The Dominant Hand

by Charles Martin

  Helmet-head knew that the younger kid would probably be fired as soon as a better artist applied. The kid had no business sense and Zane couldn’t abide an artist who didn’t know how to handle his money. He’d been late a few times, and that infuriated Zane, even if it was on days that were typically slow.

  A long, canary yellow Mercury Marquis pulled up to the shop.

  “Aw, dammit,” Helmet-head said. He wiped the excess ink off the tattoo, put the needle down, went to the back room door and kicked it with his steel-toed boot.

  “Hold on!” Zane yelled.

  “Nick the Dick’s here,” Helmet-head called back.

  “Well, tell him to hold on!”

  Helmet-head shrugged and walked back to the rose. A thin, wiry man with a thin, wiry mustache walked in. Nick beamed with a crooked smile showing dark, hollow teeth as he strutted to a leather couch. He collapsed down and dropped his feet on a coffee table.

  “Hey, Nick,” Helmet-head called wearily.

  “Where’s asshole?” Nick asked.

  “In the back, he’ll be out in a little bit.”

  A deep grunt and series of thumps drifted through the store, followed by giggles and smirks from the college girls. After a few moments, Zane emerged.

  “Hey, Nick,” he called, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  The raven-haired beauty appeared and then skipped into the bathroom too, closing the door behind them.

  “So, how’s business?” Nick asked Helmet-head, standing up to get a better look at the college girls.

  “Good,” Helmet-head replied. “How’s it for you?”

  “Booming.”

  Zane emerged from the bathroom and glanced over the new kid’s work.

  “So, what’s up, Nick the Dick?” Zane called, as he gave the new kid a reassuring nod.

  “Just in the neighborhood on business, got to go talk to the crazies at the deli,” Nick replied.

  “Aren’t you one of the crazies?” Helmet-head asked. “I hear them call you ‘Nick the Lion’ or some shit like that.”

  “Yeah, I guess they do,” Nick smirked, winking at one of the college girls. “I’m kind of a big deal to their whole operation.”

  “Are you here for a tattoo?” Zane asked.

  “Not today.”

  “Then get the hell out,” Zane said.

  Nick chuckled, shrugged and then turned for the door.

  Helmet-head wasn’t surprised. Zane hated drug dealers.

  Eliza Knights

  To Whom It May Concern:

  I have been writing for 12 years and have not been published. I am confident that the Fertzing Literary Agency will realize that I am an untapped talent and give this old grandmother a chance.

  The story I’ve been writing is about my grandson, Billy Cohen. He was the bass player for a rock band I’m sure you’re familiar with, Shropshire Plaid. This book is a complete summation of his days with the lead singer, Jim Jacobs, who ran around with some sort of cult.

  Some of the details are directly from his telling of the story to his mother and my daughter. The rest I had to fill in myself because my grandson did not want to help me with the book, but he loves me dearly and he wouldn’t think of objecting to this being published. I have included a brief sample; this is the scene where my grandson is caring for Mr. Jacobs at this spooky wooden tower on an abandoned farm. It actually happened!

  I expect to hear from you soon.

  Sincerely,

  Eliza Knights (my pen name, mind you)

  The night was dark and stormy, though it wasn’t raining where my grandson, Billy, walked along the lonely fields just north of Norman, Oklahoma. The lightning crackled ominously and the thunder struck the night sky. The moon was hidden somewhere behind the clouds.

  Billy’s dark brown hair was tussled by the swirling wind. He wore a shabby T-shirt of a band that I’d never heard of, and an unbuttoned dress shirt that his father gave him because his father was eating too much and couldn’t fit into his old clothes.

  Billy’s soft brown eyes glared at the silhouette of the towering structure. It was an old, rickety four-story tower of wood that was little more than stairs and an observation room at the top. No one knew its purpose except for the farmer who no one dared ask because he was the kind of man who never showed his face in church on Sundays, except when his family was in town for Easter and Christmas, and sometimes in the summer.

