Mr Hands

by Gary A Braunbeck

  —Suzanne?

  Right here, Ronnie.

  —Do you think that’s it? I think that must be it.

  I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. Look—you’re not that far from it. North Cedar Street. Do you know where on North Cedar?

  —It ain’t really on North Cedar. There’s a big field where they set it up every year.

  The more he thought about it, the more it felt right; and the more it felt right, the less pressure he felt around his center from the silver thread.

  —I’m right, Suzanne. I know I am.

  Well, then, what are we waiting for?

  —I want to hear it from him.

  Really?

  —Yeah, I do.

  Silence for several moments, and Ronnie began to wonder if Suzanne had gone away, but then she said:

  I’ll go get him.

  This time Ronnie felt as well as heard the silence, and knew that Suzanne was gone for the moment, and while he could have used the time to get a head start on his walk to North Cedar Street, he instead found a nearby bench and sat down for a few moments, not really admitting to himself until this moment how tired he was.

  Looking around to make sure there were no police cars cruising the downtown square, he sat forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands. He just needed a minute or two to rest, to calm down, to settle himself, then everything would be okay.

  He hoped.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and no sooner than he did found himself back in the motel room in Kentucky, a minute or so before he came awake with the sick realization that he’d made a terrible, awful, horrible mistake.

  Suzanne and the other children were singing lullabies to him, telling him stories, telling him how happy they were, and Ronnie was enjoying the sound their cumulative voices made (he always enjoyed this sound, all of their voices merging into one), when he became aware that there was something different about their voices, something new, some discordance in the collective sound that hadn’t been there before. He asked all of them to please Shhh, just for a few seconds, and one by one they began to fall silent until there was only the sound of a single, alien voice that sounded as if it were echoing to him from a great and forgotten distance.

  It wasn’t me you felt.

  Like the others, this was a child’s voice, but there was something about it that sounded…incomplete; the voice of a being who hadn’t yet lived long enough to discover it had a voice to use.

  It wasn’t me you felt.

  Ronnie had reached forward with his dream-hands (that’s how he thought of them) and sorted through the various silver threads (every child had one that connected them to him) until he found the one belonging to this alien, incomplete voice.

  The incomplete child placed a warm, loving hand on Ronnie’s shoulder, a touch so sensual in its silent softness that its physical pleasure transcended the merely sexual. This incomplete child leaned forward and kissed Ronnie on the lips, long and lovingly, a kiss of gratitude from all the children Ronnie had saved from further Hurting; then, with great tenderness, cupped his face in magical yet unformed hands and squeezed until Ronnie had no choice but to part his lips; when he did this, this nameless child breathed into his mouth an age-old breath filled with the breath of all children before and yet to come. It seeped down into Ronnie’s core and spread through him like the first cool drink on a hot summer’s day; an ice-bird spreading chill wings that pressed against his lungs and bones until Ronnie was flung wide open, dizzy and disoriented, seized by a whirling vortex and spun around, around, around, spiraling higher, thrust into the heart of all Creation’s whirling invisibilities, a creature whose puny carbon atoms and other transient substances were suddenly freed, unbound, scattered amidst the universe—yet each particle still held strong to the immeasurable, unseen thread which linked it inexorably to his soul and his consciousness; twirling fibers of light wound themselves around impossibly fragile, molecule-thin membranes of memory and moments that swam toward him like a proud children coming back to shore after their very first time in the water alone, and when they reached him, when this memory of a very specific moment emerged from the sea and reached out for his hands, all of the children merged into one, giving momentary shadow and shape to the incomplete child, and Ronnie ran toward it, arms open wide, meeting the incomplete child on windswept beaches of thought, embracing it, accepting it, absorbing it, becoming Many, becoming Few, becoming One, knowing, learning, feeling; his blood mingled with the incomplete child’s blood, his thoughts with its thoughts, dreams with dreams, hopes with hopes, frustrations with frustrations, and in this mingling, in this unity, in this actualization, he became lost and lonely, Ronnie feeling himself being wrenched backward, down through the ages, through the infinite allness of want and desire and isolation and dreams and shames and moments of pride and self-worth and meaning that all his actions had been leading to, and Ronnie felt himself being crushed under the weight of this terrible Knowing, his eyes staring toward the truth that was his soul, his whole body becoming involved in drawing it back into his in one breath, and in the moment before he came away knowing what had gone wrong, in the millisecond before he found himself once again lying in a shabby bed in an even shabbier room in a motel in Lexington, Kentucky, in that brief instant of eternity that revealed itself to him just this once before his final metamorphosis took place, he broke into a clammy sweat as the incomplete child made him understand: what he had sensed so many years ago when he touched the pregnant woman’s belly was not the pain that would be suffered by the incomplete child she was carrying then, no; what he felt was the suffering that would be waiting for the woman’s next child, her daughter, the one with whom the incomplete child had already forged a connection.

