Kneeling Before Autumn.
The central character Autumn deals with the re-emerge of the forgotten and neglected fifth element, electricity, into the pentagram and the concept of allowing the flower of inner godhead to bloom while ceasing to pollute the seed of our species, our children.
1953
He’s smoking like a locomotive.
His trench coat is crumpled upon the stool back and the sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up. Brown trousers and vest, six-shooter holstered at his side. Before him is one half empty glass of whiskey and eight empty, the ice chewed only to be spat back into the glass almost ritualistic with each. His bloodshot eyes flit in the shadows beneath the brim of his chapeau. His hands twist napkins and discard them to the overflowing ashtray next to him, they perch upon the heap of butts as sad and deformed origami birds. The brim of the glass kisses his lips once again and he crunches ice only to spit it back into the glass, the bottom of which thuds upon the bar as he mumbles to the bartender for another. The fat bastard with his greasy, white apron and thick, black moustache stops wiping a cloth inside of a wet glass, fixing him with a fresh drink and a look of contempt. Coins are pushed across the bar. The ching of a cash register.
Swift turns slowly to scan the room.
Three black men are playing on a small stage in the corner. The fat one with the trumpet looking like he’s ready to disappear into the men’s room and make love to it. Their soothing blues is why Swift came here.
No one can drown sorrows like straight whiskey and blues played by blacks.
Tonight however it would seem that Swift’s sorrows have learnt to swim. Other lonely men sit around small, round tables, long faces dripping into their glasses. The fake red carnations in vases and candles housed in whiskey glasses on the tables, the smoke haze and alcohol sodden carpet gives this club a beautiful cathouse ambience. The double base jumps back and forth heavily across the room and the harmonica is a locomotive screeching down the line to depression central.
He looks to the door and then his wristwatch.
Didn’t think she’d show.
Some bitch wanting to take him out for a drink so that she might duck a fine, she’s now an hour and a half late. Lost cause. A grim blowjob in the backseat of taxi for fine avoidance he figures is still better than a desk full of paperwork. Fines aren’t even his department, they don’t have to know that though, it cheaper than a whore, usually uglier too.
Its not her that has him clicking his fingers at the surly bartender however.
His throat burns from the whiskey and then it settles nice and warm in his belly.
It’s the other woman that chews at his mind.
Autumn Adlivun.
He stiffens momentarily realising that he had said her name rather than just thought it, the words chased out of his wet lips by an exhausted sigh.
Nobody notices, nobody notices anything round here, his experience on the force has taught him that.
Frowns and head shaking at front doors as the pursued are pulling up their jeans and running out the back. When the shit hits the fan no-ones seen anyone for decades- city full of fucking blind people.
He’s been doing this job for twelve years, he is now more detective than man. Can’t sit in a roadhouse café without scanning faces. Fingers twitch every time a car backfires. Can smell spilt blood before it leaves the vein. Every time his pen leaks across the blotter he is reminded of semen stains at a crime scene.
Knows which whores and dealers to keep on the street and which not to.
Has his connections.
Most days carries around a hit of some watered down shit to bribe a snitch at a pinch, yet knows which ones will hoodwink him in a second. Gets his cocaine from the chink that runs the fireworks import shop in
He just has to peer into puddles on the street to see the reflection of a crime and the rumble of the midnight express whispers to him who did it.
He knows the street and the street knows him.
Until tonight.
Sure he’s seen some shit. Caused some, closed his eyes to a lot.
Yet tonight was different.
Thought he knew this district. Thought he’d known its Insectivora. Thought that the early fifties in this town at least, with its brickwork bursting at the seams and the railroad tracks popping bolts like cheap champagne corks had whispered its every secret to him. He had thought they had been intimate, this city and he. Thought that he could walk down the street hands in pockets and hear the next crime in the clicking of his heels whispered up from the pavement like a modern Tonto with his ear pressed to the ground, hear them come’n ten thousand miles away.
It would seem his bedmate had been deceptive after all these years. The city had been holding something close to its breast there under the sheets where he couldn’t see it. This shitty town had thrown him out of bed and kicked his suitcase of memories down the stairs after him. He thought he had known her but he had been wrong.
When he saw that woman there clawing at floral print all fucked-up and desperate to be covered he had opened the city’s glory box and found a letter from another lover.
