Change of Season

It is real tedious, not to mention demoralizin, climbin down the waterspout to avoid that fat nigga woman downstairs because you ain't yet got this week's rent money. Damn, but Ellis Knox would swear by holy Jesus and all his angels that that woman is somethin out of a low and mean and nasty level of hell.

It is more demoralizin to do so on your birthday (or at least the date that the sisters at St Elizabeth's recorded as his when he was brought to them, nine years old and lookin' seven. It's as good a date as any to celebrate), and it is another degree altogether to feel bones creaking and body aching as you do it.

"Fifty years old, I am fifty years old, Jesus God save my bod," Ellis Knox mumbles around his shoelaces as he shimmies down the side of the wall of the cheap flop where he stays. Ivy and old mossy slippy brick under his bare toes, his shoes dangling behind his shoulders, his shoulders protesting the inch-by-inch hand-over-hand descent down the gutter drain which creaks alarmingly even at his slight weight.

When he reaches the bottom, toes squelching into the garden mud, he has to stop to catch his breath. Leans back against the brick-and-ivy, skinny chest heaving, and runs a hand through his drab and thinning hair.

He turns bloodshot eyes on the sun, just at the top of the old oak tree right now and dropping fast. Get a move on. Gonna be late. Can't be late to work again.

Better run, you scrawny white chicken, is the chorus he hears in his head followin him down the road, down every road he's ever walked.

I cain't run no more, I'm too old, he answers it, and limps down the road, because the brick's done scraped his feet up.

***

Ellis Knox plays at The Green Gator Hotel on Tuesday nights, which is preferable by a large margin to The Bayou or Sam's or Costa del Oro. Mister Jack Daggett, what owns The Green Gator, is a reasonable sort and pays Ellis more-or-less on time and, when Ellis explained about the situation with the landlady, allowed him to keep his trumpet safe at the hotel so he don't have to worry about that bitch comin into his room and takin it as make-up for his back rent. Mister Daggett had him sign a written-out chit for it, real proper like and everything. Mister Daggett is some kind of gentleman, what is allowing Ellis Knox and friends the use of the lounge after one ay em with the proviso they ain't too loud and don't make a ruckus to bother the guests and clean it up before they leave, all for only five dollars.

Since Ellis don't have that, Mister Daggett has agreed to let Ellis work that off by comin in for free the next two weeks, to which Ellis said thank you very much, sir, although he can do his basic numbers and knows he is losin some money on the deal. Beggars can't be no choosers.

So anyhow. Him and Buddy and Joe and Haskell play until the last guest has gone on upstairs for the night, by which point it is pushin two a.m. and they are all a bit ready for the party to start. Haskell's brought a six of beer, and Toby and Mac show up as these are gettin passed out so everybody has one and damn ain't nothin so good as that beer goin down your dry throat when you been playin trumpet for folk what don't appreciate it for a number of hours. Skeet and that white girl he's bangin show up a bit later, Skeet resplendent in that pinstripe number he's got on, Lord what Ellis'd sell to have a nice suit like that, and Skeet's contribution is two bottles of Mister Jack Daniels which is mighty welcome as far as everyone is concerned. Between that and the Mister Jim Bean what Joe has in his coat pockets Ellis Knox is reckonin this to be a real good birthday and he is near overwhelmed with love for these his brothers by the third or maybe that's the fourth glass.

Curtis don't show up which does give him some temporary cause for feelin pretty damn near rotten and there are some possible waterworks over this because he had thought really thought that mayhap Curtis would show. Oh he knows what Curtis said, Curtis said he was goin back to his woman and to livin right before the eyes of God and not doin dirty things no more but gawd at least half the reason he'd managed to drag himself upright and out the window today through his hangover was because he'd thought Curtis might show just to give him a birthday kiss if nothin more and there ain't no Curtis. But Buddy or maybe it is Joe give him another glass and another until Curtis don't mean jack-shit to him, don't even mean rabbit-shit, and soon he's laughin again and feelin real good. There's toasts made to him, and he makes toasts back.

Toby suggests gettin into the hotel's stuff and Ellis reckons he can't see nothin wrong with that-- hell, he's gettin near to not seein the floor let alone distinctions requirin moral judgment-- so Toby bust off the top of a bottle of 20-year malt and you can just about hear the angels singin out the open neck. Haskell wrings some sorta noise out his squeezebox and that begs the question of why they ain't all playin, anyhow? Ain't this a party, shouldn't there be dancin?

