A Salton Eternity

The Hunt for Forever

I've been staying in a room at a rundown motor lodge on the edge of Salton City that smells like rotted Chinese food and black mold for months. The television plays nothing but CNN static, the blackout curtains are threadbare and the holes in them let the morning light wake me up every day. The air conditioner next to the bed drips water into a tin baking pan like a clock counting off seconds until climate change dries up the Salton Sea for good. Right now, the sea still exists. I can walk out, get in my car, drive down, and look at it. A fish skeleton on the beach. If it's a beach. If that’s a fish.

Every morning I get up, leave the dying motel, get a fossilized everything bagel, and drive to the edge of the Salton sea for breakfast. Sweating through my jacket. Staring out at the water, my nose burning, cheap overroasted coffee burnt from being left out too long before I bought it cooling in one of those little toss off cups, tan and brown, cheap, textured polystyrene if it were concrete rubble. I lean against the car and stare out across the water. Locals have no idea what to make of me. Short hair, knife for a face, track jacket covered in Japanese tiger print sweating through soon as the sun hits me, mail carrier pants with one black stripe running down the side, brown Oxfords, cheap old Casio watch terrorists use as a detonator on homemade bombs. Behind me crooked poles with drooping power lines smile between them. I finish my bagel and have a cigarette, then toss a polished sterling silver antique serving fork with inlaid mother of pearl  handle a few feet out in front of me. "A gift" I say.

I go back to the hotel and lie on the bed until lunch.

For lunch I leave the metronome drip of the air conditioned coffin and the stained bed, still sweaty from breakfast, and get a gas station tuna sandwich. Head to another place where I can see the Salton sea. an overlook. Well, the side of the road anyway. Eat my gas station tuna sandwich, smoke my cigarette, toss out a silver antique letter opener with Lapis Lazuli and gold inlaid on the handle in front of me. "A gift" I say.

I know I'm always being watched. In the morning, from on top of one of the crooked poles between the power lines. At lunch, from out over the lake, something shimmering high in the air, playing on the wind currents, not even a shadow on the water.

I go back to the hotel in the early afternoon, after my lunch run, and get on my laptop. Have to hotspot my phone because of course no wifi. Barely enough cell service to run my hotspot. Run through an encrypted VPN. If I type “J” into the Google search bar it comes up with "JewelClaw Rook" as an option all on its own. And I spend until nightfall reading urban legends about these devil birds, half human, half some covetous corvid, half myth, half urban legend, out on the highways, in the desert, out here in the southwest. And I smoke cigarette after cigarette smashing the burnt down to melted filter butts out in a styrofoam cup until the fumes verge on giving me a headache, then set my alarm for after nightfall and lie down for a second nap.

I've been doing this for a month, sitting out here, eating shitty bagels, throwing out antique jewelry and cutlery, being watched, passing out and running out of money in the end of the world at the edge of a drying salt puddle, going out every night when my alarm blares. My Spotify wake up tone, Father John Misty singing about being the Perfect Husband, but in a horrible ironic way, thin and in all black, live recording from Asheville, North Carolina, 2016, in the video he writhes, cocaine high, vibrating to his own sound. In a month, not a single local has talked to me. They avoid me, don't look me in the eye. Whether it's the economic depression, regular depression, or just knowing for certain I'm a crazy person, who cares? Solitude like this you can’t pay for these days.

I've been doing this for a month at least, I think, going out to this abandoned warehouse every single night, this rusted up behemoth with a caved in roof close as it can get to the sea that used to process something, used to be useful, used to have a purpose, now just with its dust and birdshit covered floor. The sound of flapping wings in the darkness above. First day I showed up, behind my car I was pulling a portable generator with a spotlight on it, like you'd see at a festival or set up in a dark parking lot, at a construction site where they're working all night. Got it on the cheap, saying I stole it really. Set it up in front of a solid oak table I dragged down here the second week, or third, or fifth. I think it was the second week. But dragged it down and put the table there and commenced to tossing out shiny baubles for my friend watching me.

Well, alright, truth telling: I hope they're a friend.

If not, that's alright too.

You can only do so many awful things in life before a beyond redemption feeling of certitude creeps in your skin and you decide to check in the strangest places for forgiveness. Looking for absolution or what you deserve.

I'm carrying a little neon pink Adidas soccer bag over my shoulder. Stand out of the light, fill the diesel generator on the light pole, and smoke one more American Spirit black.

Snub it out with my heel after the last drag and walk up to the oak table, drop the soccer bag at my feet. Bend down, unzip it, and I pull out a crimson tablecloth and lay it out on the table, sweeping it flat with my hand just so, like they do in movies. You know the feeling you get when you just know you're being watched, but you don't know the exact intent of whatever or whoever the fuck is watching you in the darkness. Yeah, the name for that is scopaesthesia. I strip nude and fold my clothes at my feet. All that's left in the pink bag are three bags of chrome Rustoleum spray paint, and a Crown Royal bag.

