Authors: Jeff Noon
Boda says to the barmaid, “Are you Joanna?”
“Depends what day it is,” the big Zombie grunts.
Christ, they can speak?
“Don’t mind Bonanza,” the barmaid says. “He’s just a big ox.”
“I was instructing this child,” Bonanza replies. “I was just instructing.”
Boda ignores him, amazed at her ease. Weren’t Zombies supposed to be vicious? “You got a room for the night?” she asks the barmaid.
“You can share mine, honey,” one of the truckers shouts.
“Got plenty,” Joanna tells her. “Comes with a meal. I can bring it up to your room. You don’t want to eat with these old boys.”
“Thanks. Is there a telephone?”
“Over by the Napalm machine.”
Boda tries the number, gets back an ACCESS DENIED response. She walks back to the bar. “That’s a featherphone,” she says. “You got a real phone? One that takes money?”
The barmaid looks deep into the new girl’s eyes and then says, “Follow me. Got one in the back room.”
They go through and the barmaid introduces herself as Joanna, the sister of Country Joe, who’s out of Frontier Town just now.
“What is this place?” Boda asks. “I didn’t know there was a town out here.”
“Well then, you don’t know fuck,” Joanna replies. “It’s not so much a town, more a way of mind.”
“I liked your song.”
“Why, thank you.”
“What’s a maverick?”
“You don’t know? Well, you should do. It’s an old cowboy term. It’s a cow that won’t run with the herd during a cattle drive.”
They are in some kind of living room now. Mounted cow horns on the walls. Gumbo YaYa is playing, weakly, from an antique radio set. A collection of acoustic guitars is resting against the woodwork, and an ancient hand-wound telephone sits on a rickety table. “I can’t take the feathers, you see,” Joanna adds, “I’m a Dodo. I guess you’re the same, coming in here and asking for a money-phone?”
“I guess so.”
“Have you been sneezing lately?”
“Not at all. I’ve tried to a few times. But nothing comes out.”
“Thought not. Same here.”
“What about it?”
“The only truckers I know that aren’t sneezing are also Dodos. You’re not getting strange urges?”
“Like what?”
“Oh I don’t know. A restlessness, I suppose. I know I am. The Dodo truckers also. You know… the need to escape? I’m feeling us Dodos are being called.”
What can Boda say to this? “How come all those Zombies are in your bar? Don’t they cause problems?”
“You sure are innocent, young lady. I make my living out of problems. Frontier Town is a fuzzy kingdom. You get to know the people.”
“People?”
“Sure, Zombies are people. This is the last gasp of the city before Limbo, and we have to make allowances. Country Joe’s is a broad church. You saw the Wonderwall in the bar? The Wonderwall is Joe’s invention.”
“Keeps the Zombies out?”
“Keeps the Zombies separate.”
“Would I be able to walk through it?”
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
“You can do it?”
“I’m kind of special. What’s your name?”
“Boda.”
“You’re on the run, Boda, I suppose?”
“Something like that.”
“Let me see your head.”
Boda pulls off her woollen hat. Joanna whistles. “Phew. That’s one hell of a range. Oh… have you been hit?”
Boda’s hand goes up to her wound. “It’s nothing. Just a graze.”
“Rubbish. Here… let me… oh dear. That’s nasty. Let me put something on that.
“No, really. It’s nothing.”
“Stay right there.”
Joanna vanishes into the kitchen, comes back carrying a cloth and a bottle of lotion. She makes Boda bend down as she applies the lotion to the scar. “You should go to a doctor.”
“No.”
“At least let me put a bandage on it.”
“No bandages.”
“Okay.”
Boda gets up from Joanna’s ministrations and pulls her address book from her shoulder bag. She looks up the number she wants—the fare-call that Roberman had given her, and that she’d passed on to Coyote. It was all that she had, no address, no names, just the number to ring. Now she’s waiting for that call to be put through once more, her thoughts racing. This has to be it. This number killed Coyote. Something to do with the girl called Persephone. The sounds of electric passage, and then…
Somewhere out on the dark moors to the north of the city, a last telegraph pole. From that pole a single line falls, bootlegged into the fields. The line creeps through the undergrowth, turning green as it travels, turning from wire to vegetable shoot. Now it is a runner through clay and peat, a plant-line.
Boda is standing in Joanna’s living room, listening to whispers over the telephone. Explosions, unfoldings. Voices of darkness. Plant-life. A subterranean storm. She is listening to the popping of seeds, the creaking of growing roots, the slithering of worms, the cracking of flowers.
