Zen City by Eliot Fintushel Read Free Book Online Page B

passage widened to a domed void where No Mind’s hole ran in.
    “Lookit them stone straws.” Angela groped along behind. “They all slant back one way—that’s how it must blow in here. But now the breeze is hittin’ us the other way. Didjas notice that?”
    “So what?” I said. Angela being smart again.
    “So it’s gettin’ awful wet. I think maybe we’re in trouble. It’s floodin’ in somewheres. Must be a storm up above. The pool under that little waterfall we come by was foamin’ up with twigs and pebbles and dirt. It’s drippin’ in through there…” We reached No Mind, coughing and whimpering in his squeeze. He was straining to keep his chin high—muddy water gushed out under him. A wind stinking of rotten victuals sprayed it into a pretty cataract. “…And through there too.”
    Pirate worked past me to where No Mind choked and spat. He found a purchase with his fingers, in behind No Mind’s shoulders. He twisted, eased, shimmied, and yanked. No Mind groaned, “I am not separate from all beings.” His head bobbed as he gurgled and watched angels.
    “I can’t budge him. He’s in tight.”
    “Let him drown,” I said. “He’s not separate from all beings.”
    No Mind rambled, “I am like air. When a leaf flutters, I flutter. When a bird falls, I am there…” Suddenly he stiffened. His face was red. He pushed and squeezed as if he were trying to shit himself out of his own sphincter.
    “Push hard, man.” Pirate held No Mind’s head away from the stream.
    “This ain’t gonna work. You can’t get through that way.”Angela cut in front of me and sidled up against Pirate. Pretty woman, naked as a skinned bean. “He’s gonna drown like that.”
    “…I yield where life presses. I press where life yields”—grinding out the syllables.
    Those same little hands she’d laid on my arms, Angela put them on Pirate’s bare shoulders. He looked round at her, and she said, “Slap his face, Pirate, and then get out of the way.”
    “What?”
    “Do it.”
    He whacked No Mind across the cheeks—“Owww!”—and scrambled out of Angela’s way.
    “Now wake up.” Angela leaned close to the hole. The stream flowing under No Mind sprayed into her face and ran down her sides, trickling over her hips, down her thighs… “Listen up, No Mind. You got to wake yourself. Relax now. Relax. Feel that water against your belly?”
    “Uh huh.”
    Angela lifted No Mind’s head to stare him awake. “Attention, No Mind.” She peered right into his eyes. His lids unclenched and lifted.
    Suddenly, Angela gasped. She was still as dripstone.
    I leaned in. “What is it?”
    She kept her eyes fixed on No Mind’s, but she acted as if nothing had happened. I knew better. I’d had her in bed, dammit. I’d been inside her.
    “Relax, No Mind. Feel where your skin touches the rock. Just breathe. Let go now. Breathe out,” she said.
    No Mind sagged and loosened. He sighed, and suddenly he shot out of the hole like an artillery shell, knocking Angela to the ground. There was a rush of water and bad air. Pirate tumbled back against me, and I fell, knocking my head so hard it stunned me. When I hauled my butt out of the soak and silt, I saw blood through the tatters of No Mind’s girded robes. His back was lacerated from dogtooth spar. Angela was struggling on the floorof the cave underneath No Mind’s prone hulk. His hands gripped her throat.
He was strangling her.
    I scrambled over Pirate’s carcass while he tried to scramble up over me. He hadn’t seen No Mind grab Angela’s throat. Reaching for No Mind, I didn’t care if my knee crossed Pirate’s face, but he sure as hell did, and he threw me back over before he realized what was going on. We were all over each other—and No Mind was grinding Angela into the muck.
    I tried to muscle past Pirate. “No!”
    All at once, the whaddayagets clanged and scrabbled down the passage. Before I saw them, I felt them coming, like blood tingling back into a