From this Flesh

The man was soaked through. He puddled his way to a barstool in the corner and pulled a soft pack from his breast pocket. He looked inside and then crushed it. Wet tobacco and rain water squished from his gloves. Those tight, black skins that he always wore. Spring, summer and snow he was never without them.

If you asked him why, he’d just say: “I work with my hands.”

None of us ever pressed him about it. No one ever asked. Even in this tavern of union men and grain workers, he was the most intimidating of the bunch. A tall, block of a man. Poorly dressed and lacking color. Two bolts in his neck and he could be Frankenstein’s monster.

He always sat beneath the broken television, where anyone rarely looked. Sometimes reading the paper. Sometimes spinning quarters. But always nursing a draft with his head down and content to be alone. As he was now, his shoulders shivering in those dank clothes, and his fingers tapping the bar at a heartbreak pace.

I think his name was Floyd, but we just called him the Big Guy.

Jerry pushed him a shot of corn whiskey: “Here…This’ll warm you up a bit.”

The Big Guy nodded to the old man in thanks. His hand trembled. Half the shot made it into his mouth, and the rest spilled down the ridge of his chin.

“The radiator’s over there,” Jerry pointed. “Go dry them clothes a bit.”

The Big Guy shook his concrete head.

“C’mon. You look like shit. At least put your coat on it awhile,” Jerry hobbled around the end of the bar and took the man’s coat by the shoulders. I half-expected a spit of violence, but the Big Guy obliged. He let the old man peel off the coat and followed him to the radiator.

The clothes sizzled. The mirrors fogged. Jerry labored back behind the bar. He took a peanut from the bowl, cracked and ate it. His good deed done.

I tipped back my beer and watched the Big Guy stand over the radiator. He wiped his face clean and patted down his hair.  Slowly, he took off one of his gloves. He did it with precision. Like he was peeling a burned marshmallow. Then he reverently laid the black glove across the pipes. Palm down. Fingers spread equidistant. And with the same meticulous motions, he took off the other glove and set it on the grill. It hissed with wet smoke.

The Big Guy stood amidst the steam and whispered to himself. He opened his hands as if blessing a sacrament. Chest rising and falling as he inhaled the humid plumes. Panting and praying. Cleansing himself in the confessional. This corner bar. Where he could assign his own penance and retribution was within reach.

The Big Guy started weeping. It was too much for the old man: “Hey, Big Guy. C’mere!”

His head snapped toward us, more perturbed than embarrassed. His soggy eyes focused on mine. They were deep and hidden and too small for his face. Like a child masked in burlap. Or two reflections in the pit of a filthy drain.

“C’mon over here and have one of these!”Jerry poured three more shots of corn whiskey.

The Big Guy’s face eased. He wiped his nose with his shirt and came up to the bar. He grabbed a napkin and folded it in half, then wrapped it around the shot glass.

We raised them indifferently. Jerry started some proverb about loose women and I glanced at the Big Guy’s naked hands, looking for some disfigurement, some reason for the constant disguise. But there was nothing. No deformities. No grotesqueties. Not even a blemish. Just two normal hands, clean and manicured. Preserved and protected.

“..and if they fall, may they land with their legs spread,” Jerry bellowed the punch line. I gave a polite laugh. The Big Guy didn’t. We threw back the shots. The Big Guy slammed the glass down and let out a hot breath. He crumpled up his napkin and threw it in the trash.

He smiled then. Small at first, but it quickly stretched across his ugly face and exploded into laughter. A pent-up, maniacal laugh somewhere between lottery winner and serial killer. Between victory and murder.

It was contagious.  Jerry and I joined in. Unsure why. It was tribal maybe. It felt good whatever it was. A cleansing? A purging? Something we kept up for far too long. Our tragedies and comedies caught-up in the moment, releasing our pains — Jerry, perhaps recalling the war that left him with a limp. Me, thinking of Anna’s last smile.  That final kiss before she skipped off to school. All the scolding and insults I could never take back.