The emptiness at the end of the line is too much for her to bear. Her one and only clue has led to nothing, to a noise she cannot understand. She replaces the phone in its cradle, gently, severing the connection. No path to follow any more.
Boda climbs up to her damp room. This is what it’s come to: a bed and a chest of drawers. A small table. Nothing much.
Coyote…
She can’t help but think about Coyote. About how he had promised to take her to the Vurtball semi-final, second leg, this coming Thursday evening. Manchester City. About how the point of life is to be on the outside, not the inside. Coyote had said this to her, four days ago in the Nightingale cafe. Was it really only four days ago?
Xcabs was the inside. Coyote was the outside.
He died because of me
. This is what she thinks.
Later, whilst eating her meal—two eggs, one sausage, hash browns and baked beans—Boda can hear the sound of Joanna singing Are You Lonesome Tonight? from downstairs, and the soft whisperings of Limbo in the darkness beyond her room. A long way to go before home, Whalley Range. If she ever gets back there. If she ever wants to get back there. What is there to go back for? Her head is feeling better already; a scab has formed over Kingsway. Maybe she should just travel further, deeper into the real Limbo. She could scrape at life out there in the darkness and the dry wind. The prospect was starting to appeal. There is a time to stay put, a time to escape. Tomorrow she would drive Charrie into the deadliest moors. She was finished with Manchester.
Boda climbs into the creaking bed. Despite her resolution, she can’t help but miss the wrap-around comforts of the Xcab map. She allows herself some sleepy thoughts about those silky tendrils that were once her whole life and motion. And Roberman’s instructions. That loving touch. She can remember the rides she had taken with him, age of nine and a half; when she had first joined the Xcabs. She had been his pupil for three years, sitting in the passenger seat, learning the good Knowledge from that robodog. At the age of twelve her first menstrual blood had appeared, and then Columbus had stated that it was time for her to take her own cab into the map. Boda had sailed through the initiation ceremony with no problems despite the fiery demons she had met there, and she had accepted her new name, Boadicea, and her new identity with supreme alacrity.
Now she can no longer trust Columbus. And if she can’t trust Columbus, who can she trust?
She reaches over to turn on the room’s primitive radio, her fingers moving the tuner until Gumbo YaYa’s faint voice comes on, filtering over the edge of the map. A human voice. The hippy pirate is playing the song called Blue Suede Shoes. Boda is hoping the music will carry her into some kind of peace. But all through the song she can only think about loss. The loss of the Xcabs, the loss of Coyote, the loss of her former life. She’s like a blank, a drift of snow. She had given up her whole life to the Xcabs, now she was drifting free, with no memories of her life before the cabs. She didn’t even know what her real name was.
I wish I was inside you now, Charrie, she thinks. I wish I was riding the road with you. She’s tired but can’t sleep, and in this state of shadows she imagines a conversation with the cab.
ARE YOU OKAY, BODA? asks Charrie.
Okay as I’ll ever be
.
YOU NEED SOME HELP?
I’m lonely, but I guess I’ll get used to it
.
YOU WANT TO GO RIDING?
In the morning. Sure. Let’s ride away, far away
.
INTO THE SUNSET?
Into the sunrise. The sun rises in the morning
.
I KNOW THAT.
And anyway, we’re heading south, not east
.
AWAY FROM THE CITY?
Away from everything. Are you actually talking to me?
OF COURSE I AM. I’M IN YOUR SHADOW.
That’s ridiculous
. A moment, and then… Is that what I am? Really?
THAT’S YOUR PRE-CABIAN IDENTITY, BODA. YOU’RE TALKING TO ME OVER THE SHADOW.
And a Dodo? I can’t dream?
YOU’RE LEARNING ALL THE TIME, DRIVER.
Boda smiles to herself, wrapped in a thin bed-sheet, and then whispers, “One for the money, two for the show. Three to get ready…”
From below her window comes the sound of Charrie’s horn. Three times.
Good night, Charrie
.
GOODNIGHT, BABE.
When Elvis closes his golden throat and Gumbo comes back on air, Boda gets the shock of her life…
“Boadicea, Boadicea, Boadicea! You out there and listening, killing girl? Listeners, listen up. Boadicea, or just plain Boda, is the name of the young Xcabber who yesterday morning broke away from the Xcab circuit. This is why the map went down, and why all you passengers were left stranded. Ya Ya! Gumbo has checked the Xcab memories, and this girl was driving her cab alongside Alex Park at the time of the murder.”