So Ellis is just getting ready to let out some glorious burst on his trumpet, that beautiful thing what is his pride and joy, and down the stairs from the guest rooms comes this man Ellis ain't seen before, wasn't in those listenin earlier. At first he thinks it is Curtis because gawd, that same brown skin like a chocolate bar, smooth and creamy but not real dark. Mulatto. But this fella's prettier even than Curtis, his kinky hair smooth down on his head with oil and his suit better than Skeet's proclaimin him to be a man of some means. Straight broad nose and full lips and damn, not for the first time Ellis Knox thinks that if the Good Lord didn't mean him to lie down with other men he should not have made them so damn fine-lookin.

Buddy, who is about the most sober of them at this point, ax him what he wants, but the man just ax in a voice like that fine whiskey Toby's emptyin: "Is this a party?" with his eyes on Ellis Knox all the while, and Ellis momentarily forgets how to play his trumpet, how to speak at all, and when he gets his voice back he says "yessir it sure is, you are real welcome to join us, Toby, whyn't you pour the man a drink?"

And Toby says "Alright" and opens another bottle of the hotel's good liquor.

Man takes it from Toby and comes on Ellis' way and hands that glass to him and Ellis takes it and downs half of it before he realizes this was the liquor for the stranger, and he starts apologizin but the man just smiles and ax "It's your birthday, isn't it?"

"I reckon you can melt butter with that voice of yourn," is how Ellis Knox answers him, and manages not to stagger into him although it is real temptin.

And the man waves one big brown hand at the trumpet Ellis is still holdin, pretty rings on his fingers, and says, "Play something for me."

Sheeeeee-it, like he's gonna say no.

So he's been makin the angels weep for about a minute when Mister Jack Daggett comes down the stairs in a red fury, cussin and carryin on. He stops dead when he enters the room and sees that Skeet and his white girl are on a table half-undressed, and that Toby and Mac are behind the hotel's bar helpin themselves, and some corner of Ellis Knox's brain is sober enough to realize I am all manner of fucked.

"Out," says Mister Jack Daggett in a voice like Head Sister Amelia, who had had the misfortune to resemble a bulldog. "OUT"-- and they out. Skeet and his girl still carryin on and Mac luggin his drums and Haskell laughin and slappin Ellis on the back as he goes.

"Knox, you sorry little drunkard wretch, you are fired," says Mister Jack Daggett, and Ellis starts blubbin. He means to say sorry, means to come up with some magic words what will let him keep his job, Lord he needs this money, a man needs a roof over his head and food to eat-- but what comes out ain't so coherent, and he's fallin on his knees before this sonuvabitch gentleman, hell, forget kissin ass, he'll kiss the man's pecker if he has to, but Mister Jack Daggett smacks him upside the head so hard he feels for a moment he is back at St Elizabeth's.

"Out," Mister Jack Daggett repeats, and leaves him there on the floor.

Ellis Knox lies there a bit until there are big brown hands pullin him upright and dustin him off. He looks up into that pretty face, ain't Curtis but looks it, and he just starts laughin, bit hysterical like, thinkin that this is all par for the course for Ellis Knox's life except maybe the handsome fella standing over him.

Cold fingers under his jaw and force his gaze up. "Your name is Knox?" ax the stranger, and Ellis's laughter wheezes to a stop. He nods-- reluctantly, as if he was facin an unpleasant truth. Yes, his name is Knox. Yes, he is that damn little Knox fella, good-for-nothin, fifty years old and no money, no prospects, no family, no job. Knox what lives in the bottle, Knox that skinny cracker faggot.

"School of hard knocks," says the stranger, and laughs at his own joke, a deep booming laugh that worries Ellis for reasons he don't know. Man laughin at him, though, that he knows, and he cringes away from the mockery of this well-to-do stranger.

Except the fella ain't havin any of that. "Knox, you'll do," he says with a smile like a half-moon, and he pulls Ellis to his feet easy as breathin. Ax him the time-honored question: "Your place or mine?"

To which Ellis blinks dumbly, and then starts laughin mad again, on account of thinkin of this fella goin up his waterspout in his fine suit.

***

Upstairs. The man pullin his clothes off him and Ellis more than happy to let him even if his hands are cold. His head is dizzy with the drink and he feels he might start laughin again any second, laughin and laughin and unable ever to stop. So instead he fumbles at the man's shirtfront and tie, only to have his hands batted away like a misbehaving child's.

The fella strips him down to his BVDs and has him down on the bed before Ellis can really register things. Well, shit, man wants to have his way with him Ellis ain't in no state nor mood to protest.

