It’s dusk when Ripple descends into Torchtown. The cops escort him to a guard tower at the top of the wall and lock him in a new, smaller detainment kennel, then attach it to a pulley system and lower it down. The way they handle him—rough, hurried, uncertain—reminds him of something his mother once said about the exotic snakes the live animal trainer brought in to entertain his sixth birthday party: They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.
He didn’t exactly expect the cops to be his best buds, not after he told them that he killed Paxton Trank with a hatchet on purpose—no self-defense about it, not in the version for the MPD—but there’s still something shitty about the fact he worked for these pros as a Junior Special Officer and now they’re treating him like some kind of monster. The police station where they fingerprinted and booked him was emptier than Ripple expected, but when he asked if they’d had their staff cut lately, Gerald just looked at him like he’d made an offensive ax-murderer pun and didn’t even answer. Then this big old bald pasty guy—the police chief, Ripple guesses—came lumbering out of one of the offices. “I want to see him,” he yelled, “I want to see the son of a bitch who did this to my friend.” For a second, Ripple thought the pro was going to beat him with a nightstick, or maybe even shoot him, but instead he took one look at Ripple and broke down crying. Not. Cool.
Because here’s the not-so-shocking true confession: Ripple still wants to be liked. Old habits die hard. And now, even if he makes it back out of Torchtown alive, he’s got a major uphill battle coming, seeing as how he’s signed his name to a homicide and expressed zero remorse. The lawyers can probably take care of that, he hopes, but can the publicists? Fucking his reputation to this degree isn’t just bad for his brand. It’s bad for his soul.
Swanny sure better appreciate it.
But none of that will even matter if he can’t make it through the next five minutes. Which, from Ripple’s perspective, suspended over the Torchtown street, in this creaking cage of wire mesh that knocks into the bricks alongside it from time to time, doesn’t exactly look like a given. Because even though he’s not actually a violent guy (and he’s not, he’s not, he knows in his heart that he’s not), the cops totally believe that he is—and this is where they put him.
Who’s down below? And what are they capable of?
A ragtag horde is gathering beneath him on the street, undeodorized and mostly under the age of fourteen. Torchies in their natural habitat. Their breeding ground.
“Shark cage incoming!” yells one.
“Fresh meat in the fryer!” yells another.
They’re packed so densely, Ripple realizes he’s going to have to fight his way out through the crowd. Taking down one pro was almost impossible, and he had a weapon that time. He has no experience with anything like this outside of an immersive hand-to-hand combat simulation. You understand narrative constructs, virtual realms, that’s what his dad told him once. Meaning Ripple didn’t understand anything at all.
Ripple is so, so dead.
But wait a minute. He’s not dead yet. What if his dad was right, but wrong at the same time? What if Ripple actually did learn something, all those hours he imagined himself invincible and dauntless and turbocharged, alone in his room—all those hours of playthrough, when he gained his reflexes, learned to anticipate the payoffs and traps in a series of branching choices? What if that time wasn’t wasted, and that knowledge actually counts for something when he needs it most?
Just as this thought crystallizes in Ripple’s mind, the floor of the detainment kennel opens beneath his feet, and he’s plunging toward the sidewalk.
Down…
Down…
Down…
Ripple is bruised, bloodied, sweaty, nearly naked in his boxers, with chicken feathers stuck to the raw spots on his skin. The place is packed, standing room only, shoulder to shoulder. But weirdly, no one turns to look at him; no one hassles him; no one acknowledges him at all. All eyes are focused on the evening’s performer, a lone singer-klangflugelist, illuminated by a single candle on the makeshift stage. She wears a funereal peignoir, the black chiffon like a cape of shadows, and she bends over her instrument, rhythmically pressing the keys with alternating expressions of pain and ecstasy, taking dictation from the conflicting voices in her mind. The song is slow and sultry, and her voice is tormented, breathy, and orgasmic over the blue notes.
Love’s for the foolish, the weak and the poor,
The ones with naught to lose or gain.
Passion is messy, a tiresome chore
And heartbreak only brings you pain
But Mama knows
What you need
Mama knows
Why you bleed
Mama knows
What you need
Oh, Mama knows, oh, Mama knows
Oh, Mama knows, oh, Mama knows,
She’ll make everything all right.
Ripple blinks, then blinks again; the figure onstage remains. It’s Swanny, but—is it really Swanny? His Swanny? This woman is a gritty reboot of the girl he married. Her hair, for starters. He remembers her ringlets, doll hair almost, glossy and springy, parted sharply down the center, pinned back on the sides. Now the curls are everywhere, unkempt and tangled, falling carelessly over her face, tossed back with a passionate jerk of the head. Overgrown: like ivy on a manor, or a briar around a castle, a barrier alive and abandoned, saying, KEEP OUT, HAUNTED, SERIOUSLY. And is she still trying to cover that shiner Osmond mentioned? Maybe, nobody would ever know. Her eye shadow is as black as soot on a Torchtown windowsill. Her voice is a smoldering ruin.
She almost seems to belong here.
Ripple can’t take his eyes off her. Not because she looks good. No way. She looks like she’s made zero effort with her appearance, and as a consummate entertainer, he finds that pretty offensive. What, is it open mic night here in the Hooch Dungeon? Or did she go out planning to perform like this? That’s not the sign of a well mind. So he’s worried about her, obviously. That must be what’s going on.
And…has she lost weight? Because, even though he can see more cheekbones and fewer chins, she looks, if anything, less healthy. Wasting away. Wasted. She used to be pink, rosy, like a piglet or an emoji heart. Now she’s pale, so pale. She looks like she never leaves the house, like she lounges around in bed all day, waiting for the night. Waiting for Somebody—or Something—to come and wake her up.
She ends her set and the room erupts into raucous applause. She ignores it. As she carefully repacks her klangflugel, Ripple is almost swept back onto the street in the tide of exiting bar patrons. Apparently they came just to hear her play.
He makes his way upstream through the exodus toward the stage. A DJ is setting up a gramophone on the sad little dance floor, attaching additional ear trumpets for amplification. One round booth, its upholstery more duct tape than vinyl, waits up front and to the side. Ripple recognizes the chinchilla coat draped across the seat. He slides in and watches Swanny shut and buckle her instrument case. She still can’t see him, he realizes. She’s blinded by the spotlight. He knows how that goes.
* * *