I Don't Even Know You.

I don’t even know you.

I sit in the bathroom, in front of the mirror. It hangs off the wall at an angle making my face shorter and older. I pull up the razor in my right hand and pull back the hair with my left. “It only hurts if you let it.” I hear my father saying. I love that man. I wonder if I will ever be able to live up to who he was. He just knew, and sometimes what he knew is the only thing I know. I cut right into the hair, and just drag back. Do you know why you can’t just keep cutting it all at the same length? Why the second hort is longer then the first? Because hair can actually resist the razor, make it slip down the stalk. Hair fights with blade, saves itself a little longer. I chuck a chunk on the white floor and look back into the mirror. Only a patch of grey scalp and then that victorious group nearby cursing, we’re still here you bastard!

Bit is still downstairs. I can hear her moaning, crying, screaming. What ever that damn noise is she’s making, fucking bitch. I almost smile, but the tired man in the mirror isn’t smiling back. I lift the razor again.

At the park, she lied to me. And what got me about it was that it was like the first time I ever noticed she lied to me. It wasn’t, there are lover’s lies and there are lies. Slaves lie. They have a sense of self preservation. Sometimes you let them lie, because its amusing and you know. Sometimes you let them lie because it’s not worth your time to go out sleuthing to make sure they didn’t grab grapes off a cart when no one saw. I’m a man and I have better things to do then spend all my time obsessed with the pettiness of young girls. And that’s what they are. That’s what slaves are. Even the old ones, I’ve seen it. They retain that girl, that little girl.

At the park, Lola mourns. Mourns herself mourns the past mourns the loss of all that was without the hope of better days and feels the pressure of others, who see what she feels, yet interpret it as hate when she sees only sorrow. I spoke to her after the big blow up. The glitter theft of the century, the most vicious whipping any en girl has ever given a second girl. And she really hates it when I tell her what I think she thinks. And I really hate it when she tells me she doesn’t think what I think she thinks and just says nothing more. The list of things she thinks bit should do better, as true a list as any ever made, save a few barbarian girls expectations of what bred slaves are that are wrong; would have fooled anyone else into believing there is hate there. But what do I know of how an earth girls mind works? I just try to accept it now. She’s been with me a long time. Maybe she’s just done with it. Women are like that. They say they will do anything for you, that they have no expectations, and that they exist for you. Then anything turns out to mean anything, and having no expectations means having a host of unspoken expectations.

At the park, Bit lies. Lola cries. Do I know them? Do they know me?

So much going on now and the voice of my father returns to me, “Know your station and let ambition guide you only as well as your talents consume you. Know you’re place, for while there is honor in achievement, there is contentment and joy in realizing ones real ability.” I remember when he told me, after the first time out on that sloop. It was just me and that mast and that chop in the breakers, trying to round the sea wall At Telnus wing on wing, hauling as fast as I could up the streamers. I recall how that sea wall ended my wind on the Telnus side and had me dragging the sloop off the break water a day later when the wind came down. I thought he was telling me I’d never be as good as him while I was pumping and panicking all the way in but now, well now I get it.

“Shut the fuck up!” I shout at the new higher pitched whining from the downstairs dining area where bits been nailed down. I lift the razor to my head again and chop off as much as my hair will allow and ask the eyes in the mirror if there’s a wind on the Thassa side I cant feel. What if when I get around this sea wall, these many sea walls, what if it all becomes clear like it did that day, that the wind that’s driving me is a failing wind, a false friend, a dead end?

“This is what happens to a man whose main comfort is slaves you know.” I tell the man in the mirror pointing the razor at him. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had just companioned that girl and made a place for you right there at home.” My mother, and her interminable concern I would become like my father. An endless pursuit of the sea and a new horizon, how he neglects her, and how right she was that I would become him, even drive myself to become him. He knew, he knew what it was to be real, to be who you were supposed to be. How did he know? How does he know?

“Shut the Fuck up!” I shout at the floor at my left arm, over my shoulder. Shout at the wailing cry Bit has started to make. At the park Bit lies but now she kneels doesn’t she? I smirk as I listen to her try to control it. My father would have killed her straight away and in front of everyone too I don’t doubt it. The ihn he saw that look in her eye. Oh kings what a feeling that was. I couldn’t decided if I cared more because she was doing it in front of me in the park or because I hadn’t seen that look before or if I had even cared. I should have gut her and she’s not going to bring me anything from Valentin. I’m almost convinced of it after even a short time. I should have brought in a free woman. At least I know what he likes now. I feel myself smirking. A young lady of excellent breeding whose youth makes her malleable. Not Xianthe.

“Not Xianthe right?” I ask the man in the mirror with half his head shorn in ragged blocks.

“I’d have to get out there somehow, “ As I pulled the razor across the hair again, “beat the fleet to the Thassa,. Its probably still in the Delta.” Probably impossible, Lucian of Temos thought us all traitors now, though we had assumed this city as part of Cos he would not have it without his word being given first. I shook my head and dropped more hair on the ground rubbing my scalp. He was just too attached to his power, shelled up in his palaces, that’s what happens to all great men who find themselves in constant demand, constant attack from within and without. They grow over cautious, prideful. See betrayal among their loyalist subjects. On the other hand 2300 gold tarns was what any Ubar would take from their spoils. He certainly hadn’t denounced the gold. No not the gold. Only my achievement. My achievement. But not my ability?

Would Lola recall Xianthe? I wondered as I lift up and stared into questioning brown eyes. And where was Lola in all this? She flees me now. Where would she be in all this noise as Bit screams? Could she be huddling in the basement among the finery with the key only she has for the door, no, or I would have seen her when I fetched the hammer and nails? Is she on the roof huddled among the tomatoes with her fingers in her ears?

“She’s gone mate,” I tell the brown eyed fellow. “Even when she’s here she’s gone. Gone to the place love slaves go when they can’t handle it anymore. You know you were an idiot to tell her you loved her.” The brown eyed fellow and I share a laugh. “They start to think you owe them something. And every time they don’t get it, well…” The brown eyed man with the three quarters shorn head seems to sagely agree with me. But he and I continue the work of tearing out the vanity in every follicle.

What was that she said? I look up and take the last of the hair from my head. I watch it fall and run my palm over the thick stubble. High and tight, proper, won’t hold a sweat, won’t catch a hand. Race built hull. Me and the fellow opposite seem pleased. There is blood and dark spots on the skull. The skin is mottled. It looks as though my skull has been telling my story for me while it hid beneath the hair. About time I told it for myself. I hear a word, a sound from below and I get up. I thank the man in the mirror for his sage advice and I can tell he’s the only one who really knows me but I think that a few people might be getting a better idea lately. Then there’s that noise again. I get up and go to the overlook down into the main dining room where I can see her nailed to the table. Her thumbs don’t look good, Distended, too pale. Her calves down look good, too flat, too white. I can still smell it up here in the room.

“Shut the fuck up! Do you want another one you fucking liar!”