He knows the women of this town, bought some, sold some. Their painted faces and candy-apple mouths chewing gum.
He’s met the wild ones that hold cards in their garters, never lose at poker. He’s met the quiet ones that’ll pull a forty-eight on you without a second glance to see if you’re their old man and the fat dames who stand in doorways of old brothels with dope in their cleavage and a switchblade up their sleeve. He’s met the ones that get beat by their old men and the ones that beat back.
Yet this one was different. She wasn’t new here, he knew that much, helped shove her into the ambulance and saw the city carved deep upon her pupils like the names of children carved on the trunk of a sycamore tree. Emerald eyes shattered by the bleakness of a rusty city.
She had been mumbling incoherently as they slammed the doors behind her feet and the butt of a cigarette was crunched under the tip of his shoe. She had the accent of this shitty town. The tracks on her arms, the stench of addiction wafting from her, that muscular body, she wasn’t new here, no and he’d bet his last dime that she’s a fighter. That she could hold her ground, take no shit, except from her old man of course. That kind of shit is different, not to take that shit meant to flip a comfortable, if also painful, life upside down.
What chewed upon Swift tonight with his sticky elbows and dragon plumes of smoke from both nostrils was a question. Just one lonely question blowing back and forth through his mind. They had found her old man in the alley next door, someone had turned his face inside out and kicked the living doll out of his legs.
Was that you Autumn?
That relentless question that his instincts jag upon.
He can’t help the thought. After all its part of his job. Detective. One who detects. Fucking monkey on his back, gives him a badge and a gun though. Was that a grin and a slight nodding of head?
His brain sloshes around inside of his head like a Spanish galleon on a stormy, liquor sea.
His thoughts roll backward into memory.
The cigarette just hissed out in the puddle that the tip of his shoe crushed it into. The bitumen wet and having that cleansing the streets of filth smell, ambulance lights growing dimmer. The commanding officer watched its glow like a deer stuck in headlights. Finally he had turned to Swift and asked the only question that he seemed capable of.
“What’ya think?”
The body of her old man had been zipped up and sent to the morgue, ready to be shoved into a steel draw with a tagged toe.
“What do you think?”
Always better to answer a question by asking another.
The cop had lit a cigarette, coughed, spat to the street and scanned the area like what he was about to say was strictly confidential beginning his watertight theory with the cigarette pinched tightly between thumb and forefinger in front of his chin.
“The dame, well she obviously gets beaten by her old man all the time right. Just takes it, then takes those pills that were everywhere. Loves him or some horseshit, won’t leave him. So this fucking grease-monkey comes home last night all pissed off with buckshot eyes and sledgehammer fists, starts laying into her. Throwing shit around, the whole works. Neighbours don’t ever complain cause he’s such a big fuck and its usually over pretty quick anyway. But tonight, tonight is different right. Something’s going on two doors down, ya with me?”
Swift nodded slowly and grinned at himself reflected in the shine of the man's police issue shoes.
Way ahead buddy, on the fucking horizon, he thought as the cop plotted on, lowering his tone as if to give it depth.
“Ya see two doors down some fucking psycho's in there banging away at a pay as you lay street walker when he pulls a blade on her and starts carving the bitch up. She’d be all howling, runs out into the hall, tits bouncing everywhere.”
Laughed once quietly at this remark as if to a personal joke.
“Sprays the walls with blood and the hotshot with the knife, well he comes racing out to bring her back and runs straight into her daddy. Catches a blade in the face and goes down in a heap, the pimp turns and shoots his bleeding whore in the back of the head. While this is happening the Cherokee gorilla two doors up pauses in his beating to see what the commotion is. With me?”
Swift nodded once.
“Well he’s walked straight into a homicide scene as the prime witness. The fancy man rushes him and kicks his legs out from under him. Smashes his face in with a crowbar or someth’n whilst the beaten wife crawls to the bedroom.
Keeps hitting him right, really making a mess of his face, the gorilla was big, probably put up a hellava fight. Opens his head up and when he stops moving drags him down the hall to the fire escape and throws him over. Seven story fall later you’ve got your corpse in the alley and the wife crying in the bedroom as the fancy man strolls casually out. That chump at reception was probably too busy jerk’n off to notice him leave.”