I laughed it all away.

We laughed it all away.

For a little while at least.

We stopped when we heard the blip-blip of the sirens, and the red and blue lights streamed across the bottles.

The Big Guy pushed himself away from the bar, snatched up his clothes, and disappeared into the back hall.

Jerry shuffled to the window and I followed. We put our faces against the horizontal glass. The rain had stopped. Two county cops got out of a new squad car. They pulled up their utility belts and adjusted their caps. Both were the same height, same build, and wore the same nylon coats. They weren’t the usual deputies, we knew those guys well. Even took down bottles of booze with them

after close. But neither of these guys looked old enough to drink, let alone carry a weapon.

They walked into the black bar across the street. The only other bar in our part of town. I took a sip of beer. The cops were back outside before I swallowed.

“Goddammit–” Jerry hurried to the cash register. He stuffed some receipts and poker chips into a drawer, then hid the liquor funnel in the trash.

I ran back to my seat.

The door opened and colored lights discoed across the bar, announcing the strange deputies. One stopped in the center of the room and cocked his legs. He sniffed and hooked two thumbs in his belt. The other cop leaned onto the bar, tipped his hat back and smiled. Both had watched way too much television.

“You seen a big fella come through here,” the friendly cop said. “Tall with a black coat down to his knees?”

Jerry popped a peanut into his mouth.

I shrugged.

“His car’s parked down the road.”

Jerry spit the shell on the floor.

The friendly cop grumbled and headed toward the back hall. His partner followed, eyeing us as he went. We heard them kick open the bathroom doors and rattle the chains on the fire exit.

I took an uneasy drink, waiting for the commotion.

Jerry cleared away the Big Guy’s empty glasses.  “What the hell?” he said, holding a white pebble between two fingers. He walked over and set it in my palm. It wasn’t a rock — it was soft and meaty.

The cops reappeared. They clicked across the hardwood, angry and empty-handed. I made a fist around the meat pebble.

The friendly cop paused at the door: “If he comes back here, call us. He almost killed a little girl.”

The door swung shut.

Jerry and I looked at each other.

A little girl?

The car lights disappeared. The Big Guy returned from the back. He had on his coat and gloves again. All glistened with a film of frost.

I put my eyes on the bar, wishing I had a phone. The meat pebble was heavy in my hand.

The Big Guy sat down. Jerry started folding and unfolding the bar rags.

“What’d they say…”

“Ain’t none of our business,” Jerry lied. Which was usually true. The lives we lived off these stools didn’t matter.  But this was a little girl. Jerry had raised one. And I’d lost my Anna less than a year ago.

Jerry set a rag over the phone and let his hand sneak underneath.

“Don’t do that,” the Big Guy eyed him. “Why don’t you just bring me a bottle, Jerry… And that phone while you’re at it.”

The old man’s shoulders fell. He handed over the phone, along with a bottle of corn whiskey. The Big Guy unscrewed it and took a sip. I stared at him. He had that same look as the meth-head who killed my daughter. That same disconnect and distance. Filled with justifications. So at ease with himself. So damned smug.

I took a drink to fuel my gumption, then I turned my stool towards his. My left knee shook as I said: “A little girl. An innocent. Little. Girl.”

He looked at me. Again with those tiny eyes. Those full moons in a well. Scraps of marrow in a hollowed bone.

I opened my hand to show the meat pebble: “So, is this a fucking souvenir? A trophy for trying to kill her?”

“What?!” he bolted up. “She’s alive?!”

I flinched and cocked my fists.

“I need a ride,” he said.

“Fuck you. I didn’t drive.”

“We don’t have time for bullshit. Where are you parked?”

“I told you, I didn’t—”

He came at me then. Faster than I expected, and took me by the front of the shirt. His fist went into my nose. Once. Twice. Three times until I fell to the floor. Warm blood. The taste of iron. All choking me.

