After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  The dog trusted him, had offered itself to him. It was his first sacrifice. Freddy felt strong, satisfied. He felt invincible. Nancy Hicks and her tantalizing triangle of white lace faded from his mind and he thought of Carrie and how she writhed beneath his inexperienced touch. How would she respond in time as his abilities grew? He was in control of her. His father robbed him of that control. But control was his again.

  Freddy no longer hoped his father would walk into the buzzing circle of sodium light at the alley’s mouth. He prayed John would. Unbidden, his right hand curled around a pitted length of steel jutting from nearby garbage can. Its weight added strength as he stood over the mongrel, still twitching the last of its death throes at his feet. He screamed into the night and raised the bar.

  The next five minutes were a blur as the bar came down. Blood warmed his cheeks and his fists and soaked his already ruined shirt. When he was done, when his arm felt heavier than the length of steel, he laughed out loud. He tasted blood on his lips. The crotch of his jeans had grown taut, straining toward his third release of the evening. Freddy stood over the unnamed corpse and dropped a hand to his groin. The dripping bar clattered to the ground forgotten while his own pipe came to bear. He masturbated furiously, painfully. His eyes were closed and he gave no care to his exposure. If anyone happened to enter the alley then, he knew what he would do. The thought of it only increased his excitement.

  Freddy knew then on he was not here to create, to bring joy or happiness. The power was his! He came wonderfully, nearly collapsing, his fluids mingling with the fluids of his first victim. He came, the future opened to him, realizing his star was on the rise.

  He came with a smile on his face.

  -

  Freddy talked to no one for days. He was ashamed but not for his actions in the alley – never think that. He displayed the marks of his shame openly with one eye swollen closed, his lip split, his ribs so bruised he could not breathe deeply and a vacant socket in his jaw oozing enough blood to turn his stomach. He stayed in, ignoring phone calls from his friends. He kept me close, needing someone. I was the only one he could trust. He needed me because I could listen to him, hear his tale and be awed at his might.

  I did manage to leave him for some time, venturing into the northern end of town to seek out this alley of his. I found it. He was not lying as I had hoped. I saw the poor creature – or what was left of it, ripe and buzzing with flies in the morning heat. It was so badly abused I could not tell if the coyotes had been at it yet or not. If not yet they would be soon. I wrapped it in plastic and buried it, unwilling to let it come to any greater defilement than it already had. I am not ashamed to say there were tears in my eyes while I worked. Nor am I ashamed to say that afterwards and many times as I lay awake, unable to sleep, I wished the mongrel had been a rabid pit bull.

  Freddy did begin to take phone calls by Monday or Tuesday but always with the same excuse. Maggie was a little ill – summer cold – and she needed help around the house. His friends called him a mamma’s boy. He responded by saying he was their mamma’s best boy. It was greeted with jovial laughter and unanimous fuck-you’s all around. But he never took Carrie’s phone calls.

  Carrie stopped by on the twentieth – Monday – when John would be at work. It was Freddy’s fifteenth birthday and she wanted to see him. He told his mother to say he was out with friends and watched her from his bedroom window. On the sidewalk she paused and looked back. Her gaze rose to his window but he knew it could not penetrate the darkness where he dwelt just beyond the glass. Knowing she could not see him leant him strength. A moment later she walked away looking hurt and confused.

  From his bedroom Freddy reveled in his newfound gift and relived his memories – the bone-crack against his chest, the cold steel in his hand, the hot blood on his face. That shotgun blast of endorphins to his gut, to the back of his skull as he came. White on red, tinged black. In his memories the blood belonged to John. But John was alive at his feet, his neck still whole, begging for his life while Freddy bludgeoned him. All he had were these memories and he relived them again and again with John, with the dog, with Maggie and once with Carrie. Inside his bedroom he could not use his power but he could not conceive of going out – not with the evidence of his weakness so plainly stamped onto his face.

  On the twenty-third his father came home drunk from Dyson’s. Freddy stepped out that afternoon just long enough to put his bike out on the front lawn where his father was sure to see it. He was playing a dangerous game but a necessary one. He needed to prove that he had control. He needed to know. He needed John to know.

  Six o’clock came and went and Freddy sat in his bedroom calmly waiting for Maybelline’s four hundred and twenty-seven cubic inches to rumble up the street. If anything, Freddy could be patient.

  Patience is one of the key attributes of a chess master – patience and ruthlessness. Freddy possessed both. He sat at his desk idly leafing through Batman comics and chewing Juicy Fruit. I was in a chair in the corner trying in vain to ignore the obscene smacking of his lips – which he knew bothered me and so he did it intentionally.

  By six-thirty the gum was a flavorless lump of rubber in his mouth and Freddy spat it out into the waste basket beside his desk. He unwrapped another piece and resumed his bovine chomping without so much as a glance in my direction. I closed my book and sat and stared out into the fading day. I tried imagining I was somewhere else. The scent of frying pork-chops was strong in the kitchen. Dinner was long-since ready and still no John. Freddy sighed, the first sign of impatience from him. I smiled. All Freddy did was unwrap a third piece of gum and return to his comics.