  The boy who was being carried by Lucy Thompson that day was trying to tell Ronnie—so young and still trying to understand his power—that he needed to walk away, he needed to let Lucy have her boy, because that boy would grow up to be a great and watchful big brother who would be there to protect his little sister when the Hurting came to try and claim her.

  The incomplete child had been trying to warn Ronnie, to stop him from doing what he had done, after all.

  And Ronnie came awake knowing that he’d made a horrible, unforgivable mistake.

  And there was no time to waste.

  Ronnie?

  He jerked his head up from his hands and blinked against the daylight.

  —Sorry. I’m real tired.

  ‘S okay. He doesn’t want to talk to you, Ronnie. I’m sorry.

  —Did he tell you? Am I right? Is this it?

  Yes, Ronnie. It is.

  He heard/felt something in Suzanne’s voice that made him anxious.

  —What’s wrong, Suzanne?

  I don’t want to tell you.

  —Please.

  No.

  —I’ll love you. That won’t be any different. I’ll always love you.

  I’ll love you too.

  Ronnie waited until, finally, Suzanne said:

  He said that if anything happens to his little sister, it’ll be because he wasn’t there to stop it, and it’ll all be your fault, Ronnie. I’m sorry, but that’s what he said.

  —He said something else, didn’t he?

  Yes.

  —Tell me, Suzanne. Please tell me.

  He said that if that happens, you’ll be no different from the monsters who Hurt all the others—but don’t you listen, Ronnie. He’s upset, he’s scared, and he’s just looking for someone to be angry with.

  Ronnie shook his head.

  —Uh-huh, Suzanne. He’s right.

  It was a mistake, Ronnie. Anyone can make a mistake. You were only a little boy! You didn’t understand what was going on, what you were capable of.

  —Don’t matter, Suzanne. I gotta go now. You go tell him that I’m real sorry, and that I’m gonna get to his little sister in time.

  He did not even wait for Suzanne to say good-bye; he just close
d off the sound of her voice and took off running. There was no room in his thoughts for anything other than finding that lady and her daughter.

  The thread was choking him.

  * * *

  The carnival at twilight:

  Wood shavings and sawdust that cling to the bottoms of shoes, neon signs that cast ghosts of random light from each booth, the colors blending to give the midway the mysterious glow of a dawn sky in another world, clusters of people moving by, some of them couples holding hands and kissing, some of them families looking harried but content, nonetheless, all of them looking in the same direction when they hear the cry of “We have a winner!” from one of the game booths, followed by the ringing of a bell, then there are the children with their clown-painted faces and wide eyes glittering against the lights, smiling as they’ve never smiled before, the epitome of joy and innocence and wonder, as a child’s face at a carnival should be, excited voices underscored by squeals of laughter in the distance and the thrumming music from a carousel. Take a deep breath, and there’s the cotton candy, the popcorn, the scents of cigarettes and beer and taffy, damp earth, hot dogs, and countless exotic manures from the animals in the petting zoo. Look up, and you can see the giant Ferris wheel that stands in the center of it all, the lights decorating its spokes streaking round and round in the night like a whirling ribbon of stars come down to earth for just this night.

