Terminal Island

Chapter Twenty-Four

ACT THREE:

THE MARE



When the stage lights come up again, a microphone stand has been placed in front of the closed curtain. Off to one side is a pair of throne-like chairs: one oaken, heavily-made and obviously masculine, the other more delicate and feminine, with a large white flower across its satin cushion.

The lights go down. In near darkness, the pale figure of the bull-man can be seen emerging from the curtain’s edge and finding his way to the larger chair, making himself comfortable. Once settled in, he claps and the spotlight comes on, a pink velvet moon split by the unattended shadow of the microphone. The band strikes up a long, low note and the curtain parts to reveal the horse-masked woman standing in the center of an empty, darkened stage.

Henry senses a chill passing through the audience: She is a forbidding sight, her elongated chromium face, sequined gown, and gloved arms gleaming in the spotlight, the flesh of her shoulders glowing pure white. Her fingers are freakishly long, and her mask both beautiful and grotesque, its top continuing up to form a kind of crown or tiara that secures the base of a silver-webbed rope of black hair—her mane.

As she walks forward, there is a lone smattering of applause, which Henry realizes is coming from the bull-man. He is clapping enthusiastically, standing up and gesturing for the audience to join along. Everyone politely follows suit, the applause rising to a tepid pitch before trailing off as she takes up the mike. The curtain closes behind her.

In a husky, elegant voice, the mare-woman picks up the note being played by the band, harmonizing with it to create a dark minor chord. Then her voice swells, belting out, “All… or nothing at all...”

It is an old Sinatra song—Henry remembers it from his childhood. It was one of his mother’s favorites; she had the album.

There’s something odd about the singer, though—he can’t quite put his finger on what it is. Listening closely, he begins to suspect that it is not a woman’s voice, but a female impersonator.

For a minute or two the performance goes without a hitch. Then there is some kind of commotion in the wings: screeches of surprised laughter and people jumping up in their seats. Henry can see a pixyish figure charging up and down the aisles, leaping into people’s laps and mussing their hair.

From the balcony Henry has a clear view of the creature, of grinning white teeth under copper dreadlocks—it’s a little boy. He’s insufferably cute, and the crowd is eating up his antics. As the kid darts into the spotlight, Henry can clearly see his translucent amber horns.

Now several black-clad figures appear, stagehands in hooded leotards and smudged faces, chasing after the boy as if to remove him. They only succeed in creating more disruption as the child gleefully clambers across the rows, walking on people’s heads to get away.

The mare-woman gamely tries to keep singing as the disturbance continues, but she is clearly displeased, her voice grating with anger. To make things worse, the bull-man has stopped paying attention to her, seemingly more amused by the shenanigans offstage. Now the horned boy is among the band, turning the music into a junkyard din by pushing the players’ hats down over their faces and stealing their instruments—the whole place is in a hilarious uproar.

The woman stops singing, her mask silently following the boy, steely talons spread at her sides. Finally he is cornered against the stage, his mime-like pursuers closing in from every direction. But just before they can seize him, the bull-man reaches down and swings the boy up into the immunity of his lap, putting an end to the sport.

“Aww,” the crowd says, clapping.

The delight that the doting minotaur takes in his little son is touching—if not for the recent rape scene he might seem almost lovable. The two snuggle together with laughing affection, oblivious to the glowering hatred of the woman or to anything else in the world.

The bull-man lets the boy sit in the extra chair, knocking off the flower to make room, and both turn expectantly toward the singer as if to say, Continue. She doesn’t move. Belatedly realizing that the show is over, the minotaur offers some perfunctory clapping, and his son mimics him like a monkey. The woman nods glacially. Then man and boy stand up and leave, hand in hand.

Once they are gone, the woman turns her gaze upon the black figures of the crew still waiting at the foot of the stage. They go to her as if summoned, their upturned faces unreadable. There is something deliberately creepy about them; apparently they’re part of the show.

Imperiously standing over them, she points her long stiletto finger offstage, then curls the hand into a claw and slowly draws it across her white throat. There is a squealing explosion of sound, wincingly sharp as nails on a chalkboard.

In unison the stagehands turn to each other as if conferring…then look up at her, heads tilted with a more brazen, inquiring attitude. They want something. As if in answer she dips her head and backs out of the spotlight, her open palms trailing outstretched as though conceding the stage to them. Face unreadable, she slips between the folds of the curtain and disappears.

As a snare-drum begins a quickening, tribal rattle, the four figures enter into a silent argument. They push and shove, and one by one manage to scramble onstage, crowding into the spotlight. One of them snatches up the microphone and they all start wrangling over it, singing in fits and starts and causing an earsplitting feedback. Chaotic strobes and disco lights begin to whirl. At first the slapstick is funny, but then it becomes oddly disturbing.

The noise rises to a crescendo—mangled song lyrics and stand-up comedy bits spewing out as from a screaming, demented jukebox—then all the lights go out. Darkness and silence fall with a resounding thud.



ACT FOUR:

FOUL PLAY



A laugh.

A child’s giggle, high and piercing in the void.

