OOM: Milliways Library, for Dixie

[ikissdhimbck]

It's not just any library. Sure, as you step in it looks fairly ordinary — books, chairs, tables, so forth — but as you browse the aisles they seem to go on without end. Volume after volume, any book you could imagine and more. A universe of information crammed within these walls.

Kate hasn't ventured here much since things came apart in Green Lake. Poe makes her sad; Byron reminds her of all the things she's lost. She'll come for a book from someone else's world, and then retire to her room to study it. But not today. Her room is stuffy of late; a hutch filled with empty bottles, the smell of sweat and liquor, and the trammels of bad dreams. She's sobered up enough since her Milliversary to regret the headaches and hangovers, but not enough yet to feel quite herself.

So she hides. Today, in an aisle marked 'R' filled with dusty old books from a bygone century Kate hasn't identified. She's not really looking for anything. She doesn't even seem interested in the two volumes she has stacked by her side. She's just sitting, back to the opposing shelf of books, staring at the weathered old spines.

Comments

[ikissdhimbck]

She laughs dryly.

"'The best' — no, not me."

She shakes her head, eyelashes collecting tears the way a spiderweb collects dew. She blinks, and they separate and spread.

"I've killed men. Y'know?"

She looks up at Dixie.

"I'm like poison."

[filemyclaim]

"Well, so've I," she responds. "We've all got our sins, Kate." She shakes her head. "I'm not dying, am I? And I'm touching you. And I see how others see you. Why, some of the children in this bar..." she shakes her head. "They adore you. You don't harm them. You make them whole."

[ikissdhimbck]

The revelation that a woman like Dixie has blood on her hands pulls Kate up short. She blinks at her, quivering ever so slightly.

"Whole?"

She smiles tightly, shaking her head.

"T'tell the truth, sometimes I'm downright terrified of 'em. Worried that I'll rub off somehow. That the next time my sins come 'round t'haunt me, it'll be one'a them that suffers."

Kate wouldn't weather that. No way in hell.

"It's all the men I've loved, Dixie. Every last one of them saw the end of a gun."

[filemyclaim]

Dixie's a revelation, sometimes. Brisco himself has told her as much.

"We've all got sin, honey," she declares, and gives her a lace handkerchief to wipe her eyes on. "And my men...seen 'em blown down like a house of cards in a windstorm before. Brisco's got three bullets in his shoulder. But you gotta hold on."

They have the comfort of each other's company for the day, even if it's all they can hold on to.

[ikissdhimbck]

"But Brisco didn't leave you over it."

She smiles wryly, twisting the lace between her fingers.

You're such a disappointment.

She rubs at her brow.

"I ain't got nothin' t'hold on to. An' it was fine. It was fine. Bein' alone; s'not what I wanted, but I knew my place. Oh, I shouldn't have ever let 'im talk me out of it."

She covers her face.

"M'sorry."

[filemyclaim]

"He came close," she replied. "We didn't see each other for a mighty long time after that day.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she adds. "If you need something to hold on to, well - just hold onto Miss Dixie."

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate doesn't hold onto much these days. She doesn't let herself. She's never certain when something once solid and sure will slip away from her — she's only certain that it will. Eventually, everything always does.

So, she remains. Huddled in on herself.

What's worse, she knows she isn't making a lick of sense, mumbling dribs and drabs between bursts of tears. She'd be more frustrated with herself if she wasn't so preoccupied being devastated. For the moment, it's just easier listening than it is speaking.

"What changed 'is mind?"

[filemyclaim]

Dixie's just holding on, rocking her gently. "He saw me dancing around in a little green stage costume." She replies. "But...then we got to talking about the revolution. He didn't know about the part of me that believed in people, in causes."

[ikissdhimbck]

Her answer makes Kate laugh. Just one sharp, dry bark.

"Men."

She finally starts to dab at her face with the kerchief. She imagines Dixie and Brisco bonding over shared beliefs. She thinks about her father and mother, both caught in the war, finding each other in that field hospital and doing the same.

(She thinks about Sam, and the first time he finished reciting a poem she started; the way she felt when she realized they both shared something.)

"The other night you an' I was talkin'  —  my Milliversary? 'Member how I was sayin' I — I also had an ex named Doc?" Her voice is subdued. "He left me. One year ago, that day. An' he  —  it happened t'be our anniversary. So, I got drunk an' I took this fella — this friend — t'my room. I jus' ... wanted t'be with someone."