  The flavor was nearly gone again before the Impala’s familiar rumble grew in the street outside. Headlights flashed across the window and the engine cut out cleanly. Freddy’s jaw paused in mid chew. He sat frozen a moment, thinking, perhaps feeling a moment’s hesitation, wishing he had not started this. He set his comic aside. His fingers tented on the bare desk in front of him momentarily.

  From the top drawer he pulled out an old, dog-eared magazine. Half its cover was missing and its pages had swelled and crackled from repeated exposure to moisture. Since time out of mind it had resided in a bin beside the toilet growing a skin of dust, pubic hair and who knew what else. Certainly no one had touched it in years. The grime on it didn’t matter nor did the condition of its pages. Its lack of a cover did not matter either. All that mattered were the illustrations on pages 34 and 35: Pictures of an engine in various stages of disassembly. Freddy opened the magazine, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and set aside the ruler he was using for a book mark.

  He suppressed a wave of excitement as the car door thunked closed. He could hear his father’s curses despite the noise of a passing truck. Most were directed at the bike, a Christmas present bought three years ago when he was bluntly told not to ask for another ride anywhere unless his legs fell off. The front door opened and slammed shut. A fresh string of curses floated up the stairs. Maggie greeted him warmly. John brushed her aside and asked after ‘the little bastard’.

  Freddy’s stomach did cartwheels. He bit his lip to keep from smiling and adopted a studious expression, one arm hooked around the magazine. I could hear John shake the stairs as he came up and the light on Freddy’s desk flickered as he stomped down the hall. Suddenly I did not want to be there. I contemplated the closet or under the bed – anywhere I could hide. Too late. A moment later the bedroom door burst open.

  Freddy was a chess player, plain and simple. His strategy this evening had included any number of possible outcomes but this time he chose to play the black. John was granted the opening move. He would alter his strategy according to that. He checked the approaches and made sure his king was secure. There would be no repeat of their previous game. I could almost admire him for his cool if not for his intentions. He waited patiently for the opening gambit. He waited for John to move the queen. How and when he did would decide the game.

 
; John played chess like a five-year-old plays checkers – one move at a time until the game was won or lost and, like a five-year-old, he did not consider defeat until it was too late. He always assumed he would win. His only strategy was freeing up the queen – the big stick – and laying about him like a backstreet brawler on a Saturday night. Screw the little guys. Get the bitch out of the backfield where she can do the most damage. Go at it with the strongest piece first and you couldn’t lose. In John’s little world whoever got the queen out first would always win.

  So, John came into the room with the ability to move straight or diagonally and go as many squares as he wanted. The last thing on his mind was strategy. “Dammit, boy!” He started, placing his bulk squarely in the center of the room. He did not see me or even glance in my direction. I was gratefully lost in shadows. “How many times have I told you to put you fuckin’ bike away?”

  Freddy responded without looking up. “God, Dad, did I leave it out again?” He did not apologize or make any move to get up. He acted as nonchalantly as though John had asked him if he preferred strawberry or Neapolitan ice cream with his angel food cake.

  “Don’t get smart, Freddy. You know damned well you did!”

  “Sorry, Dad.” Freddy looked up at last and gave John a chance to see what he was reading. He kept his features neutral as John’s cocked fists relaxed.

  John stepped forward. Ten years fell from his face as he glimpsed the magazine. “What’s that?” His voice was devoid of its previous aggression, possessing a child-like note of fear.

  Freddy glanced down at the magazine and shrugged. “Nothing, dad – just one of your old Chevy mags.” He turned the book for his father to see, tapping a finger on a grainy black and white of a disassembled V-8, its guts laid out for all to see. “Yours looks like this, doesn’t it?”

  John stuttered, confused, like he expected to order a beer and was offered the wine list instead. Finally, snarling a curse, he snatched the magazine away. “What the hell are you lookin’ at this shit for anyway?”

  Freddy could smell beer and whisky on his father’s breath. He vowed then never to let alcohol rob him of his control. John always played the queen, particularly when he was drinking. Now the queen was gone. She sat alone on the edge of the board, helpless, while Freddy prepared to pick of the rest of her forces, able only to watch as he closed in on her consort. Watching from the shadows, I knew exactly when John was in check. It was a short and brutal game.

  “I was just curious,” Freddy told him innocently, “I wanted to see what it looks like inside. You know – to see how it works. I am fifteen now – It’s about time I started learning about this stuff.”

  “Then take some fuckin’ shop classes!” John snapped. He balled up the magazine. “And put away your bike before it gets stolen!” With that he left. The bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle pictures out in the hall.

  Freddy opened his comic book again and popped a fresh piece of gum in his mouth. Without looking back at me he raised his hand and traced an invisible check mark in the air with one finger.

  -

  Prince William Falls was always something of a unique place to live due to its proximity to the U.S. border. A fair number of Americans make their homes there. Between Clausson Foods, the feed and fertilizer plants and the new fiberglass insulation plant that opened in ’89, the town had jobs to spare. The loony was fairly strong against the greenback and wages were pretty good – particularly considering how soft the real estate market in southern Alberta was at the time. You could still buy a two storey cookie-cutter for less than sixty grand and have both a back yard and a driveway.