He smiled to himself at this last remark. Swift felt an internal spring tighten, a match flared at the end of his cigarette.
“What’ya think, pretty simple?”
With a barely noticeable tilt of his head Swift spoke around his cigarette.
“Too simple Tommy. Too simple. What about the gun? Why didn’t he just shoot the Cherokee? And why bother dumping the old man over the fire escape when he could have just left him there swapping blood with the dead hooker. And the broken flagon of wine near the corpse. Sorry Tommy just don’t add up. Your probably right about the son-of-a-bitch at reception though.”
It was Swift’s turn to smile large and Tommy laughed heartily.
“No. You see I think that maybe the old juicehead batted his girl all around the apartment and then went out for a drink as she crawled around hoovering up painkillers. He was gone before the pimp killed those other two in the hallway. The way I see it couple hours later Hiawatha is stumbling back from the bar on booze shoes, almost home clinging to his flagon when he gets jumped by a couple of young punks. They smash the legs out from under him with a piece of piping, crowbar, whatever, bustle him into the alley then use it to pulverise his face. Little cock-sucker's pinch his wallet and then hotfoot outa there. Probably sitting on the hoods of their t-birds counting the notes as we speak Tommy.
Two different crime scenes in the one apartment block you dig?”
Tommy stood silently nodding his beat cop head and staring at the ground with his beat cop eyes during the entire speech. When he spoke next it was in a whisper that grew to a voice.
“Goddamn.”
Head bobbing away like one of those novelty drinking birds.
“Shit Swift, that’s tidy. That’s real fucking tidy.”
Swift half-turned as he made for his car. It sat silent and gleaming under a streetlight like an enormous, black beetle.
“Tommy. Tell you wife hi. Go get some sleep.”
The bottom of his trench coat swished around his heels.
“Yeh. Yeh, you too.”
Absent words as he walked back to his police cruiser, lights flashing as if to advertise to the entire city that the police are having a run-out sale.
“Not married.”
The words were mumbled as he cast his cigarette to the gutter and opened the door of his car. The ignition sparked and the engine roared as he watched the black and white tail of the cruiser disappear around a corner.
“Chump.”
He had shaken his head and pulled away from the kerb.
Swift stares at himself reflected in the mirror behind the bar. He looks like shit. He is a jigsaw puzzle with the last piece missing. He’s a kid playing pin the tail on the donkey without the tail. Something doesn’t sit right in his gut and it’s not the burrito he had earlier.
Those emerald eyes. That red hair.
He had done a quick shake-up of his better connections on the way here, nobody knows of a hooker nor a hammerhead round here that’s all red and green like Christmas day.
Another cigarette, another whiskey.
Where’s she been hiding out? In that rat-hole apartment? He didn’t think so. Where then? She was so vivacious, so alight, despite her injuries. This is a woman that would be noticed leaving the building just to buy a paper let alone score a hit. Her clothing was simple but in no way drab, it would have complemented her vibrancy, people would stop and stare and yet she is a ghost in the city. To find what pile of shit this flower bloomed from may hold the answer to the entire case.
Did a lover she had kept on the side murder the husband? Was it a family job, ending his beatings upon her? Could she have done it herself?
From the soil of each question sprouts another until vines of frustration tangle the inside of Swift’s skull.
Tobacco stained fingertips. Another napkin twisted by white knuckles. Another nod to the bartender.
One for the road, maybe he’ll drive right into a streetwalker on the way home, save him from shooting her somewhere down the track.
The drink goes down in one gulp. Swift’s bones creak back into place as he moves from the bar top. He turns and pulls his trench coat from the stool back as the bar door opens with a gust of hot air that carries with it the stench of the city and the lights of the drugstore across the road. Swift turns whilst shrugging on his coat only to have his every movement pause.
The door bangs lightly against the wall only to become a blur behind the woman as it closes on the world outside. The band dips in tempo and almost stalls. The others down the bar turn their heads in unison as a sweet fragrance caprioles with the smoky gloominess in front of their faces. Those depressed overweight bodies that grow layer upon layer as alcoholic fungi from the barstools until there is enough human fungus to peer over bar edge and reach for another drink. Their eyes squint to see through the blur of drunkenness at this divine creature that has been aborted from street.