I shake up the spray paint real good, the ball rattling around in there forever, and aim the nozzle at my chest, start to cover myself with it. The steady hiss of the paint in long streaks going down my arms and legs, in even overlapping strips down my torso, in the cracks of my groin. Rattle of the ball in each successive can of spray paint when I shake it is the only sound aside from once switching out an empty can; was it a wing flutter I heard? Close my eyes to enter the black and blast myself in the face, cover my hair, reach around and cover my back. I use all six cans all the way up until I'm not even just shiny chrome like the Silver Surfer, but dripping thick with shining spray paint, sweating off of me in rivulets, drying slower than expected. The last thing I do before climbing up on the table under the lights is grab the Crown Royal bag.

I sit cross legged on the table under the light, hot, sweating under pore clogging chrome paint made for trailer hitches or something, who cares, and untie the golden noose to the royal purple bag and dump it out onto the table. Opals. A pile of opals soft seeming polished opals tumble onto the crimson tablecloth in a rolling half muted clatter.

"There, heard you like opals or something," I say. The times you don't have a cigarette, when you don't know what's coming next, they're the times you want one the most. "So, since you've been seeing me around for a while, I don't know." Voice almost cracks saying it. "I've done a whole lotta awful shit so, you can have me now."

Nothing happens. Imagine being the only person in the waiting room and you know  no one else is ever going to call your name. But you know, until they do. Those endless minutes pass, and just when I’m naked and silver cocked and feeling conspiracy theory mothman levels of stupid, then there's a rustle and a swooping sound from above me in the dark. A cool three near mute whooshes and feet not human in design thump and click onto the table.

When they talked about Seraphim in the Bible they had to be talking about JewelClaw Rooks. Seven feet tall more than one pair of arms are wings, feet are high heel claws, shining black feathers like scales, and all of it oilslick rainbow. They have the sleek sort of head a human half turned to a bird out of a sci-fi movie or some shit would have: big obscene black anime eyes with those extra nictitating lids, mouth is a sleek beak is clacking and inside pink contrast enough to blind me. Wings that end in hands human enough but scale covered with fingernail feathers looking too much like razor edge knives. Another set of wings. Two be not afraid biblically accurate breasts. Wide hips. Femme. Gaze upon my works ye mortal and despair, but be ye not afraid. What Slavic nightmare did the Rooks crawl out of and how, why did they disappear? She… It? The JewelClaw Rook sways from side to side, cocking head one way and the other, clicking what could be beak over mouth, and blinking. It's definitely a femme, a she.

She looks down at the pile of opals in front of me dumped on the bright red tablecloth, back up at me, and blinks. Head cocks, inhuman in total. Hips swaying like a veteran stripper though.

"You make friends with Corvids, you know, like, uh, crows and such. You bring them shiny things. JewelClaws, Rooks, the internet. The, uhh, the internet says you like gems, jewels, and, you know, shiny shit. Being… They’re out there thinking like. You know, distantly some sort of relatives of corvids, or crows, or... Rooks…" I trail off mid sentence when she takes two steps forward and kneels down in front of the pile of opals. She waves a wing over them gently, a hand, something like it anyway, rubbing over them, then pecks at the pile like a regular bird would, and looks up at me. Two shiny opals in a her beak, but lips close enough to human, plump, back behind the beak, plump and hiding sharp teeth. Shark, not avian, not sapien, more the monster in the internet forums.

"You're shiny," she says. Siren's voice, sounds like she wants to laugh at me. And I look down at myself. "Do you know how silly you look, really?" She asks.

"I, well, hadn't really thought about it that much. I mean, the only thing out there is strange internet shit on like, Chan boards and you know," she blinks and clicks her beak. Behind the beak, lips, a mouth, and chainsaw teeth. The beak is almost more mask. Is the whole thing a costume? A genetic costume?

"You actually take what they write on CHAN boards.… SERIOUSLY?" She asks.

"Well I didn't know if you had the internet or whatever."

She giggles and shakes her head. A very bird movement. A fluttering shake. "I like your gifts," she says.

"Been watching me?"

"Since you got into town," she says and sits down cross legged across from me, wraps herself up in her two sets of wing arms.

"I'm a human sacrifice," I vomit the words onto the table between us. It lands cold. A frozen hairball your cat left you overnight.

"Nah," she says. "You're a liar."

"I'm not lying, I've done a lot of awful things," I say, "and I'm here. I don’t know, so at least I don't put a bullet in my brain or something. Because I can’t do it myself."

"You're really a liar," she says and clicks the beak three times, behind it, a split tongue licks the human looking lips. "You know, I have glands that secrete acids in my neck, where you have thyroids. I can make you see things. The feathers at the ends of these wings are sharp as razors, they flex, never break."