  The air is warm, just slightly humid but not uncomfortably so.

  The night is newly-arrived, dark enough for the carny to rise from its depths like a phoenix.

  One last hurrah before August bows to September, and summer fades away.

  Carnival night.

  Roll up, roll up, plunk down a quarter and try for a prize, take your sweetheart on a ride to the stars, lotsa room for the kiddies, yessir, no need to push, plenty of room, plenty of time, plenty of fun for everyone.

  Roll up, roll up.

  It’s carny time.

  And then a woman screams, and a young man who’s been searching for her all day feels the silver thread around his throat tighten even more, and staggers toward the sound…

  * * *

  For the first hour of the search, Ronnie couldn’t get anywhere near Lucy, so joined in with the dozens of other people who’d volunteered to help the police distribute photocopied photos of Sarah and search the immediate grounds.

  Ronnie nearly wept at the sight of Sarah’s face. Whatever was happening to her right now—or whatever might happen to her—she did not deserve it, no child ever did…but Sarah…Sarah was his fault, so she was now his responsibility.

  “I love you, little Sarah,” he whispered to the picture, folding one of the photocopies and slipping it into his pocket.

  By the time he was able to get near Lucy, he was so scared he couldn’t think straight. He ran up to her through the people milling around her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and—fighting back tears—asked if there’d been any word, if Sarah had been found yet, and when he was told by a nearby police officer to move it along and help with the search, her squeezed her shoulders, hoping she’d recognize him, but she didn’t, but that was all right, so he let go of her and ran toward the next group who was getting ready to search the areas immediately outside the festival grounds.

  It was getting dark. So dark.

  Ronnie helped them search until around midnight, and then word started spreading that the police and FBI had found something; no one was sure what, exactly, only that Mrs. Thompson was being escorted there by authorities.

  The various groups of volunteers moved toward an area at the far end of the festival grounds where trees and other thick foliage were alive with dancing lights—flashlights.

  Ronnie felt his stomach shrink to the size of a pebble when he saw Lucy Thompson stagger out of the trees, held upright by two police officers (both women), one supporting each of Lucy’s arms.

  Lucy looked up at the groups of volunteers once, just long enough to try to say “Thank you” to all of them, but she couldn’t speak, the grief was too much, and Ronnie’s chest sort of imploded on him and everything went numb.

  …if anything happens to his little sister, it’ll be because he wasn’t there to stop it, and it’ll all be your fault, Ronnie. He said that if that happens, you’ll be no different from the monsters who Hurt all the others…

  Not saying a word to anyone, shaking his head at an offer for free coffee and sandwiches at one of the tents, not feeling the hands that pressed briefly on his shoulders (“We tried, folks, we did our best…”), Ronnie, now on auto-pilot, walked the length of the festival grounds, soon found himself back on North Cedar Street, and continued on toward downtown.

  Adjusting his backpack, he tried to find some sense of Sarah around him, but the silver thread was…still and slack.

  …you’ll be no different from the monsters who Hurt all the others…

  For a few hours, he just walked, oblivious to the night, his surroundings, even to the voices of Suzanne and the others calling to him, trying to get his attention.

  Eventually, realizing that he was once again walking toward the same road he’d used before, he smiled to himself as something occurred to him. But first, he had to make sure.

  He found a dark stretch of road and retreated into the bushes, kneeling down and opening his backpack, rummaging around until he found the thing he hoped he still had.

  He did.

  Putting everything back in its place, Ronnie zipped up his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and walked back out into the night, following the road back in to Heath just as he’d followed it coming in to Cedar Hill…at least for a while.