The bartender becomes rigid. A single droplet of sweat trails down Swift’s temple, it’s been years since that’s happened.
She saunters in, one foot in front of the other walking an invisible tight rope that’s tied to the lump in Swift’s throat. Black hair that sheens blue, porcelain skin and eyes so big and dark they look as if pools of spilled blood under moonlight. Red shoes and the hint of red dress hem below the bottom of grey fur coat. A pout and a gaze that never leaves Swift’s own.
She walks in slow-motion, the reactions of the club around her are however slower. Men wiping their faces with sweaty palms. The full cheeks of the trumpet player flushing purple, the notes no longer smooth. The music is slivers of shattered sound compared to her grace. A ruby at her throat looking like a blood spot, the rest of her covered by that coat that gives a teasing hint to a long hourglass below. It takes about eight seconds for her to reach the bar next to Swift, it takes the rest of the club twelve to gain composure. Swift is still standing slightly hunched with his coat shrugged on his shoulders, his fingertips close to tearing the fabric. He suddenly feels sober. Her eyes never leave his for a second. The paused room again becomes animated, its movements however are mechanical, forced. The coat slips from alabaster shoulders and falls lightly upon the chair as she slides onto it crossing her legs and still not taking her eyes from Swift’s until she speaks.
“Two whiskies please.”
Her scarlet dress shimmers and exposes her muscular back to the incessant glares behind her. The split up its side exposing delicious stockinged thigh. Alabastrine bare shoulders, the garment hugging her curves as a tight silken glove pulled over a slender hand. Under the thin fabric, if one was to look and all do, her pubic mound is evident and her nipples virtually rip through the material. Swift finally continues to pull his trench coat on and straighten his hat. He wishes to God that she saw his gun, some girls get a kick out of that sort of thing.
The pallid bartender is wiping down the bar at the other end trying hard not to stare at her as he speaks with fallible authority.
“Men only. Sign on da door lady.”
There’s a drunken mumble of dependency down the other end and he moves to pull a beer for an inebriated patron.
“I’ll have them on the rocks.”
Her tone is even, doesn’t even bat an eyelid.
Since first speaking she has not taken her gaze from the fat man and now her eyes positively burn a hole straight through him. He stiffens and walks up the length of the bar to stand before her, his chest puffed up yet still dwarfed by his gut.
“Look lady, we don’t serve no dames here.”
He nods to the door.
“You came through it, you know where ta find it.”
Swift is frozen in awe. This wasn’t some working girl pushing her luck. Her speech is articulated perfectly. Her demeanour of someone in complete control of the situation.
She’s doing better than him and he’s carrying a revolver. She isn’t from around here yet knows the rules. Seems to have blown into town for a gamble at fate. She’s playing high stakes right now that’s for sure.
Lou isn’t one to be fucked with, especially by a slick mink like this.
Her movements are slow, lissom, her slender fingers slide beneath the top of her dress pulling the fabric aside from a breast slightly, just enough for Swift to be baited by the perfect curve there, as she retrieves a small cigarette tin. Fire-engine red fingernail dipping a catch and the lid flips up- cigarettes lined up against each other as cancerous sardines. She pulls one out, pushes it between those full lips and slips the case back into a place where Swift wants so much to follow. This takes but a moment yet it is enough for the band to stop playing and the whole room to hold its breath. For the first time since speaking to him she takes her eyes from the bartender and turns her head to a numb Swift.
“Got a light detective.”
Swift is ripped back into his body through his pupils. He had been standing here motionless watching her every movement for how long now? He struggles to gain artificial composure.
Before he can reply Lou has dropped out of sight and hauled a shotgun out from under the bar. His eyes are wild. This is his bar and he calls the shots, literally, not some out-of-town floozy.
“Look bitch I said out! And when I says get out of my bar I means get the fuck out of my bar or I’ll blow ya in ta next Thursday!”
He holds the weapon across his chest as if to shield himself from her, pumping the barrel to show he means business. She slowly takes the cigarette from her mouth and raises an eyebrow at the beetroot faced man.
Lou’s face barks, don’t make me do something crazy you prurient little cunt.
While hers purrs, dare you fat man.