"Among other rumors," I say and shrug. "Also among those varied rumors is you kill bad people."

"Bad people don't bring me a Jewel Rook piles of opals or throw me antique Victorian dinnerware twice a day every day more punctual than Swiss clockwork for three months straight," she says, and shit, has it been that long? "Bad people don't spray paint themselves up like some shiny stupid chrome silver surfer thing and offer gifts like this."

"You don't know that," I say. Poke a finger her direction.

"Do," she says. "And you're a liar still. Here under the falsest of pretenses." Cocks her head to the left.

"You think so," I say.

"I think you're a liar," she says.

"I've done awful things," I say and point at my own chest.

"By whose metrics? By what standards have you done such awful wrongs titan?" she asks and giggles.

"I defied the gods," I say. "And after forever, you left."

You spend a few thousand years with someone eating your liver every night and it becomes so routine, so ritualized, that you know, you may fall in love.

"Prometheus," she says. "Always the guilty scientist. Always ready to be punished for a crime that someone else would have done eventually."

"I've been looking for you since you snapped those chains." I say. "I've been looking for you since you flew off that mountain."

"You still count their time?"

"I count their time," I say and lean towards her. "Because I can't remember what it was like to be anything but like them, only when I'm asleep."

Her black feathers sizzle and burn, fall out. Leaves falling from a tree in fast forward, a wave of blue and orange fire passes over her leaving her dove white, exposed, a larger bird human creature, towering, standing she'd scrape a low ceiling, long claws for fingernails, breasts covered by knees wrapped in arms. The smell of burning feathers in my nostrils and the taste at the back of my throat is the sweetest perfume. "I knew it was you from the second you hit town," she says. Eyes still black, oval, beak shed, full lips, split blue tongue licking the outside of her mouth. "From the very second I smelled you, so quit pretending like you're here to be punished, like I'm going to kill you."

"How many times." I pause. "Did you eat my fucking liver?"

"How many times did it grow back darling?" she asks. "How many beautiful conversations did we have while I ate it… Sitting on your chest… How many times did I promise I would free you some day?"

"How many times," I pause for a breath. "How many times did we fuck on that rock?" She tilts her head back and laughs. Stretches her arms above her head in one lazy swoop, groans at the memory. Her nipples as dove white as the rest of her.

"Stop pretending to be something you're not..." she says with her arms held high above her head, all four intertwined. "Be yourself, you're in the presence of the Jewel Rook"

Blue flames engulf my head and run down my shoulders and back. The spray paint bubbles, gives off an acrid smell, and melts into a puddle running off the burning table cloth. My skin is translucent, black, the color of outer space, and inside of me there are galaxies shit NASA would die to take pictures of. She groans. "Better," she says.

I lean back on my arms. "I've missed you forever you know," I say.

"You still count their time," she says. "That's your problem." She unfolds and crawls towards me opals going under her knees, the table cloth around us going up in orange flames, "to me it has only been a second," she crawls closer, runs the back of one clawed hand down my cheek slow, baby soft and bends down. "To me we were never really apart." Her head moves down. "But you just had to torture yourself more, and more, and more," and she bites into my side, chewing at my abdomen because she's starving, because my liver grows back every day.

My groan is not pain, it is pure ecstasy. I reach out a hand and cup one of her breasts. "I've missed you baby," I say. Pinch a nipple and she titters over it with a mouth half full of chewed flesh from my side. “The truth is,” her rows of shark's teeth shred my muscle walls, she tries to go under but she shatters two right ribs in her greedy hunger and I gasp. “Truth is I forgot. It all came back so slow.”

Then the internet happened, and even that was slow. Then Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, Mothman, Champ in lake Champlain, cryptids. I’m telling her this and she’s groaning sex noises and MMhmmm with mouthfuls of me, chewing and swallowing and going back for more. “Then I read about this monster another mythical cryptid, the Jewel Clawed Rook.” I have to stop and groan. “Just one. Penchant for precious stones, gold, silver,” stop and groan again, “and eating people’s organs”   

She stops chewing in me for a moment and looks up at my face. I look down and our eyes meet, the fire in mine reflected in hers. "It was only seconds, killing time and starving no matter how much I ate, but I missed you for every one of them." She goes back to her work, chewing at my side as my erection grows, throbbing. She grabs it. "It was literally less than a minute." she snarls.

"For me," I'm gasping as she works. “Imagine you have felt nothing since before man counted time, because you taught man how to count time, and that's how long it's been since you've felt touch, emotion, anything but an empty numbness permeating you, seeping into every single moment of your life. And because you gave them time, you gave them fire, you gave them measure, this all goes on at the speed you gave humanity.” She strokes my cock slow with one clawed hand as her razor sharp teeth tear into my liver, almost bisecting it with her first greedy bite, a hemorrhage of blood torrents out and cascades down my abdomen, "for me, love, it has been literally for-fucking-ever."