The fella leans over him, like he's comin in to kiss him or maybe his neck, and Ellis frowns, cuz the fella's still full-dressed. "Ain't you gonna let me touch you?" he slurs.

This seems to take the fella back a bit, because he blinks. "Let you touch me?" he repeats like it is a theatre line, heavy and solemn, each word enunciated and his fine dark brows rising.

Ellis Knox is wonderin if perhaps he missed somethin.

"Sure," he mumbles, and gets himself sittin upright to try again for the man's collar. One big brown hand captures his and holds it easily. Cold. Such cold hands. Ellis shivers, and the man's brows climb again.

"Your hands are cold," Ellis says, and the man lets his hand go.

"Ah, yes, well. The winter, you know," he says, and Ellis nods. Sure, winter. People's hands're cold all the time in winter.

Except it is his birthday, or near enough to it, which day is recorded on the books of St Elizabeth's as June the first.

"It's June," he says slowly, the words comin up in his booze-soaked brain like air bubbles in swamp mud.

"It's winter," says the man, and pushes him back down on the bed. Okay, whatever, don't fight it none. Ellis smiles sloppy up at the man: "Kiss me? Birthday kiss?"

Another blink. "If you want."

Cold lips, too. Cold lips, but strong hands, and Ellis tells himself he can warm this fella up alright so he goes with it, still tryin to get belt undone and trousers off. Them cold lips travel from his mouth on under his chin and onto his neck, onto a real sensitive place that makes Ellis shudder and forget what his fingers are doing. And then the man nips at him, making him yelp with the surprise of it more than the pain.

The fella leans back. Room's kinda dark so it's hard to see his face too clear, which is a shame, but Ellis thinks he's smiling. He smiles back. Gawd, but he hopes he can perform alright, he has really had an awful lot to drink and... and is his neck wet? Man must have licked him, moistened his skin or... no, this is warm wet, warm and sticky, and...

The fella comes in again, and now Ellis can see his face real clear on account of his eyes are shinin like the moon on a foggy night and he's got teeth like the Green Gator his own self.

Ellis scrabbles at his neck for the small cross he wears there as a good Catholic boy-- alright, a nominal Catholic boy, he went to Mass on Easter didn't he-- and the silver of the crucifix digs hard into his grippin hand.

He holds it up, hopin against hope, but the man just shakes his head and takes it from his hand. "And how is your faith, Brother Knox?" he intones like Almighty God himself, and there ain't no answer to that. Man snaps the chain of the necklace like it is so much sewin thread, puts the cross down on the nightstand, and keeps goin.

Cold mouth at his neck, closin over the wet and suckin. Suckin at him so hard, and one big brown hand comes over his mouth to swallow up that scream that was risin.

The fella sucks him dry, consciousness and warmth drawn outta him through those holes in his neck. Ellis don't struggle. Dyin feels better than he'd thought it might. Lord's sent a demon t'take care of him for his sins, well alright. He don't suppose he had a good deal worth living for, anyhow.

Eventually even the capacity for thinkin those thoughts goes away, sucked out with the blood. He can feel himself shuttin down, his body getting weaker and weaker. And he's cold, now. He's so cold. All the warmth left him for the other man. He's about ready to close his eyes and just drift right off, but he watches, morbid curiosity for what the fella's gonna do now. Demons go on back to hell, or stick around on earth?

The man rolls up his shirt-cuff is what he does, barin a wrist to the moonlight, skim-milk light on brown skin, the sight of which reminds him a great deal of someone. C... someone with a C.

Nope, can't think of it.

The fella draws one fingernail across his wrist and black wells up in its wake. The fella brings that close to him, and everything else just fades away, the universe tunnels right on down to this, to the cold flesh pressed against his mouth and the cold sticky blood tricklin down his throat.

"The first thing you will learn," murmurs that fine whiskey voice as it follows him down into blackness, "is that it is always winter."

***

Next day finds Ellis Knox resolving the matter of his termination with Mister Jack Daggett, on account of it being Mister Jack Daggett's custom to knock on the doors to make sure guests have gone. The guest is gone; Ellis is still there.

Daggett had barely managed to choke out "Knox--" before Ellis had been on him, moving with the ravening, mad hunger of the newborn, sinking fangs into that thick throat. He drinks his fill-- Jack Daggett is a large man-- and lets the body drop only when he is sated, when blood is spilling out the corners of his mouth and running red down his throat and naked chest.

"I reckon it's just Ellis now," he rasps to the corpse, and goes back to bed. Upon rising, some hours later, he gives serious consideration to resolving his rent situation as well.

It's June the 2nd, 1954; first day of winter.