Corrosion (18 page)

So what else was there to do but wait? See, I couldn’t be sure that my executors weren’t waiting outside the cave, hiding behind the trees or in a dug-out trench with their rifles and torches, and I was sure they’d burn me at the stake. I had no food, but I could drink the water from the filthy stream, and dysentery was the least of my concerns.

And there were voices coming from everywhere, so I covered my ears with my hands and rocked back and forth and couldn’t you see it coming full circle, my father being dragged off to the mad house and finally them coming for me. You don’t understand the kind of things they will do to me! There is a certain Dr. Freeman who drives from town to town in his lobotomobile, and he uses an icepick, places it beneath your eyelids, pounds it in with a mallet. Haven’t you seen all of his patients wandering across the country, zombie-like, cognitive-reasoning mutilated, souls bleeding on the linoleum? You want me to join them in that horror flick? Well, do you? This was certain: I had to keep my wits about me.

Weeks or more passed and I’d shrunken below 75 pounds for sure, face gaunt, eyes flickering back and forth across my sockets. Eating worms and my own flesh, using a black rock to scrape messages in the wall: I am because I am because I am.

And then, just like that, the voices vanished and I wondered if it might be safe to go outside. Where were the men who hunted me? Where was Dr. Freeman and his ice pick?

It was hard to tell the nighttime from the day, hard to tell sleep from wakefulness, hard to tell madness from enlightenment. And if I were to creep out of the cavern and face the world once again, I’d have to do it on my own. There would be no ravens to send from this here ark, no voice of God making promises a day too late.

And so with true grit I returned to the narrow tunnel, all filled with disease-soaked bats and ravenous rats and everything not-so-nice, and I crawled on my scab-covered belly, and everything smelled like mildew and the end of the world, and outside the Mountain was still there, and it never goes away does it?

CHAPTER 27

It was morning time and the snow had stopped falling and the sun was rising above the craggy mountain, saying how do you do, Benton, good to see you back among the living, pity that it ain’t gonna be for long! I trudged through the snow, and sometimes it reached above my knees, and I kept alert for the Searchers, kept alert for the Lobotomist, but it was just me, not even a crow screeching.

My jacket was warm and so was my pom-pom hat, but my jeans were soaking wet and I couldn’t stop shivering, teeth a broken metronome. For a few minutes I wished that I were dead but then I worried about hell and what it would bring, so I kept pushing through the snow, searching for a familiar tree or rock, searching for Hansel’s breadcrumbs.

I wondered how Constance was doing all alone in that fruit cellar, and I had been all alone in the cave, don’t you forget that, and I wondered if she were hearing voices, I wondered if her God was still alive. Something you should know, Constance moaned when we made love, and it wasn’t a moan of pain it was a moan of pleasure, so for those who say I’m a monster, I say I’m not a monster, for those who say I’m a monster, I say you’re the real monster!

And then down the mountain a bit, a clearing and a path, barely visible in the snow. I was wheezing and I felt dizzy and I suppose I was staggering a bit along that trail. I thanked God that the day was sunny and not as cold, and it wasn’t long until I found the dirt road that took me down the mountain, and I knew that I had to be careful because you never knew when the sheriff and his friends would leap out of the woods, baring fangs, so I walked behind the trees, parallel to the road, listening for engines, hoping I might be able to thumb a ride somewhere, somewhere far away.

Midmorning and the sun was lifting upward when I heard the faint hum of a motor, and I stood out there in the middle of the road, hoping he might stop, but it was a big old Caddy, and a fellow in a cowboy hat laid on that horn and I had no choice but to dive back into the snowbank. My hands were numb, and I wished I had my bottle of plum brandy, but instead I settled for a pinch of snuff, and then I wiped the snow off my clothes and laughed out loud and kept right on walking down that winter mountain road.

And time passed, and for a long time there were no more automobiles barreling down the mountain, and I got to feeling lonely and tired, maybe more lonely and tired than I ever had been, and so I began singing a song, and it was a song I had never heard before, but it was a song that had existed forever:
From the darkness in the sea
to the sunshine on the hill
in the forest filled with trees
my shadow has gone still
and my mother had once said that there were those rare moments in our lives where there was an opportunity for real change, where we could leave our battered souls by the side of the road and pick up a new one that hadn’t been so badly mutilated, but we had to know when those moments were because once they’re gone they’re gone and then we’re stuck with our old souls and that’s just about when all hell can break loose…

So I guess I knew from the time I saw the yellow headlights appear around the bend, I guess I knew from the time the old Chevy pickup slowed down and groaned to a stop, I guess I knew from the time the passenger-side door flung open, I just
knew
that this here was one of those moments.

I got into the pickup and pulled the door shut behind me, and I said I sure do appreciate the ride and then I looked up and I almost felt sick because his face was a mess, all burned and deformed, and he stuck out his hand and I shook it, and he said his name was Joseph Downs and where are you heading, and I said I just need to get off the mountain, and he said are you running from something, and I said we’re all running from something, aren’t we?

Well, I was in luck because not only was he leaving the mountain, but he was driving clear on through to Ohio, where his folks were. Said he hadn’t seen them in some time…

And then we didn’t talk for a while, and he turned on the radio, old-time jazz, and hell was on my mind, a vague threat, but it couldn’t be worse than the piss-pot known as Earth, so I rested easy on that, and I watched out the window as the snow and the mines and the trees rushed by so fast.

And nobody knew where Constance was, nobody knew if she were alive or dead, and I was a person of interest, but there were no roadblocks, there were no sheriff cars with their lights flashing in time.

By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, the sun was sinking and the sky was turning a mess of pastels. Joseph Downs turned off the radio and pulled out a cigarette and asked if I wanted one, and I said thankee much, and we both smoked, and I knew he was going to tell me his story, knew he was going to tell me about his face, knew this was a story I didn’t want to hear.