  Billy knew that the man on top of that tower was his friend and it was his duty to care for him. Others had turned their backs on Jim Jacobs when that cult formed, and even though Billy was a God-fearing church boy (his mother says she’s a Jewish Buddhist, whatever that means, but Billy still goes to church when he comes to my house) and he knew better than to fall into those kind of crazy groups.

  Jim Jacobs was still his friend, and it was his Christian duty to protect his friend.

  Billy strode across the field holding a box of food that would sustain Jim Jacobs for the next few days. As Billy approached the tower, he noticed other footprints leading toward its door. He knelt down, and from his experience with the Boy Scouts, he could tell they were female prints. He wondered if they were the prints of Ash, the wife of Jim and the woman that Billy secretly pined for as only a brave friend can who watches the gorgeous wife of his best friend suffer from a husband who’s lost his mind.

  Ash, which is short for Ashley, was black, but that’s okay because times have changed and that sort of thing was more common. It’s a good thing too, if you ask me. Better than back when everyone knew the dentist had a negro family across town and no one said anything to his wife, though she had to have suspected something.

  Billy felt guilty that part of him hoped it wasn’t Ash, because he didn’t know if he could bear the sight of his unrequited love in the arms of another man, even if she were married to him (or at least I think they were still married; I’ll need to check on that). He bit his lip, stood and walked in the front door, after opening it, of course.

  The small room at the base of the stairs was lit by a small television, a color television probably. The pale blue flicker of the screen lit up a face that Billy hadn’t seen in years.

  “Will?” Billy asked.

  Will (I don’t know his full name, but I’m looking for it) was a writer for one of those music magazines, and had been one of the most devoted writers during the cult’s heyday. Will’s eyes were bloodshot and ever so weary. There were red curls sprouting around a bald spot on the top of his head like water around a desert island. Will stifled a yawn as he looked up at his friend he’d known since Shropshire Plaid was still known as Great Big Know.

  “Hey, Billy,” Will said, smiling. He stood and shook Billy’s hand. “Jim is expecting you.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Will scowled and jammed his hands in his pockets. He sighed and sat back down. A tall, thin man emerged from the shadows. He wore a kilt and a white sleeveless undershirt that displayed his chicken-leg arms that were ghostly pale halfway down the bicep, with the rest of the arm a dark tan.

  “I’m supposed to be doing a story on Jim,” Will announced. “I’m hoping if I hang around long enough, he’ll talk to me.”

  Billy nodded and patted Will on the shoulder as he walked to the staircase that led up to Jim. The man in the kilt watched him climb the steps that creaked and sighed under his weight. Billy noticed an extension cord hanging down the center of the staircase. As he looked up, he noticed that it was actually at least two extension cords that were connected and led all the way up to the top of the structure.

  The stairs wound ominously in a squarish shape up to the observation deck. Only a few slivers of thin windows allowed the gray night sky in. The thunder blinked light into the tower as the lightning boomed and shook the planks.

  Each time his foot found a step, it seemed to send creaks through the entire structure. He’d taken those stairs many times in the past few weeks whenever Jim Jacobs reappeared, like a magician appear
ing after all the audience was convinced he had to be dead. Jim and he had spent many nights in their college and high school years stashed away up here with beer. Some people say they brought women up there, but I don’t believe that because Billy was a good Christian boy, even if his mom was a Jewish Buddhist, whatever that is. Perhaps Jim did, but I’m sure Billy behaved himself.

  The railing of the staircase leaned slightly inward when Billy put any weight on it. There were a few steps missing from time to time, and Billy would step over the gap, hoping the next plank wouldn’t give and send him tumbling down into an agonizing death. He’d risk it for his friend, though.

  He finally emerged at the top to find Jim’s shadowy figure draped in shadows in the corner between two windows. Jim’s body was rocking, his hands trembling and his breaths were raspy. Several empty two-liter bottles were scattered around the floor. There was a dim reddish glow from a space heater that was connected to the extension cord that dropped all the way to the bottom floor. Billy was relieved to see that the female footprints belonged to a pale woman lying naked on the pile of bedding on the floor. She was asleep and didn’t stir as Billy walked around her.