I looked up at him, my nose already swollen into view. Jerry cursed and told him to settle down.  The Big Guy lowered one hand to assist me: “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”

I let him pull me up and I used the momentum to put everything I had into one punch aimed at his jaw. One massive strike to take down this Goliath!

But I missed. The punch glanced off his shoulder and I fell into a table.

The Big Guy clasped my neck and straightened me up. He shook his head, seemingly reluctant for what was to come — he put two fingers on my collar bone and cracked it like a pencil. The splinters and shrapnel surged into my flesh. The bar spun wildly and I collapsed in his arms.

He stroked my forehead and whispered: “We’re going to the hospital. And you’re my ticket in.”

“Piss off,” I breathed.

He twisted the bone then, and the pain funneled me to sleep…

I awoke in the passenger seat of my truck. The Big Guy bouncing behind the wheel.  I coughed up some blood, shifting the jagged collar bone deep into some meaty region. The pain made me squeal. The Big Guy offered me the bottle of whiskey in his lap. I shook my head, though immediately regretted it.

He took a long pull. Wind whistled through the cracks in the floor. Corn rows streamed by. We were taking the back-roads. It was a little farther, but you could drive faster. And the truck rattled like we were doing top-speed.

“Where’s Jerry,” I mumbled.

“Beer cooler. Don’t worry. I gave him an opener.”

The Big Guy turned to me, proud of his joke.

I wanted to spit blood in his face.

He switched on the radio.

“Don’t hurt her,” I said. “Don’t do it.”

He took a long, contemplative drink. Then he set the bottle between his legs and exhaled: “I’ve only hurt one person in my life. One person I took away with these hands.” He wiped the air as if massaging some invisible face. “And all she wanted to do was kiss me. To kiss her baby.” He pawed the air like a newborn with no control.

The cornfields passed.

Mist hit the windshield.

“I’m not going through that again,” he whispered.

Then he tipped the bottle.

And choked it all back…

A fluorescent glow appeared over the cornfields. White lights from the hospital. It took me back to the night I raced to see Anna. The same road. The same wet haze. The same bleak journey. As though the weather had known the fatal news before I did.

I sat up, emboldened: “You’re not touching that little girl. I won’t let you.”

The Big Guy pointed the bottle at me. Aimed at my left eye, then panned slowly to the right. I stared down the barrel of the neck and reached up slowly, realizing its potential as a weapon.

The Big Guy jerked it back and sucked down two gulps.

“I won’t let you! I’ll tell them its you!”

The truck swerved onto the shoulder. We skidded to a cockeyed stop, a few feet from rolling into a ditch. My head slammed into the windshield. The Big Guy pulled me close and screamed into my face: “You’re not saying anything!”

He took off one glove and pushed a finger against my lips. He quickly traced a path across them. I felt a tingle through my skin. Pain and pleasure intermixed.

I tried to speak.

But I couldn’t.

I tried to breathe.

But I couldn’t.

I reached up.  A thin membrane had sealed my lips. I struggled for a breath. Chunks of blood pushed back and forth through my nose. Spits of oxygen.  I clawed at the skin. But this new flesh, these nerve endings — they were all my own!

“Mmmmmghh!!!!!!” was all I could get out.

The Big Guy got back on his gloves and onto the road.

I shook my face and panted through my nose. It was filled with bloody glue.

The Big Guy turned up the radio. Loud enough to drown me out.

He took a drink and sighed.

An Elvis song came on and he smiled.  “A deaf kid used to live next door to me,” he said over the music. “He fucking loved Elvis. He sat in his room all day jamming it full-blast.”

I blew my nose into my hands. The clogs just got worse.

“That kid liked to sit on the speakers. Just sit there bobbing his head and singing like a fucking retard. “

My neck loosened. A string held my gaseous head.