The curtain opens to a psychedelic nightmare, the weird, purplish hue of black-light making everything on stage glow with funhouse colors. The set is a surreal forest, spooky as an old cartoon: all jagged, spidery trees and a lonely path winding uphill into the foreshortened distance. There is the sound of wind in dry grass.

Four capering, skeletal forms appear. Their black-clad bodies are mostly invisible under the black-lights, but have been delineated with luminous scrawls of white paint or chalk, turning them into stick figures with smiley-faces. Even so, they are recognizable as the same stagehands as before.

They prance about like clowns to the sludgy hooting of a saxophone, juggling and making a show of playing with various glowing toys: a yellow cone, a mirror, a tuft of hair, a bone, several golden apples, a noisemaker that moans when spun on a string.

A small naked figure darts into view, fascinated and following them from a discreet distance—the horned child. Compared to them his body is solidly fluorescent, a creature of living neon.

Seemingly unaware of the boy, intent on their own fun, the four figures move out of sight behind a screen of tall reeds. The music dies out—the reeds rustle mysteriously. Sorely tempted to follow, the boy hesitates, trying to eavesdrop. Voices in the audience cry, No, don’t do it!

After a moment, the boy succumbs to curiosity, slipping out of sight. For a few seconds the stage is abandoned.

Then a child’s scream.

A piercing sound that taps into some deep chord of primordial distress, followed by the coarse blare of a trumpet and the beating of drums.

The boy bursts from the reeds, rolling and jumping to his feet. There is a bright red slash on his head. Gasping for breath and badly limping, he dashes from cover to cover looking for shelter. Since he is bright as a beacon in the purple night, it is impossible to hide. Wherever he goes he leaves a trail of phosphorescent red smears and droplets.

Now the stagehands reappear. They have discarded the playthings and walk with ominous, robotic gravity. Taking their time, they fan out to cut off the exits, slowly converging on the boy and driving him back into their trap. Their scribbled eyes scan the scenery like periscopes.

Surrounded, he flees into a blind alley and is cornered.

As the hunters rush the boy’s hiding place, a plume of luminous dry ice smoke billows from within, enveloping them like surf. They plunge forward, furiously groping for their quarry. Ah!—one of the hunters falls backward, wrestling with something: a struggling creature that bucks and bawls, kicking with all four legs out of his grasp.

A goat!

The audience laughs with relief.

The hunters give chase, and for a while the uneasy comedy continues as the goat eludes them, its hooves skittering every which way. The audience enthusiastically voices encouragement to the animal, which Henry realizes is meant to represent the boy in disguise—it has the same red slash on its head. Finally the evil stagehands manage to lay hands on it once more.

With a puff of smoke it becomes a rattlesnake, which its startled captors toss back and forth like a hot potato, then fling to the ground.

As they take up sticks to kill the snake, a great dome of phosphorescent smoke wells up like a mushroom cloud and collapses across the scene, covering everything. For a moment it is impossible to see through the spreading haze. Then, gradually, the dark forms of the hunters appear…and something else. Much bigger than a goat: a woolly black body as big as a pony, with horns and other features highlighted with glowing paint.

It’s a buffalo—not a man in costume, but a real bison calf.

As the smoke clears, the animal comes to life, lunging between the hunters and smashing a path through the painted fabric screens of the set. Jolly fiddle music accompanies the men’s attempts to tackle the animal, as they are dragged like rag dolls through the debris. The audience cheers, and this incites the animal to even greater rampage—it tramples to the edge of the stage and nearly charges into the audience. What’s odd to Henry is that the people below do not scatter, but reach out their arms as if toward a stage-diving rock star, happily screaming, “Zagreus! Jump! Jump!”

There is a rope tether preventing the animal from leaping, however, and as it reaches the end of its leash the four men pile on, managing to twist the bison’s head around and wrench it off its feet. It collapses under their combined weight with a crash like a falling tree, lying with its muzzle hanging off the stage.

The music stops. For a few seconds, men and beast lie still, panting together, then the topmost man reaches to his belt and produces a knife. A small spotlight comes on, opening a peephole of true color: the silver sheen of the blade against the bison’s brown wool; the polished agate of its eyeball rolling in fear.

Holy shit, Henry mouths.

The knife goes in. The audience emits a collective cry of horror, a vast No! It is quick; the man saws across the bison’s throat with practiced strokes, giving neither the animal nor the spectators time to think. The creature heaves at the pain, but the men have it well pinned now, hanging tight as it beats out its death throes beneath them.

Garish jets of blood pulse from the wound into the audience, and the nearest spectators sob with religious ecstasy as the hot liquid splatters their faces. There is a rush to the front rows, everyone jamming in for the privilege.

Henry’s mind reels with anger and disgust—he can’t take much more of this.

Now the animal is only quivering, not fighting, and the hooded butcher makes free with his knife, working around its neck and chipping at the bone until the shaggy head comes off. He stands up, holding the dripping trophy aloft with both hands. There are shrieks of horror, shouts of “Boooo!”