Things are turning sour real quick. With the image of a smoking hole in the place of those heavenly breasts Swift decides now is time for the law to step in. He turns to the bartender and speaks in a soothing grumble.
“There’ll be no need for that now Lou. She’s with me.”
Lou knows he’s been hoodwinked.
Sure this is where the detective brings his dames but he can see she’s not one of them. Too pretty, not enough make-up. Yet if he lets Swift bring his broads here it means he can dodge his liquor license. Every drink here is bootlegged. The law has no law in this fetid city.
The shotgun disappears under the bar and the bartender’s moustache writhes upon his upper lip as he grumbles. Two whiskies are slammed upon the bar in front of them. The woman smiles curtly and passes a note that would have covered all of Swift’s earlier drinks.
“Keep the change Lou.”
She licks her fingers and rubs salt into his wound, insult to injury and an arms length of metaphors.
The ching of the register reanimates the room. The band begins again to play with increased gusto. The others go back to thinking about their cheating wives. Thinking about sitting at the kitchen table with the barrel of a revolver in their mouth, one bullet in the chamber. The drop of the hammer, the click, the drop of the hammer, the click, the drop of the hammer, the explosion. Leave a big mess of all over the wall for the bitch to clean up.
Swift however, his thoughts have been interrupted. He pulls off his coat and again drapes it over the stool as he sits and uses the moment to again become Swift. Burning out the lump in his throat with a fireball of whiskey. He studies her face as her lips pull the straight whiskey into them and caress the brim of the glass, not even the slightest of indications that the cheap liquor burnt a trail down her body.
“Had you forgotten?”
He raises an eyebrow and she indicates the cigarette between her fingers. Hands patting pockets and flame before her face. The illumination shows that she wears no cosmetics. Her features however are flawless. The fire is reflected within her eyes and a grin tugs at the corner of her mouth. He struggles to keep the lighter steady.
A plume of smoke leaves her lips and blows sweetly over his features. Swift feels a stirring in his trousers.
“Do you like it?”
She says as she smooths the fur of her coat, her fingers glide seductively over the flecked grey pelt.
“Wolf. Timber wolf. Its real you know. Beautiful creatures. Loving, nurturing animals, a strong family structure. The males leave the pack early however and become lone wolves searching for a mate. Are you a lone wolf Mr. Swift?”
Something jars in Swift’s throat, lust is dripping from this woman’s eyes, her every movement is a stroke upon his penis. Her eyes make him want to look away. He will not however, he has played this game before, though he is usually prepared. He clears his throat of the gurgle waiting to happen.
“Tell me, what brings a classy dame like yourself to a dive like this?”
Answering a question by asking another, he’s gaining control. Another sip of whiskey. Someone shuffles out, the wooden door banging heavily behind them.
She grins and sips whiskey. She has turned the detective to a man but now the fog of her intoxication is lifting from his mind revealing questions needing to be asked.
He leans on the bar with an elbow and swivels the chair to face her front on. That thigh staring up at him, nothing cheap about it.
“How is it that you know my name?”
She raises an eyebrow and crunches a cube of ice between her teeth. Even this action drips sex- wild, vicarious, unbridled fucking.
“Please. Did you leave home forgetting to hang the detective on the hat stand and hung the man instead? Detective swift. The man who has shot and killed more pushers in this town than pushers themselves. Record amount of closed cases in this state alone. Are you so humble to think that you have not made it to the papers at least once? Revolver was also a dead give away, or should I say, a clue. Forgive me for I have neglected to introduce myself. Fiery. My name is Fiery Ivory.”
She giggles lightly, the sound resonates within the hollowness of Swift’s chest.
“Don’t ask, strange parents.”
Swift doesn’t believe the name for a second yet a sacred place between her navel and knees that radiates warmth makes him not give a damn. He’s heard enough candy-apple names from streetwalkers that it hardly registers.
She raises her eyes to the bartender that has been watching her with turrets for eyes and lifts two fingers indicating another round. There is something about this woman. A radiance as if she is internally illuminated, light being squeezed out of her every pore. She drops the butt of her cigarette into the trough that runs along the front of the bar, at the other end an old man is pissing in that very trough. Wrinkled hand around wrinkled cock as he gurgles through a turkey throat. Two more whiskeys placed in front of them as Lou gives him a tempestuous look.
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