,” he said.

A creak as the door behind them opened wider. Jack saw his grandmother standing there, immaculately dressed in a Lagerfeld woolen suit and white silk blouse. Behind her stood Mrs. Iverson, a meek shadow in blue moiré, breathing heavily—she seldom ventured above the second floor.

“Jack dear. I heard voices—” Keeley’s cane struck the floor with a resonant thud. She stepped carefully into the room, bringing with her the scent of Chanel No. 19. Her narrowed gaze showed she knew exactly who his visitor was. “Oh. Leonard. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Leonard grinned, light glancing from his ruby placebit. “Hello, Grandmother.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Leonard stared at her admiringly. “God, she’s amazing! She just never gives up.” He raised his voice and pronounced with exaggerated slowness, “It’s Leonard, Grandmother—Leonard Thrope! You remember, Jackie’s old friend from Saint Bartholomew’s—”

Keeley raised a hand as though to strike him. Before she could, Jack swung himself from bed, shuffled to her side, and kissed her. “Shut up, Leonard. Grandmother, I told you not to come all the way up here—”

“Pog mo thoín,” Keeley spit. She glared at Jack. “I told you I don’t want to see him—”

Leonard’s eyes widened. “Hey! She just cursed me in Gaelic.”

“Okay, he’s leaving, he’s leaving. He just dropped by on his way out of town, that’s all—” Jack walked Grandmother back out the door, past Mrs. Iverson watching everything with her customary stunned expression. “Come on, Grandmother, I’ll help you downstairs—”