The Big Guy lowered the volume and his voice: “That kid could name any Elvis song. Just by the vibrations.”

My head fell against the window. I didn’t want to hear his stories. I didn’t want to hear about deaf kids and Elvis and chasing lost senses. I just wanted to rip my mouth open and take a breath. Take a drink!

“That kid figured it out. But this,” he held up one gloved hand. “You can’t fool me. You can’t fool this!”

He smashed his hand on the dashboard and grabbed the wheel violently. We turned hard into the parking lot. My face slid down the window as the truck skidded to a stop. The Big Guy threw me over one shoulder and rushed me into the emergency room. The place was empty except for a one-armed farmer and a security guard pouring coffee.

“Help! My brother’s been in an accident! Please! Help!” the Big Guy screamed.

An old woman appeared.  She pushed a large red button on the wall. Alarms. Two young men came crashing in with a gurney. They put me on it. Ceiling lights streamed by. Dashes in a foggy road. The men shouted questions. But it was all lost in a commotion of sight and sound.

I wondered if this is what Anna saw. Were these the last visions of herlife? Would they be mine?

Soon I tasted the oxygen. The sweetness. It refocused me. We were in a private room. One of the orderlies stuck me with an IV and the other adjusted two tubes in my nose. The old woman taped wires to my chest.

I saw the Big Guy in the doorway, his head scanning left and right, left and right.

Suddenly the alarms sounded again and the orderlies rushed away. The old nurse plugged me into the monitors and followed after them.

“Mmggh!” Lady, wait!

She stopped at the door. Next to the Big Guy.

“MMMMggh!”He’s gonna kill her!

I pointed furiously.

She looked up at him and said: “When I get back, I’ll see if we can’t up your brother’s painkillers.”

Then she disappeared. The Big Guy waited for a moment, and ducked into the hall.

“MMmmmgggghhhhhhhhh!!”

I yanked the tubes and tape from my body. The monitors pitched and squealed. I threw my legs onto the tile and stumbled out the door, still dizzy. The walls and ceiling were breathing and pulsiing.

Down the hall I saw the Big Guy enter a room.  I moved as quickly as I could, bouncing from wall to wall. Each hit more painful than the last. When I finally reached the room, I found the Big Guy standing over the little girl with a scalpel in his hands. Her face was hidden by bandages. A stack of monitors blipped and beeped beside her, so slow and weak.

There was a bald man sitting on a chair in the corner. Panic in his eyes. His mouth sealed and hands bound to the chair legs. Cuffs of flesh that sprouted from his wrists. Restrained by his own threshold of pain.

The Big Guy raised the scalpel. He cut away the bandages and peeled them back. The little girl’s face was mangled. A mess of cables and bone.

“Mmmggghhh!” In here, he’s in here!

I leapt around like a caged monkey.

The Big Guy dropped the scalpel and came at me. He hooked one hand around my throat and lifted me from the floor. With one foot he kicked the door closed and pressed my body against it.

“Let me finish my fucking job!” he screamed. Then he swiped his bare hands across my neck and wrists. Anywhere my skin was exposed, spirals of skin sprung anew and secured me to the wall. Tentacles twisted through the door hinges and crash carts and anything else within reach.

I was a tangled kite string, locking the entrance with a network of flesh.

He hurried back to the girl and put the blade into her skin. He traced along her hairline and jaw and discarded the tattered mask. Then he dropped the scalpel and rolled up his sleeves.

Gently, tenderly, he put his fingers into her empty face and began to mold. Her eyelids. Her cheeks. Her lips. All reconstructed like the family picture by her bedside. The smile. The cheerfulness. All the cuts went away. The wounds. The violent ugliness. In just a few moments he had recreated the little girl’s face, so perfect and innocent.

The father was silent and wide-eyed. The girl cooed as if it were morning.

“Open the door!” someone screamed from behind me. Surely the security guard. Or the orderlies. Maybe even the one-armed farmer. They turned the knob and pushed against the door. I could feel my new skin stretch to the point of breaking.

