Tink

Barty's Kitchen to Madison Square Park

The light outside Barty's basement kitchen window in the Village is an early twilight. This is all kinds of wrong because it's just after lunch. Snow is caulking the window frame along its horizontal ledges and silting up the basement area. Barty turns the lights on in the kitchen, which makes the afternoon outside look even darker.

"Hell of a fall brewing out there," Bill grouches before answering Barty's last question.

"The way I see it, Barty, they would have to take out the chef first. He was young and strong. The girl would be next. We know the Van Astors died from fright—cardiac arrest. I don't need no forensics to tell me that. The Van Astors would have complied with the theatrics out of fear, or maybe they were coerced by threatening their partner, or maybe they had been subdued. They were unresponsive when Tink dressed them."

"So you agree there was someone else." Bartholomew, Balthazar, Bal-Bardo—who Bill thinks looks part Eurotrash mobster because of his dark skin and ponytail, and part scholar because of his half-moon glasses and condescending right eyebrow—is still on team Tink.

"She's at least an accomplice, Barty. And that's a first-degree rap. Twenty-five to life."

"Diminished responsibilities, Bill."

Bill shrugs. "That's still either a manslaughter charge or, if she's nuts, commitment to Mid-Hudson for life. You have to face facts, Barty. Where is she now?"

"She likes the fire upstairs—it grounds her. There are still too many questions, Bill. Why did the Mayor's office call it in first? How did the mayor, or someone working for him, get to know about it before anyone else? And why did one of the Colombo family drop her off in Lenny's bar loaded with drink?"

"I don't think she gets drunk, Barty. Not on absinthe. Crazy maybe, but not drunk."

"That's a myth, Bill."

"So what? So is she! I agree we have some questions. Who set her up? And what sick bastard helped her kill the Van Astors?"

"She didn't kill anybody, Bill. She's a shard of Inanna. When the Inanna archetype was overwhelmed by Christianity, it sharded into less complex forms. Tink is a small shard, barely enough for a functioning agency. She is only immanent today because of her revival in the Barrie play and the books and how that resonated in people's minds."

"A trickster alcoholic seductress? Really, Barty?"

"Yes, mischievous, because that is how mischief is formed. Without the love, it is cruelty."

"Well, I guess we all have to be grateful that she is so sweet. I think she's an uppity lushy bitch, fragment of a goddess notwithstanding."

Barty let Bill's explosion subside. Bill was a good man, a straightforward man, in many ways an innocent man. Barty indulged his friend's frustrated explosions, had learned they blew over as quickly as they erupted. They sat together in silence for a while, Bill nursing his precious mug of joe, Barty watching the snow fatten the brows of ice it was building on his windows. The tension between them eased as it always did.

" Tertullian said 'We affirm that all the gods of the nations are demons'.That was a hundred and thirty years after Christ. He was one of the first Christian scholars to systematically argue that pagan gods were not mere fabrications, but real, malevolent spiritual entities—demons. The early church needed to do that to deny the validity of other deities, to defile the original archetypes to confuse and misdirect worshippers. They turned Inanna into Astaroth— female into male. It was brilliant propaganda."

"Is that what the cross-dressing of the bodies was about?"

"It is a deeply symbolic act. A protest against the church's perversion of the archetype. Jung is very clear on this—any attempt to prevent the integration of the animus and anima is an act of psychic violence. But this is where we have a problem. The demon Astaroth is intelligent, devious, but never crudely violent."

Bill is struggling with that, his frustration surfacing again, creasing his brow and clenching his jaw.

"Astaroth isn't violent? But that leaves us nowhere."

"No, it means another shard of Inanna was present. A hidden or suppressed shard. A very powerful shard, one containing the violence that has been repressed for thousands of years. That makes it exceptionally dangerous."

"You know that how, Barty?"

"I have no evidence other than what I felt, Bill. I felt a terrible anger. I heard anger and pain and a hunger for revenge. Innana was a martial goddess as well as a seductress. She was worshipped by soldiers as well as women. That part of the original hasn't been expressed until now. You have to think of Innana as every form of lust."

Bill frowned for a while, then...

"You mean bloodlust?"

"The passion of violence. I can see why the church would want to erase that. A powerful, aggressive femininity is not consistent with virgin mothers and a submissive womankind. A long-suppressed martial shard would explain the hatred, the lust for revenge. Jung said, 'What you resist not only persists, but grows in size.'"

"But why did it take out its revenge on the Astors?"

"They were some kind of stimulus, Bill. We need to know more about them. Who were they? Who did they know? What did they believe?"

‘ And what the hell ties the Colombos, the Van Astors, and a vengeful Sumerian goddess together?"

"That is indeed the question."

Bill wiped a hand over his bald head—his subconscious cry for comfort, or a wiping away of alternative futures. Most likely the latter, thought Barty, studying his old friend carefully. Bill sighed heavily.

