Miranda, he said. Where are you running off to? And I could tell he wanted to take me into the scene shop and fuck me.
I have to go, I said, and I left him there in the hallway.
Darker the sky is getting now. Pale sliver of moon above the red sinking sun. It’s a twisting drive through woods, all these pale green leaves fiery in the dying light. Turn down the music. Turn it down or turn it up? Turn it up, that’s better. Ridiculous. All of it. But I need to know for sure. Need to ask the three men, Did you give me something? If something, what? A power? I laugh to even think of the word. Here I am in the car, laughing. I’ll ask them, Really? Have I really done what I think I’ve done? And if I’ve done it, then what? What now?
I park outside the entrance to the Canny Man. There’s a spot right in front of the door, fit just for me and my black bug. Never a spot right in front of the door, even though inside it’s always dead. I gaze at the door like it’s the mouth of hell. Maybe it is. There’s the carved wooden figure of a suited man hanging just above. The Canny Man himself, I guess, swinging in the wind from his metal hook. I never noticed him before. My head was always bent too low, I suppose. I was too eager to go inside, too bowed down with pain, too desperate for wine. How many skies and suns did I miss that way?
Inside, it’s dark and dead as usual. Some nothing music playing. The usual couple of tables occupied by the usual lone souls. Gazing at their drinks like they’re sunsets, they’re seas, they’re whole worlds—they appear to be lost in the colors even though there are no colors to speak of besides shades of amber. No three men at the bar. No one at the bar at all. Why did Grace and I ever start coming here? Who discovered this place, was it me or was it her? We were looking for a bar near the theater, I remember. Oh look, a bar, someone said, and pointed.
Little divey. What do you think? Should we give it a go?
I walk up to the bar now. Long walk. Farther away than it seems tonight. I walk and I walk and it feels like I’ll never reach the bar. It feels like I walk miles down the dark red room to get to the end. The floor beneath my feet sloping downhill, then uphill. I’m sweating. My clothes are damp, my poppy dress clinging to my skin. Am I beginning to limp? I pass a sign written on the blackboard with white chalk.
PERFORMING TONIGHT: THE WEIRD BRETHREN!!!
The music switches from sad nothing to a song I know. That tune I’ve been humming. Can never remember the name, but it’s too familiar. The bartender is one I’ve seen before. I remember him from that January night I came here with Grace. Pushed Grace out the door with the hands of my voice. Met the three men. Are they here? No. Bartender only. He’s polishing that same dirty glass that will remain dirty for time eternal. Still spotted and streaked. Lipstick still caked on the rim like a kiss. My lipstick, I think.
“I’ll have the golden remedy,” I tell him.
And just like that he pours it. Right into that dirty glass, where it glows like a prop, and I drink. To the last drop. The gold does its trick.
Do you like tricks, Ms. Fitch?
I like tricks. And just like that, my foot stops screaming. Spinal column settles. Fire everywhere dies right down to a pale blue flame. I’m smiling into the shining eyes of a goat’s head mounted on the dark red wall.
“Where are they?” I ask the bartender, the words on my lips before I can think.
Who? he should say.
Instead he points to a staircase in the corner. On the wall, a lit sign that reads GAMES, MORE. A lit arrow pointing down.
Since when did this place have a game room? Or a down, for that matter?
“There’s a downstairs?” I ask him.
But the bartender’s turned away from me. He has another dirty glass in his hands that he’s polishing to no end with his dirty rag. There’ll be another glass after that. And another, and another. All these glasses that will never be clean. All these spots that will never out. All these lips on the rim. All this work to be done. What have I done, what have I done? What happens now? What happens next?
* * *
Down, down, down. How many stories? How far do I descend? Stopped counting flights, even with the gold glittering in my blood. Should turn back but the golden remedy keeps my feet marching down. Keeps the upstairs tune on my lips, though it trips, it falters now. Keeps my hand on the rail. Which is starting to curve into a spiral. A tight spiral. So that I’m turning around and around on the winding stone stairs. Almost spinning. How far down to the bottom now? Too far down to turn back, to ask the bartender, Is this a trick? Has to be a trick. No way a pub basement could go this deep beneath the earth. What sort of pub would that be, am I right? I hear the sound of music up ahead. A soft red light up ahead too in the dark. Up ahead or farther down? But light, sound, that’s something. The clip of footsteps ahead of me. I’m not alone, thank god. There’s someone else ahead of me on the dark, winding stair. I see them in the soft red light coming from somewhere below. A man, it looks like. One of the three men? No. No, but he looks familiar. Golden-red hair. Tall. I know the back of this body in my bones. Paul. How could Paul be here? But there he is, just ahead on the winding stair, walking the spiral that never ends.