Tells about being a Marine, about being stationed in Mosul. Tells about his convoy driving down this dirt road, trying to secure the area. Tells how it was pitch-black and their lights were off and they wore night goggles. Tells how they came to a bridge over a canal and how the bridge exploded and his eardrums exploded and the Humvee exploded. Tells about how there were flames everywhere and the insurgents had gotten them but good and he knew he was hurt bad but couldn’t feel any pain. Tells about the detached legs and arms he witnessed, the decapitated heads. Tells about being pulled out by a soldier with a gas mask and then finding himself in a chopper, flying over the burning desert, not sure if he was dead or not, wishing he was.

And he told me this story over the course of an hour at least, and he cried and laughed while telling it, and I listened to every detail, memorized every detail, and it occurred to me that this guy was a real hero, and it’s better to experience pain and heartache than to experience nothing at all…

They wouldn’t let me see a mirror for some time, he said, and when they finally did, they had all sorts of doctors and orderlies and psychiatrists at my bedside. And I saw my face, and it wasn’t a face that I recognized. I cried for a long time after that. You go to save the world. You don’t figure that it’s you that’ll need saving.

They’d tried calling his parents but hadn’t been able to get a hold of anybody. And when he found out that the hospital was trying to contact his next of kin, he got very angry. He didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to him, didn’t want people to see his face, didn’t want people to see his soul. And the orderly, an Asian woman who smelled of lavender, promised that they wouldn’t call again, not until he was ready.

Well, by this time Joseph Downs and I had both torn through a handful of cigarettes and I offered him some snuff but he didn’t want any. Never cared for it, he said. And now the Mountain was in our rearview mirror, and so was the Skull Shack and the nightmares inside.

As he continued talking, I could feel strange sensations on my arms and legs, parasites crawling under my skin, and I knew that I’d contracted whatever disease my mother had had…

While in the hospital he’d been visited by a soldier in his brigade and this soldier said that he should consider himself lucky, that nearly everybody else in the Humvee had been killed. Well, that got him good and riled and he told the soldier that there were some things a hell of a lot worse than dying and those sons-of-bitches had it easy compared to him. And then he made the soldier an offer that he couldn’t refuse. He gave him one of his dog tags. He instructed him to find his father in Ohio. Told him to give his father the dog tag. Tell him the story, just like it had happened. Only tell him that he’d died. And in exchange for this deception he offered the soldier $5,000.

Well, the soldier had done what he’d been told and so Joseph Downs was dead, another corpse in the desert, only now he wanted a resurrection, and don’t we all?

CHAPTER 28

And it was all beginning to make sense now, my destiny was manifesting itself, and I had God to thank for that. And I remembered my father the scientist saying that God had decomposed and we must not weep for him. Well, my father was wrong. God was alive and well, but we couldn’t understand his ways, not most of the time.

So what were you doing in the mountains? I asked Joseph Downs.

Hiding, he said. Nobody saw me; I saw nobody else. I was a ghost and nothing more.

But now he’d decided that he didn’t want to be a ghost anymore, he decided that maybe life was worth living even without a human face. And now he was going to return to his childhood home and he wasn’t sure how his father was going to react, didn’t know if it would be joy or fury or both.

My own father had never been accepted by the scientific community, that’s why he’d moved to the mountains. Oh, but he’d showed me some things, showed me the way chemicals reacted, and I couldn’t help thinking of all the cans of Sterno he’d hoarded, just in case, Benton, just in case.

And when Joseph Downs was done talking about himself, about the war, about his death and rebirth, he started asking me some questions, out of curiosity, out of politeness, and I dreaded when people asked me questions. Questions about my past. Questions about my family. Questions about my future. I answered each and every inquiry with a lie, made up outlandish stories, and he glanced at me nervously from the corner of his eye, and I wondered just what he was thinking then.

Two hours of driving and eastern Colorado was the devil’s land, nothing but sagebrush and dirt all dusted by the snow, the occasional farm, occasional car, occasional piss-pot town. The wind never stopped blowing, and don’t you know the wind drove people crazy, caused normal men to slaughter their families and then sit in front of the television watching game shows with the volume up full blast until the police arrived.

And you see strange things out on the plains, and you wonder if the driver sees them too: an old woman on the roof of a shanty, spinning a weaving wheel; a dusty roadside billboard advertising
6 Gals For $1.00
; a grain elevator tilted like the Tower of Pisa; an auctioning of slaves in front of a textile mill; a destitute family lying facedown on the railroad tracks.

My Browning knife was in my front pocket, and I knew I’d have to use it, but I’d never used it on another human, just our dog, after she broke her back, to put her out of her misery. Dad had put her in the wheelbarrow and made me push her out through the woods and I slit her throat and watched her twitch and die, and I cried for a long time, and my father helped me bury her, but my mother was sick in bed.

So you wonder if you can actually do it, start thinking that it’s a hell of a thing killing a man, and then you remember that you’ve got God on your side, and you realize that Joseph Downs is The Soldier, and you realize that you’re Joseph Downs.

Before the war, I had a girlfriend, he said. She’s still in Ohio. Who knows, I might go knocking on her door. I think she’ll scream in fright…

Joseph Downs laughed at the thought. And that’s when I pulled out my knife. With one quick motion I jerked his head toward me with my left hand and sliced horizontally across his throat with my right. Blood started gushing from the hole in his throat, and he tried controlling the car, but it was no use, it careened off the highway and went rolling through a frost-covered field of nothing, eventually coming to stop in front an oversized wooden arrow pointing upward, reading
Prepare to Meet God
.