"You got a bad feeling about this, professor, 'cause I gotta say this stinks."

Barty looked up at the kitchen ceiling as if he could see through it to the elemental in his study curled up in his Chesterfield by the open fire.

"We are walk-on parts in someone else's play, Bill. And the script is a well-guarded secret."

"So we need to find who is paying for the production. Gotta start somewhere. I guess I need to talk to a family man."

"And I need to talk to an exorcist."

Bill pointed at the ceiling.

"You need to keep her under control, Barty. That was the deal."

"Tink isn't going anywhere, Bill."

"Make sure she doesn't. That's all I am saying."

---

Barty saw his old friend off from the top step of his townhouse. Bill had used his DI status to commandeer an NYPD Emergency Vehicle, and the blocky machine growled its way along Grove Street towards the park. Grove Street was transformed, the snow piled over cars, turning them into hillocks of white. The squad car on station in front of Barty's home had its engine running and its lights on—lights that glowed through the snow banked over them, diffusing the beams into orbs of white and red. The two officers inside the car were studying Barty as he studied them.

Barty waited until Bill's machine had turned out of sight, then made his way carefully down the snow-fattened steps and crunched his way to the side of the squad car. The window whined down. Barty sighed. Of course it would be Officer Campbell. The fresh-face in NYPD blue stared at Barty, neutral expression apart from the hint of a twist of his lips that might, the moment Barty looked away, progress to a sneer.

Barty waited. Snow began to drift into the squad car.

"Can I help you, sir?" Officer Campbell made it clear helping Barty was the first thing on his to-do list after emptying the garbage.

"Come with me, son."

Barty didn't wait but walked back up his front door steps, opened his heavy old front door, and stepped into the hallway. He took off his coat and hung it up on the wrought iron coatrack that his great-grandpa had installed back when the twenties were still roaring and all was right with the world. It was a reminder. The brink of disaster feels like just another day, always does. Barty heard the officer's boots in his hall.

"Central to all units—10-60, confirmed. Blizzard conditions ongoing. Whiteout reported along FDR and West Side Highway," squawks from the officer's radio.

"Turn that down, son. Wait here until I come for you."

---

Barty opens the door to the front room, steps in, and closes it softly behind him. Tink is curled up in his Chesterfield in front of the fire. Her eyes are focused toward the fire but seeing something else. Her long pale limbs are folded up tight, fetal. She is barely breathing, the tatty green sequined corset moving so slowly that for one moment Barty feels a spike of alarm. But she is breathing the way the sea breathes—long, slow swells that pause for too long.

Barty feeds another log to the fire and waits until it begins to crack and spark. Then he kneels beside his chair and places a hand gently on her arm.

"Tink?"

"I did a bad thing, Barty," she says, but doesn't move, staring out at something he cannot see in the darkness beyond the flames.

"Yes, you did. But you were not alone."

"I can't talk about her, Barty."

Of course. Tink had said that before. Barty had forgotten. Not Astaroth then, that was certain. Something unknown.

"But she was powerful, wasn't she? And angry."

"It was like a force, Barty, like a fire that eats everything."

"She made you do things you didn't want to do."

"No, Barty, she made me want to do things. I enjoyed it. She made it fierce, joyful. I loved it, loved her."

"We will talk about it later, Tink. I need you to do something for me."

She is looking at him, eyes bright with hope.

"Anything, Barty, anything."

"I want you to trust me."

---

"So, Tink, Officer Campbell here is asigned to stay with you while I am out. That way he can keep eyes on you at all times. And that way the mayor will not be able to take any action against you while I am out. You understand?"

"Sir, I better call this in. The sarge said nothing about babysitting a freak."

"Elemental! Watch your language, son," Barty snaps.

"Yeah, watch it, sonny," Tink echoes, stirring from her position and glaring at the young man.

Officer Campbell steps back. He’s not conscious of reaching for his firearm, but he has.

"And Tink, you be kind to Officer Campbell. He is here to protect you. Aren't you, Officer Campbell?" Barty looks pointedly at the policeman's grip on his holster.

Officer Campbell looks down, snatches his hand away from his firearm.

"Sorry. Look, Prof, no one said nothing about being close to the... her. I mean, I got no problem with them providing they keep to themselves, but you know... she's a..."

"The police psychiatrist has done a preliminary evaluation of this elemental, and she is just as much a victim as the Astors and their staff. You understand what diminished responsibilities mean, don't you, Officer?"

The young man sputters. "Too damn right I do, Prof. It means she's fucking crazy as well as being a fucking... Elemental..."

"It means she is a victim, son. And she is to be treated as such. So far your attitude and approach seem less than what the public have a right to expect from an NYPD officer. I am happy to make this official if you want to be relieved of this duty."