Without warning, the Big Guy ripped the girl’s gown open. I watched him spread his fingers wide and cock his hands high in the air. He paused and looked at me. A child beneath layers of rugged flesh. Shields of solitude. So many skins he never shed.

He buried his fingers into her chest. All ten digits. Each landing between the rungs of her ribs.

The little girl’s back sprung to an arch. Her teeth clenched and eyes flashed as if possessed. The father screamed behind his muzzle. The Big Guy’s fingers dipped in and out of her chest like a furious marionette. A concert pianist. Flecks of skin and blood speckled the room.

And in just a few moments he was done. He slowly removed his fingers and closed her wounds. The little girl’s body eased back into the bed. Her eyes closed, and the monitors played a steady, healthy beat.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetie” the Big Guy leaned over her. “I was tired. I didn’t see you in the road. And when I hit you, I panicked! I thought you were dead. I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry…”

Another of my tentacles snapped.

The Big Guy turned to the father. With three slashes he freed the man’s hands and cut away the muzzle. The father rushed to his daughter and buried his face in her hair. Blood and prayers poured from his mouth.

The Big Guy came to me. I braced for an attack. He put two fingers into the wound just above my broken collarbone and snapped the puzzle back together. I cringed.

“Be still,” he said, and put the tip of the scalpel between my lips. I could feel the warm blood slide down my chin. With one cut he freed my mouth! He divorced my lips!

I gasped, filling my lungs to the point of explosion.

Then from the top down, he began slicing away my network of flesh, my web of skin. He outlined my body, discarding the excess like some skilled pie-maker or butcher.

Before he could finish, my last few tentacles snapped and the door swung open, sending me into the Big Guy’s arms. We stumbled against the far wall. The security guard and orderlies rushed in, tripping comically over the spirals of flesh.

The Big Guy touched my wounds quickly. He smoothed away the cuts and tears. Each blemish and gash filled in. My skin as smooth as the little girl’s.

The orderlies untangled themselves from the bloody spaghetti and grabbed the Big Guy by the arms. They high-stepped through the mess and into the hall.

The security guard cornered me and started screaming questions. Over his shoulder I saw a fat Indian doctor come in. He went directly to the girl and inspected her. The father was still curled up weeping in her hair, oblivious to anything but his healed child.

With one finger the doctor touched her face, cautiously, as if he thought it might pop. It didn’t of course. It was a perfect blending of color and form. Of cells and skin.

He looked at me, eyes begging for an answer.

I shrugged.

The doctor came over and grabbed me by the chin, turning my head from side to side: “What is hurting? Where are your injuries?!”

I looked myself over: “Well…I don’t think I am?”

The doctor pushed his hands through his black hair. He had the security guard escort me to the reception area. The deputies were on their way, he said.

When we reached the lobby it was a side-show. The orderlies were spinning in the center of the room, their hands molded together like Siamese twins bound at the wrist. They spun and tugged and screamed at each other from behind their muzzles. Nearby, the formerly one-armed farmer clapped his two hands together and laughed with wild excitement. The old nurse cried uncontrollably at her desk, the phone receiver stuck into her ear and mouth as if her face was made of supple wax.

The security guard rushed to her.

Outside, I saw my truck pull up. The Big Guy waved me in.

I paused and looked around. The security guard tugged on the phone receiver. The woman’s head jerked back and forth.  The orderlies continued their macabre version of ring-around-the-Rosie. And through it all, the mended farmer celebrated.

I hurried to the truck. We drove to Jerry’s without speaking — this time, my silence spawned from shock and wonder.

I wondered how.

I wondered why.

I wondered what it would be like to never touch.

I wondered if the Big Guy made himself ugly for a reason.

But most of all, I wondered if we could find a little girl.

And if we did… I wondered if he could make her look like my Anna.