III.

I woke up right before I got to the stop near Tam’s house.  I half-stumbled off the bus, shoving the book down into my coat pocket as I came down the steps.

When I had walked the two and a half blocks, Tam was out on the front steps, smoking in her oversized denim jacket and reading Progression.  She looked up and waved as I walked up, smiling. 

“Hey there.  How’s Hell-On-Wheels?” 

“Okay.  Working.  Possessed.  You know.” 

“Uh-huh.  Hang on, lemme finish this and we’ll go inside.”  

Tam is the vocalist and guitar player for my band, Frogbender, and half the reason Jemma’s comment about the “boys in the band” was another example of her refined humor – out of our trio, I’m the one male.  Tam is four foot ten, ninety pounds soaking wet, and made entirely of ass-length cornsilk hair and lungs.  How she does it on a pack a day I’ll never know. 

She was playing some kind of bizarre art-rock in the studio when we went in, which she turned down but not off.  “Sorry.  Getting in the mood.  Want anything?” 

“You got tea?” 

“Sure.” 

“Thanks.”  I sat down in one of Tam’s huge, half-broken armchairs, and listened a minute.  “So you say there’s music in here somewhere?” 

“Hey, now.  That’s Solaris, so you just knock it off.  I’ll beat your ass, you know.  Don’t think I’m scared of you.” 

I didn’t.  “Okay, fine.  I just don’t get it is all.  All prog sounds the same to me.  Ten-minute moog synth solos and some guy singing like a fairy over the top.” 

“An expression comes to mind concerning pots and kettles.” 

“Ha, no fair.  And I’m only sort of a fairy, anyway.” 

“Yeah, and you only sort of sing, too.”  She punched me in the arm and danced back in a fisticuffs pose, knuckles circling.  “You wanna piece of me?” 

“Owww.”  I rubbed the hit spot.  Tam packed a lot of wallop. “Touche, and no.” 

“Good. Then come and keep me company in the kitchen while I make the tea.  I want to show you something.” 

“Long as it’s not a can of whoop-ass.”  I hauled myself up and followed her. 

Tam set a kettle on the stove and pulled a thick envelope out of a kitchen drawer.  “I forgot about this stuff until Jem started getting her new show together.  I’ve been meaning to dust these off.” 

The envelope was full of photographs of sculptures – bizarre, disturbing, grotesque sculptures.  I was pretty sure I saw the stamp of Jemma there, but I had to ask.  “Jem did these?” 

“Yeah, a while ago.  Before, you know – the accident.” 

“Wow. I had no idea.  I’ve only seen her paintings.” 

“These were a while before your time, I think.  Check that one out.”  The picture showed a pair of white lace underwear stretched over a frame of inward-facing spikes and hooks, with a phallic-looking barbed blade rising up out of the center. Tam turned it over and read the back.  “That’s called ‘Chastity Belt.’” 

“Jesus, that’s not funny.” 

“No, I guess it’s not.” Tam gave it another long look.  “You think she has some issues, that girl?” 

“Tam, Jemma has more issues than the New York Times.”  There were a lot of unsettling things in the photos: a reclining female figure, headless and armless, with a sewn-up mouth between her legs; a trio of copulating demons impaling themselves on each other’s spines; a bowl overflowing with black tentacles; a totem pole made of breasts and eyes.  And then there was one near the bottom of the stack that stood out to me for reasons I couldn’t explain.  It was a figure in bronze of a human body, absurdly muscled and dressed like a Roman soldier, with a gaping-mouthed fish’s head full of needle teeth.  The back of the photo identified it as “The Myrmidon,” and I couldn’t remember why that jogged something in the back of my mind. 

The kettle was going off, and Tam went to prepare the tea.  I said, “So what happened to all of these?” 

“Damned if I know.  Knowing her, she probably had them all destroyed when she couldn’t sculpt any more.  She doesn’t even like to talk about them now.  You’ve only known her for, what, a year or so? So you never got to see her before the chair.  She was a different person in a lot of ways then.” 

“No less sick and twisted, I see.” 

“No, I guess not.  But she didn’t have such a – I don’t know, a darkness eating her up inside.  There’s despair in her where it wasn’t before.  Makes me sad.” 

She set down a tray with two big mugs, sugar and milk.  I took mine, sweetened and lightened it, and sat back with the hot mug between my hands.  “Well, maybe doing this show will help some.”  

“Maybe.  You know what I think, though?  I think she needs to get laid.  A little woman-love would do her worlds of good.”  She wasn’t volunteering.  Tam’s as straight as a slide rule.  She took a sip from her own tea and looked at me over the top of it. “Don’t you think?” 

“I suppose so.  Maybe after some of this physical therapy stuff.  But I get the impression that’s not going as she’d hoped it would.” 

“Mmm.  Well, we’ll see.  Anyway, drink your tea.  I want to run through some of the new material in a bit.” 

We finished our tea and talked a while, and spent the rest of the day practicing and putting our heads together.  Soon enough my head was full of chord progressions for Frogbender songs, with the result that by the time I went home I had put Ian Barrett and his book almost completely out of my mind.  Over the next few days, I was hardly even aware I was carrying it around with me.  In fact, between one thing and another, I forgot about the whole thing until a week later, at the opening of Jemma’s show.

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