"Now wait a minute, Prof. There is no need to..."

"Good. I would hate to wreck a promising career." Barty shuts the young man down. Just what Officer Campbell's career will promise in the future, Barty can only guess, and his guesses are not complimentary, but Barty needs the young man to comply.

The officer raises both hands palm out. "There's no need to take it upstairs, Prof. It's all cool. I just meant..."

"You want to finish that sentence, son?"

"Ah... no."

"Good. Now, do you want your partner in here with you while you babysit a girl?"

"No, I'll be..."

"Turn your body cam on? And by all means report the change in status so the mayor knows that we are maintaining the house arrest. You know the mayor, son?"

"Uh, yeah, he uh, he goes to my church."

It’s a shot in the dark, but a good one. Barty makes a mental note to tell Bill. Some shape is assembling in the chaos, links forming.

"OK then. Turn your body cam on and call it in if that makes you feel more comfortable."

Barty turns back to Tink, who is inspecting the young officer the way a cat inspects a canary in a cage.

"Tink! Be good! Remember, the officer is here to protect you. Help him."

"Sure, Barty. I can be good. For you." And she settles back into the Chesterfield to watch the fire.

Barty turns back to the young man whose body cam light is glowing.

"And Officer, your eyes on her at all times."

"Yes, sir."

---

The snowshoes are ash-framed with rawhide lacing, an Iverson model based on Ojibwa style, pre-war. Barty buckles the handmade bindings over his boots, checks the heel tension, and leans once on the hall banister to test balance. Good enough.

Barty closes the stair closet door and shuffles to the front door and out into the snow. It is getting heavier and faster, a northeastern wind swirling around the tall buildings and rolling into the streets. St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th and 51st is an hour by foot. You can more than double that in the snow. Even more in a blizzard. Barty put his head down and began to march towards 5th Avenue.

It is a whiteout. He can see no further than the white hillocks of the next parked car. Street lights are reduced to broad halos of yellow light flecked with the fat bodies of the clumped snow, like flocks of locusts. The temperature is diving deep below freezing, into that dark distant depth that every living thing fights to avoid.

His shoes work fine. But he wishes he has furs rather than nylon and quilting, and heavier gloves for his hands.

He heads for Washington Square, cut across the square to where 5th Avenue starts, and then it’s just straight on. Straight into the wind. Straight into the ice-pick sting of the snow. There’s a hardness in his chest, his lungs stalling on arctic cold air despite the scarf over his mouth. The trees lining 5th are thick with snow on their north side, stripped bare on the south, lopsided pipe-cleaner trees emerging from the dirty silver gloom and then disappearing as he passes. There is nobody else on the street. The lights of the buildings are cowed by the blizzard, pale panels of light eaten by the snow.

By 10th Street, 5th Avenue widens and Barty is caught in a spasmodic vortex at the junction as currents meet and fight it out. Panting hard, he fixes his sight on the dim canyon that stretches in front of him and crosses the empty howling 10th Street junction.

And then it happens. By 12th the snow has lifted. The wind abates. No, that isn't right. Barty pulls his hood back from his head and looks about. 11th Street behind him is engulfed in violently whipped snow, bleak and white and hidden. In front of him the next block is similarly lost in the storm. All around him the storm rages at the city, as if to tear down its towers. And yet here all is still. Overhead Barty can see the clouds racing. The wind still stirs his hair, but he can stand straight rather than lean into the wind and breathe more easily. Some macro-climate anomaly. Some temporary local lulling of air and ice.

Barty takes what relief he can and moves on.

The lull in the storm moves with him.

Sometimes the violent churning walls of snow are closer. Sometimes snap in so close that he fears he might be thrust back into the maelstrom. But that never happens. He walks in the eye of the storm, that silent still balance that could not be.

Barty walks into Madison Square Park and stops by a bench. He sits down to rest. Watches the blizzard howl about him beyond the park fence. The thin trees in the park are still. The snow mounts high and uneven, feet deep everywhere. The park's umbrellas and lightweight chairs are gone, swept away by the storm so the park seems empty, as if it is moving day and the moving vans have just left. And here he sits, ‘après storm’, a single still figure on a snow-crusted wrought iron bench.

"Come out, Tink."

A slight figure with long limbs and a glittering emerald green corset and a short and ragged tutu skirt just this side of decency steps out from behind the tree he is facing and waves.

"Hi, Barty. You look really funny. Like a grumpy old bear."

She takes her time walking to the seat. Sits down on the snow and ice-bound iron seat without a flinch.

"You were supposed to stay in the house."

"You didn't say that, Barty."

"You are - were, under house arrest. I told Officer Campbell to keep his eyes on you."

“Oh, that’s OK, Barty.”

She laughs, lifts her hand, and opens her fingers.

Officer Campbell’s eyes stare up at him.

“He still is.”