  I’d guess nearly twenty percent of the town’s population found roots south of the border. In the great tradition of Canadian sacrilege, we chose not to celebrate Canada Day on the first and we couldn’t exactly honor Independence Day on the fourth. Instead we made a kind of international Independence Day of them both. The holiday was always a Saturday and as close to the middle of those two dates as could be had – a kind of ‘Independence Weekend’.

  That year the holiday fell on the second of July, a day of picnics and pool parties followed in true Albertan fashion by such a copious amount of beer being consumed as to occupy every toilet and bush for the next twelve hours. I imagine one could gauge a rise in the water level downstream of town for the same period of time. When the sun set, the fireworks began over Windsor Lake. The display was monumental, put on by Clausson Foods – being based in Montana I suppose they could appreciate the value of a good fireworks display. The average American is a thousand times more patriotic than the average Canadian. Americans are patriotic nearly to a fault. Where Patriotism is concerned, most Canadians seem to find a quiet balance between cynicism and apathy, tendered with a healthy dose of embarrassment.

  Freddy watched the show from his back yard, unconsciously rubbing his left eyelid. The swelling was gone and the shiner was now little more than an ugly yellowish crescent high on his cheek. Carrie called that afternoon and he answered. Sounding hesitant, she wanted him to come with her to the lake. He contemplated going and discovered he actually wanted to. But after a quick inspection in the bathroom mirror, he chose not to. Sunglasses would hide the bruising until nightfall and then what? Freddy told her he couldn’t. He said his dad was planning a family barbeque and he couldn’t get out of it.

  John was planning no such thing of course. By nightfall he was so drunk he couldn’t care less what anyone did or where they went. Freddy found himself regretting his decision. The bruise was hardly noticeable and he could have picked a fight, coaxing a blow to the eye to justify it. But that would show weakness and Freddy was not willing to do that. When Carrie called back from a payphone down on the Green he replied with finality: No. I’m sure Carrie was disappointed but she accepted his answer. His one fear was that she would drop by unannounced and he would not be able to explain things. She did not and the evening progressed, the sun setting until the first whistling bangs could be heard around town as those with store-bought fireworks grew too anxious or too drunk and set them off prematurely. The sky darkened into night and the real show began.

  Freddy stood in the cool shadows of the back yard. His father snored blissfully in a lawn chair, one steel leg slowly sinking into the soft ground and Maggie, visible through the lighted windows, puttered in the kitchen with the last of the dishes, a glass of watery gin close at hand.

  Starbursts of rainbow hued light erupted in the night sky. Concussive blasts out over Windsor Lake rocked the neighborhood like encroaching thunder. The applause and raucous cheers wafted through town on a cool breeze accompanied by the sharp, sulfurous stink of black powder. When silence returned if but for a moment, empty of all but the most resilient of songbirds and relentless of dogs, that silence was as powerful in contrast as night and day. In that moment, Freddy stood alone in the darkness and thought of Carrie.

  I have said before he had no genuine feelings of affection for Carrie. This may not have been entirely accurate but what he felt for her could hardly be considered love. Freddy did like her but more precisely he liked what she was rather than who she was.

  Freddy contemplated his feelings for her that night as the fireworks waxed and waned over the lake and he was confused. At first, he merely tried to accept liking her – he could understand liking – but he could not accept it. The things about Carrie that annoyed him could at times outweigh the things that did not. The odd thing he realized – odd to him – was it didn’t really matter how much she annoyed him. She could annoy him however much she wanted to and he would still like her. It was something greater than mere like.

  Did that make it love?

  I told him it did but he would not accept that. For him such an explanation was both exquisitely simple and impossibly difficult. It was completely beyond him. It was an abstract concept he could not or would not get his head around. Such ideas often escaped him. At this time the notion of love was completely alien – so alien he c
ould not believe it was real. He saw his parents. Through them came his only experience with such things. His father did not demonstrate love as being a tender thing at all. As for his mother, Freddy could not know what she felt for John – if anything beyond a constant state of fear. If that was love he would have no part in it. No, to him love was not real.

  He did not want to call it a crush. A crush was something he could seem to understand. To me it wasn’t so great a leap to believe in both a crush and love. The problem with a crush was it implied more of Freddy’s damned weakness. With Carrie he did not feel weak. If he demonstrated weakness it would mean Carrie was in control. No, he led her. He kissed her. He held her hand and decided when it was time to touch her breasts. Freddy took her to the next level. He was in control.

  His feelings for her did not change or amplify in light of their recent familiarity – a fact that every teenage boy or former teenage boy on the planet may find shocking. She was still Carrie, the same Carrie who could bat left or right and could do more push-ups than three quarters of the guys in grade nine. She was the same Carrie who went crazy over zombie movies and Tom Selleck. She was also the same Carrie who had once held his hurt hand in the back seat of her mother’s car to take away the pain and she was the same Carrie who entered the Cartwright rumpus room with an impish grin and declared, ‘Cool’, upon seeing his erection for the first time.