  He reached the place where Union Street connected to 21st Street via a small side-street whose name he didn’t know, had never known, would never know, turned right, and followed it along the log fence-lined border of this end of Moundbuilders Park.

  He knew exactly where he was going.

  It took him less than five minutes to reach the 21st Street entrance of the park using this side-street, and once there, he saw what he’d come for.

  The sculpture, carved from a series of stones, had been commissioned by the Cedar Hill city council to memorialize the victims of a mass shooting many years ago. A kid named Andy-Something-or-Other had gone nuts one July Fourth and mowed down over thirty people, many of them right here in Moundbuilders Park. The artist had chosen to memorialize the victims by carving rows upon rows of faces into the gigantic circular stones, then setting the rows atop one another, creating a crowded stack of faces that went around and around and around, getting a little thinner as it rose toward the top, like a stone volcano made out of stone faces.

  Ronnie took a moment to study the faces.

  At least none of them seemed to be in pain. That was nice.

  He walked around the sculpture to see if the gaps were as he remembered them being, and they were. A careful person could climb all the way to the top—which is exactly what he began to do.

  The piece rose nearly twelve feet from the ground, and by the time Ronnie reached the top, the cumulative effect of the past twenty-or-so hours hit him hard, and it was all he could do to pull himself over the rim and look down to where the small, rotting (and in some cases, desiccated corpses) of rabbits, squirrels, and something that once might have been a dog lay in the mud.

  He reached over, grabbed two gaps on the inside of the piece, and—with the very last of his strength—flipped himself over the edge.

  It didn’t even hurt when he landed in the mud and muck and corpses. Not one little bit. Stank, though, stank something awful…but you couldn’t smell it from outside. That was good.

  He opened his backpack and dumped out everything, found the flashlight, turned it on, and then carefully removed the photocopied photo of Sarah Thompson from his pocket, unfolded it, and lay it atop the rest of the contents of his pack, using a couple of small rocks and the skulls from a squirrel and a rabbit to hold down the corners.

  He wanted t
o make certain that Sarah’s face would be the last thing he ever saw.

  …you’ll be no different from the monsters who Hurt all the others…

  After a few minutes—or it might have been a few hours, he couldn’t tell and didn’t care—Ronnie reached into the pile of items from his pack and dug out the knife. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous knife, just an old pocket-knife…but it was sharp. He always made sure of that. Three-inch blade, nice and sharp.

  He unfolded it and ran it along his thumb. He didn’t feel any sharp pain—in fact, he didn’t feel any pain at all—but he saw the cut, and he saw the blood, and that was all he needed to know.

  “I’m so sorry, Sarah,” he said to the picture, tracing his thumb over her smile and leaving a smear of blood to mark its route. “I really tried. I love you, okay? I wouldn’ta tried if I didn’t love you.”

  Some water began dripping down onto the photo, and at first Ronnie was afraid that he’d started to cry, but then looked up and saw that it was sprinkling; what he saw was a bit of rain, so he took his jacket from the pile and threw it over his head and shoulders and leaned over the photo like a human tent. He would keep her dry and safe and warm now. He could do that.

  After.

  So he took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves, inserted the tip of the knife at the base of his left wrist, and drew it as far up the length of his arm as he could before the pain registered. Biting down on his lip to keep from screaming, he waited until the pain began to ebb, then repeated the process on his right arm—albeit not quite as deep and steadily (but deep enough, as it turned out).

  Only then did he lay on his side—taking care to keep the jacket-tent in place so Sarah wouldn’t get wet—and allow himself to smile.

  “It’s okay now,” he whispered to her. “I’m not no monster, Sarah. I love you, okay?”

  Ronnie? It was Suzanne’s voice.

  —Hey’ya…

  Why did you do it?

  —Because I failed.

  Oh, Ronnie…

  —Because he’s right, I’m no different.

  But you ARE. You always have been. There’s still time, you can still—