She presses the little lace handkerchief to her eyes as though she's dabbing at tears, but secretly she's trying to hide her face. Admitting it makes her ashamed, and the next words out of her mouth only make it all the more awful.

"But he left. An' I dunno if he's ever comin' back."

[filemyclaim]

"Mm hmm. Men. Can't live with 'em, 'can't pack him away in the closet and take 'em out when you wanna have a ride."

She nods when Kate mentions her Milliversary. "No one wants to be alone when they're aching, Kate. It's just natural, looking for comfort like that." She shakes her head. "Doesn't mean you're a bad woman."

[ikissdhimbck]

She makes a sharp noise. Dixie's words shock her, and she isn't sure if she's trying to gasp, or laugh, or scold her; so it comes out as none of these things, and all of these things, turning her eyes wide.

She blushes.

"I — I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with him. He's the only thing in this world that I want, an' I can't have him. Nothin' else seems t'matter. Reputation, honor, virtue, a future... I jus' wanted t'feel — like there was someone out there who gave a shit 'bout me."

Someone who wanted her. Someone who didn't look at her with cold, dead eyes.

"An' I knew he wanted me, so I — I took advantage. But he left, callin' me names. It only made everythin' so much worse."

[filemyclaim]

She's a convent girl and a moll,all at once; shocking is Dixie's secret skill. She lets out a sigh. "When I was married to my Doc, I thought the same thing." There's a resigned tone to her voice now. "Time does march on. Sometimes you've gotta choose between being in the parade and letting it run you over." She rolls her eyes. "The second one sounds like a fine gentleman. And it sounds like it's all on his head."

[ikissdhimbck]

She sniffles quietly.






"So, now I'm a cow in a parade?"

She offers a watery smile. It's the best she can do.

[filemyclaim]

Dixie gives her arm a gentle squeeze. "The lady riding the horse at the head of the pack," she says.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her smile turns a touch more crooked.

"Yeah."




And they both ride alone.

[filemyclaim]

But they have an army backing them up.

"Would you rather be the girl tossing candy from the mummer's float?" she teases.

[ikissdhimbck]

Kate chokes out a laugh. It looks like, just maybe, her tears are finally drying.

"T'be honest? I'm not real sure what the parade's supposed t'mean."

[filemyclaim]

Good - this is exactly what Dixie was hoping for.

"It's a metaphor," she admits. "Probably a poor one."

[ikissdhimbck]

She snickers, wiping absently at her puffy cheeks.

"I know that."

She shoots Dixie a Look.

"I was a teacher for some time, y'know. I didn't mean you t'take me so literal."

[filemyclaim]

"Good," Dixie replies, wiping Kate's cheek.

"Most of my time's spent singing metaphors, honey. Sometimes a gal likes a little mental break." She smiles her surprise. "You taught? I'm not surprised - you do have a fine brain."

[ikissdhimbck]

Her expression softens, but looks wearied due to her tears.

"Yes. It was my trade for several years."

There's an unyielding sadness to the words.

"I had t'give it up. Naturally."

She trusts Dixie to put two and two together. Murderers aren't the sort you want in a classroom. Of course, she might be leaving out a detail or two.

[filemyclaim]

Dixie's expression turns thoughtful; she's too stubborn to let than two and two stand. "You ought to go back to it, make a little classroom of your own upstairs." Milliways is a place beyond reputation, and teaching seems to be where some part of Kate's heart is.

[ikissdhimbck]

She shakes her head immediately.

"I can't."

That isn't true, of course. She could. If she stopped and really thought about it, it wouldn't be that hard. There are several young ones here whom she's tutored from time to time. But she knows there's no going back to that life. Not for good. And creating a facsimile, no matter how small, would only cause her pain.

Three of the worst moments of her life are tied to teaching. It tends to give a girl rattlers in the stomach.

"Anyway, I'd be no good at it. Not an outlaw. Not a robber, or a killer. That's no kind of role model."

[filemyclaim]

"A girl could have stranger role models." Dixie had had stranger role models, if you count tattooed ladies, Mennonites mothers and nuns as role models. "None of us are sinless," she points out.

[ikissdhimbck]

"No. But not all of us hunt for sin."

Even when it eats her up inside.

"S'why I can't teach. S'why I'm sittin' up here, all alone, feelin' like a fool. Sometimes I — I wash, an' wash, but I always come away feelin' dirty."

She's rubbing the creases out of Dixie's handkerchief, eyes now dry but still puffy.

"Haven't figured it out, yet; how my mind's gonna make up with my heart. Every day it's a battle. I choose one over the other, an' it rebukes me. Constantly."