Clean White Bone

Abstract

It was 2005; the Saturday night before Halloween, and KTAO was throwing a party at the Taos Inn. There were prizes for best costumes, and a voluptuous woman in bustier and fishnets seemed a lock for sexiest. The tall skinny guy in drag was generating buzz for wildest, but since I was from San Francisco, where drag queens were practically royalty this guy didn't seem so much wild as familiar. The dance moves were getting bigger and brasher, the laughter louder. A harem girls bra strap fell off her shoulder and she didn't bother to pull it up. A leering man in chaps and cowboy hat stroked his toy pistol like he meant it. It was late, and I was ready to go. Td come alone and was happy to leave that way. I walked to the bar to pay my tab, fished in my pocket for credit card and keys, and just like that, everything in the room doubled in number. There were suddenly two bartenders where there had been one, ten barstools, and two overlapping curved wooden bars. I closed one eye and it got better. I reached the bar and hung on to it, opened my eye and saw the room revert to duplicates. My mind hummed with high-pitched panic. I frantically reviewed how many drinks I'd had and how long I'd been there: three beers over at least three hours. Not enough to feel like this. Then there was a gap in time, as if I'd skipped scenes on a DVD, and a man I'd met for the first time that night was with me at my car in the parking lot. He murmured words I couldn't understand. His fingers snared my wrist, his breath was sour in my face, and I leaned back against the car to give myself more room. Some people walked by, and I made eye contact with a man - his double a shadow beside him - who stopped to watch us. A witness, I thought, though to what I didn't know, and I took it as my chance to escape. I slipped into my car and after a few stabs at the ignition with the key it started. I looked out my window and saw the first man and the other one a few yards behind him. Neither moved; they just watched me back out of the parking space. Another gap, and I was driving north on Paseo del Pueblo Norte with my hand covering one eye, the other on the wheel, trying to stay on the right side of the yellow line. Then I was past the intersection where the road becomes Highway 522, furiously focusing on the asphalt ahead, thinking, Please let me not hit anyone. Please let me make it home safely. I didn't remember turning down the road I lived on or parking my car or unlocking my door or walking into my house. I stood in my kitchen, gripping the counter. Then I was weightless with the sound of roaring in my ears. I opened my eyes and saw a puddle of liquid, deep red like port wine, glistening on the floor next to me. It spread from my head halfway to the kitchen cupboard. I was very very tired. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was lying in the same position, and my mutt Pig was calmly lapping up the liquid. I realized the liquid was blood, and that it was mine. The possibility that this could be how it ended for me, alone on the floor of my kitchen, opened an emptiness like I was floating untethered in space. I felt hollow and cold. A fluorescent bulb buzzed, but the rest of the house was dark and quiet. I thought if I could get up off the floor and into bed I would live; I would survive whatever it was that had happened. The bed in the next room seemed miles away, but my only thought was that I had to get there. I didn't for one moment think to call 911. I rolled my body to the left, toward the puddle, and was relieved to feel my limbs working. I slowly pushed myself up with one arm and a lightning strike of pain ripped through my brain. My hair swung forward, gone from ash blond to a cheerful cherry red, streaming blood onto the tile. I steadied myself and gripped the counter with my other hand, dragging myself to standing. It felt as though someone were slapping my head with a rock and the pain was making me nauseous, so I slumped onto the cool marble countertop and slipped into the relief of another blackout. …