The man capers around with the head, resting it on his shoulder and trying to delight the audience with his antics like the horned boy did earlier, but the boos and catcalls only increase. People down front start throwing things at the stage. The other scribbled men try to take the head away and the scene becomes a slapstick game of football, the four black figures slipping and sliding in the pool of blood as they fight over the calf’s head.

That blood. Henry can smell it, can practically taste it; the coppery, animal stench fills the auditorium. It makes him sick to his stomach; he feels dizzy. It doesn’t help that he can hear other people throwing up.

There is no end to it.

The longer this grotesque shtick goes on, the more there is a mood in the audience of overkill—this has gone on long enough. But no relief seems to be forthcoming; even the players are getting exhausted, falling and finding it hard to get up.

Then, CRACK!—an explosion of pure light and sound.

Multiple suns of burning phosphorus blast the auditorium, slamming the crowd back in their seats, frying their nerves. It is such a violent contrast to the previous darkness that it sears Henry to the backs of his eyeballs. The whole audience emits a whoop of pained surprise.

Shielding his eyes, Henry can see a blinding figure suspended over the stage, enormous silvered wings outstretched. The light is actually amplified by the wings—they are reflecting it at the audience, the harsh glare multiplied by the mirror-scaled face of each wing. The flares burn out in a matter of seconds, leaving red afterimages, but the stage lights remain trained on that fabulous vision.

It is an angel. A spectacular angel in a flowing white gown.

Around him, Henry can hear sobbing, grateful cries of “Athena!”

The evil stagehands have tumbled away as if hit with a bomb. The angel glides forward and settles gently beside the headless carcass of the bison calf. Kneeling down, she reaches out her glittering white arm and lays her hand on the calf’s side. Suddenly it heaves as if given life. Blood gushes from its severed arteries; air spurts from its windpipe.

“God,” Henry says in disgust.

Athena stands up and removes her gold cape, draping it over the undead carcass. There is a long drum roll. Milking the suspense, she finally yanks away the cloth in a pop of flash powder. After her dynamic entrance it’s a pretty routine magic trick, but flawlessly done: The calf’s body has disappeared. In its place is a small white figurine—an abstract human form with smooth bumps for horns.

Henry recognizes the thing. It is the same statuette he saw first as a child, and then a second time only hours ago in Carol Arbuthnot’s possession. Feeling a bit duped, he wonders how many of them exist. Are they all just a cheap knock-offs, like the tourist junk sold in the island’s gift shops?

The angel makes a gesture of kissing or blowing into the sculpture, and clasps it to her breast. Holding it there, she rises slowly upward and out of sight. The light goes with her, abandoning the grisly, ruined stage to utter darkness.

The curtain draws shut.

Henry imagines that this is the end of the show, and is frustrated to the point of desperation when no one moves.

“Is that it?” he demands drunkenly.

“Shh!”

The four bloodied stagehands reappear. Now they are wearing white aprons and carrying a vase with a large white flower, a covered silver platter, and a table and chair. Acting like fussy waiters, they quickly set the table at the edge of the stage and stand back as the mare-woman appears. She is haughty as a queen, regally allowing them to seat her and then holding them back with an upraised finger as if to savor the last moment of anticipation…then lowering the finger.

With a grandiose flourish they remove the lid of the platter. To Henry it is a bit of an anticlimax—sitting on the plate is the bison’s head.

The horse-woman stabs into the head with her knife and fork…and the head screams. Strange, discordant music accompanies the screaming, accelerating in tempo and volume as the head not only cries out, but writhes and bleeds—blood wells up from the platter, spilling over the edge of the table into the woman’s satin-gowned lap. She is unfazed by the mess or the dreadful screaming, serenely cutting off a piece of meat and eating it.

The screaming stops. She dabs her masked mouth, then contemptuously tosses the bloody napkin on the table. A low drumbeat can be heard. The waiters stiffen, standing bolt upright and looking out over the heads of the audience. The mare-woman rises to her feet.

It is the bull-man. He bursts through the double doors of the theater, gold horns aflame, holding up the glowing white figurine in one hand and pointing accusingly at the woman with the other. Trumpets blare as he strides down the center aisle, trailing smoke and sparks.

The stagehands seem to visibly shrink, trying to skulk away, but there is a deafening crackle of electricity and all four abruptly jerk up short like marionettes, jets of blue flame shooting from the tops of their heads. With a horrible screeching sound they wilt, smoking, to the floor.

Standing in her bloodstained gown, the mare-woman doesn’t flinch, but awaits the onslaught with grim fury of her own, looking imperiously down as the bull-man approaches. He stops before her, chest heaving with rage…and then seems to weaken. His horns sputter out, and the pale light within the figurine goes dark. As if burdened with invisible chains, his arms slowly fall to his sides; his shoulders slump and his great head tilts back as if in weary supplication to some nonexistent deity. It is as if he cannot remember what he came here to do.

The mare-woman looks at him coldly, unrelenting, in a posture of icy dignity. Fully composed, she tosses her head scornfully and turns away, leaving him standing there at the foot of the stage. His stature seems to have remarkably shrunk.

The lights go down.