Boda sits up in bed. “What?”
“Also, she was the lover of Coyote, that beautiful taxi-dog who was killed yesterday. His funeral is tomorrow, a police rush-job. The plot thickens, listeners. So why aren’t the cops after this Boda, rather than blaming some mythical Zombie for this crime? When the cops are asleep, the people must police themselves. This is Gumbo YaYa asking the listeners to look out for this wayward rider. Boda is driving a rogue cab called Chariot, and she’s got a shocking map of Manchester tattooed on her head. So if you come across her, let the Gumbo know via the usual access. 7-7-7-Y-Y. You know it’s a safe number. Columbus has offered four golden feathers to whoever brings that girl home. Don’t give that old Cab-master the benefit. The Gumbo is offering five golden feathers! Ya Ya! Bring me that killer. Pollen count at 225 and rising. Meanwhile here’s the Spencer Davis Group from nineteen sixty-five with Keep On Running. This is the fifty-ninth revival of the sixties that the Gumbo has witnessed. So like, huh, keep on running, taxi-girl. I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
The song playing. Boda terrified. What is this? I was at Alex Park at the time of Coyote’s death? No, I wasn’t. Columbus is setting me up. First he tried to kill me, now he’s… Shit, the whole of Manchester will be after me.
Even the people in this bar…
Now go, cat, go!
She jumps out of bed, gets her things together, checks the window. The nails holding it shut are deep and rusted. Charrie is still down there, patiently waiting, caressed by neon from the End-of-the-World sign. A light drizzle is falling. Beyond Charrie, a lone, bulky figure is standing in the rain. From its shape it must be that Zombie man. Bonanza, wasn’t that his name? The Zombie is gazing up at her first-floor window. Boda shivers. Keep the engine running, Charrie. We’re getting out of here.
She makes for the door as quietly as she can.
Joanna is waiting for her. The barmaid is wearing a full-length leopardskin dressing gown, furry high heels, and her blond hair is slightly awry. “Going somewhere, lodger?” she asks.
“I’ve decided against the room,” Boda replies.
“You been listening to the Gumbo, girl?” Joanna says, her voice deep and shaded. “Sure was an interesting broadcast. All about rogue riders and dog-killers. A mighty fine reward he was offering. Got no use for feathers myself, but I sure could sell them to the boys. Make me some funds, and I’m out of here.” At this Joanna steps forward, so close that Boda can see pancake makeup running to reveal bristles of black hair on the woman’s cheeks. And as Joanna steps forward, she brings a gun from the folds of her leopardskin gown. She points the weapon at Boda. “This is a genuine Colt .45 revolver, cab-girl. The gun that won the West.”
“Please, I’m innocent.”
“Like I said, honey, I could do with the money.”
“Is that Mr YaYa?”
“Do I sound like a man?”
“Is that Wanita-Wanita, then?”
“It is. What’s happening?”
“Can I speak to Mr YaYa please. This is Country Joanna speaking. I have some very important news for the Gumbo. Are we on air now? Oh my God…”
“We are not on air, lady. Calm down. I suppose you’ve found Boadicea?”
“Actually, I have.”
“You and a thousand others, Joanna.”
Boda reaches for her pack of Napalm cigarettes. Pack message: SMOKING CAN MAKE THE NIGHT LESS LONESOME—HIS MAJESTY’S PERSONAL ELVIS. She lights one up, drags deeply, letting the smoke drift through the air between her and Joanna. Boda is sitting on a floor cushion in the living room behind Country Joe’s bar. Joanna is propped against the opposite wall, gun in hand, sweating. With the other hand, she’s holding the receiver of the telephone.
“Is this my last cigarette?” Boda asks.
“Shut up.” Joanna screams it in a deep voice and then turns her attention back to the phone. “Now listen here, Miss Wanita, this is a genuine call. I have the girl here. She is sitting in front of me. I am holding a gun on her.”
“Prove it. We have access to the Xcab voice-prints. Let the girl speak.”
Joanna hesitates. She cradles the receiver in her neck as she opens the sideboard to pull out a bottle of Boomer juice.
“I thought you didn’t have any call for that?” Boda says.
“I take what I want. Keep the fuck away!” Boda rises from her cushion, as Joanna drinks down two measures of Boomer. Boda knows full well the effect that Boomer can cause, having taken it many times herself. Two measures of Boomer make you blissful and careless. “Wanita, you still there?”