  “Thank you for coming, Billy,” Jim grumbled from the shadows.

  “Of course,” Billy replied, with feeling.

  Jim chuckled, and coughed. Jim’s brittle voice troubled Billy. Billy put the box down beside a window and looked out at the horizon. Rain began to fall against the windowpane (it didn’t actually rain that night, but I think it makes for better atmosphere, no? Of course, if you don’t, that’s fine—I’m sure you’ve sold a lot of these.)

  “You can’t stay up here,” Billy said.

  “How’s Ira?” Jim asked with a slight stutter.

  Billy furrowed his brow. Thunder flashed outside and Billy glanced at the rain drifting in from an open window, contemplating what he should say to his best friend, who was also married to the woman he loved.

  “He’ll probably die soon; cops have been around talking to a lot of people. I’ve heard, you know, something about it.”

  Jim gave no answer, probably because he was wracked by guilt, the guilt of having a friend’s blood on his hands.

  Billy turned back to the window as he wondered if there was any way he could convince his crazed friend to leave his self-imposed prison of loneliness and go to a hospital.

  “I talked to Ash,” Billy said instead.

  “What did you tell her?” Jim asked. His voice had an edge to it.

  “I told her that I thought I’d seen you,” Billy answered. “I just didn’t want your reappearance to be a complete shock.”

  “There was no need to tell her,” Jim answered. “How’s Sean doing?”

  Billy stared into the shadows, hoping to catch a glint of his friend’s eyes. The glow from the space heater didn’t quite reach that far into the darkness. Billy wanted to get a sense of what was going through Jim’s mind, but the man remained an obscure cipher to him, a mystery he would never understand.

  “Sean’s fine,” Billy said finally. “He got in a fight in school today. Ash feels overwhelmed right now. She needs you, Jim.”

  Jim started to talk, but then a long series of hacking coughs tumbled out of him. He doubled over as his lungs spasmed. Billy could see a tuft of Jim Jacobs’ brown hair, but as the coughing subsided, he disappeared into the shadows again.

  “Why don’t you go home?” Billy asked. “Ash needs you, Sean needs you.”

  “I wish I could, Billy,” Jim replied, beginning to rock back and forth again. “That life is over for me now. Soon this life will be over for me as well. Bad things are coming, the resolution is near and I have to prepare for it. We all do.”

  Billy wondered if he could seize Jim, perhaps knock him out and drag his friend to a hospital. Jim seemed too sick to fight back, and though Billy had never gotten a good look at Jim all the times he’d visited, he could tell that Jim did not stand straight anymore and rarely walked. Billy considered the possibility that Jim kept something else hidden with him in those shadows.

  Billy decided instead to just sit next to the bedding and talk to his friend. The female form on the bed shifted and murmured in her sleep.

  “Who’s the girl?” Billy asked, trying not to look at her nakedness because he’s a Christian boy and that’s not the seemly thing to do even if she didn’t have the good sense to cover herself.

  “Just a woman,” Jim Jacobs replied. “She likes to hear me talk. I haven’t replaced Ash. Has she replaced me?”

  Billy shook his head.

  Despite avoiding the woman’s nakedness, Billy noticed her left hand was missing.

  “She’s okay, Billy,” Jim said, noticing Billy’s eyes on the woman. “It’s something we have to do to keep the beasts from overtaking this world. Many of us have done it; it’s a small thing to sacrifice, but maybe one day the world will thank us for it.”

  Billy’s stomach turned. Part of him had hoped that Jim didn’t really believe all that nonsense, and it sickened him to hear his friend talk about it again.

  “So, you have no left hand?” Billy asked.

  An arm emerged from the shadows; the wrist was cut through where the hand had been. Stitches stretched along the nub like thunder bolts. The nub retreated back into the shadows. Billy’s face paled as he stared down at the floor.

  “So, no more chance of the band getting back together, then?” Billy said, smiling weakly despite the nausea.

  Jim laughed and then coughed.

  “No, Billy, probably not,” he said, once he had regained his breath. “Not after the concert anyway. Have you been practicing?”

  “Yeah.”

  Billy wanted to leave. He still cared about his friend, despite his long absence and strange, ungodly ideas.

  “Is there anything else you need?” Billy asked.

  “You’ve been a good friend, Billy,” Jim replied. “There is not much more I need from you or anyone else in this world. I know you worry about me, but this fate chose me. If I had a choice, I would go back home to my family. They need me to be here, though. They just don’t know it.”

  Billy sighed, trying to peer into the blackness. He remembered his friend, before the hysteria, when he was young. He was bright, charming and full of laughter. His smile beamed and his clever eyes could make Billy laugh without any words exchanged between them. Jim wanted everyone to love life as much as he did, and that made him a joy to be around. Now all Billy saw when looking at Jim were the shadows.

  “I do have something to ask you,” Jim finally said.

  “Anything,” Billy said, then glancing at the woman’s wrist. “Well, almost anything.”

  Jim chuckled and then coughed. Once his lungs settled, he groaned and cleared his throat.

  “No, not that,” Jim said. “I need you to take care of my other family.”

  “Other family?” Billy asked.

  “Ash and Sean,” Jim said. “My family now must be my believers. We have a big task ahead of us, and I do regret that my responsibilities here are making my other family suffer. Would you look after them when I am gone?”

  Billy felt a powerful cocktail of emotions from Jim Jacobs’ proposition. He loved Ash and always had. She was so bright and exquisitely beautiful. She was polite, well-spoken and had good teeth. Her son was a very nice boy and seemed well-raised.

  “So, you’re never going back?” Billy asked.

  “No,” Jim answered firmly.

  “You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?”

  A hoarse laugh coughed out of the shadows.

  “No, Billy, no. I can’t do that; this world needs me. I’m going to fight for it, but where I will be going, I doubt I’ll ever be able to return.”

  Billy dropped his head as he thought. He’d heard this from Jim before. Billy knew that it was probably best for Ash and Sean that they never see him like this. Billy didn’t know what would finally bring Jim out of this fantasy world. He couldn’t do it, his wife couldn
’t do it. Maybe he’d be hospitalized, maybe it would take something much worse.

  “I don’t know that she’ll want me to,” Billy said.

  “Yes she will, Billy,” Jim answered.

  Billy lifted his head and looked into the shadows.

  “Billy,” Jim said. “Keep her far away from here.”

  Billy stood up and started toward the stairs. He stopped and turned back to Jim. “Do you need me to bring anything else?”

  “I won’t be here by the time you return,” Jim said, thunder flashing, illuminating part of his scarred face for a split second. “The debt I have in the woods will be settled soon, and the world will be able to continue in its own sweet ignorance.”

  Herb Hefner

  This is a transcript of the footage from the documentary “A Reckoning, You Reckon? Jim Jacobs and His Family in the Woods.” The title is taken from the final Shropshire Plaid album, “A Reckoning, You Reckon?”

  Cynthia Anderson remained with the cult for about three weeks and a feature-length documentary is under production. Additional footage provided by surveillance teams is available upon request as well as transcripts from interviews with the Norman Police Department.

  First clip—inside a tent with at least two visible rips. The tent is large, family-sized. Only the man known as “Herb Hefner” is shown in this clip. He is a Caucasian male, approximately six foot three inches with a long, poorly trimmed beard. His hair is light brown and hangs far down his back. There is a long, faded scar on his forehead.

  There is also a board with six pictures tacked to it. It is lying by his sleeping bag. The identities of four of the six persons in the pictures are included in the report. Attempts to contact them have been successful in only two cases.

  Anderson: He sits there for hours at a time, so I just wait until he leaves his drug-induced trance and reenters reality. If you look closely, you can see his mouth moving, as if he is talking to someone within his trance. It’s really quite amazing how long he can sit still. Of course, his bodily functions continue and sometimes it’s almost unbearable to be in the same tent with him. Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case today. They drink something called “Mean Green.” It looks like absinthe. It’s some sort of strong hallucinogen. There’s a bit more in the cup beside him. He seems to be waking up.