Making Faces
Usually Lash wakes up thinking, This is it, you're finally dead. It lets him start the day off with an overwhelming sense of relief.
The dog is chewing into his chest, about to crack through the breastbone and get to the thick meat of his heart inside. Lash took the little bastard in because it was shivering under an abandoned Chevy with six saturate tickets beneath the busted wiper, rain sluicing off the hood and running high in the gutter. Three distended bodies stacked face-down in the backseat. The dog there with its tiny front paw held up–offering it out to Lash like, oh please take me home, look how cute I am, my name is Iwuvyou. Lash has tried this with girls in bars and they just scowl at him, move a few stools down.
Talk about loyalty. Now Iwuvyou's snout-deep in your torso, tail wagging like crazy, wippity-wappity.
But no, Lash realizes, You're still kicking, and the dog is only licking your chest hair, catching it in his teeth. Because Lash has been sweating in the night and it's pooled there and dried in a salty line down to his belly button.
There's something that needs to be said this morning, that's clear, but he hasn't managed to grasp the essence of it yet. He reaches up and puts his hand to his mouth, trying to see if there are any words there. He tugs his lips apart, pinches his tongue. He tastes charcoal on his fingertips.
What needed to be said has been drawn on the wall.
Today You Must Make a Change.
"Dammit," Lash says. He already understands it's true, but he really hates to see it smeared all over the place like that.
The canvas stretched on the easel looks like a first-grader's been going at it with finger paints. Once, he had promise. His professors knew it, and so did his parents. They encouraged, advised, and applauded until Lash couldn't take the ridiculous hope in their eyes anymore. Mom looking at him so lovingly, with such misplaced pride, that he wanted to rip his own teeth out. Jesus, you talk about pressure, the way they stared at you waiting for the genius to bleed out. The disappointment always close behind. Come on, come on, we're waiting.
Since then he keeps up the pretense because life, somehow, means even less without it. He calls himself an artist. He used to say he was a painter but everybody kept wanting him to do their houses, their apartment ceilings. Now he asks the chicks in the bar to sit for him, he'd love to do their portraits, and would they mind posing nude? They gag on their banana daiquiris and move their seats.
What he is, is unemployed, paying his rent with some of the insurance money his mother left him. He lives meager, which is a personality trait rather than a well-thought-out plan. Every few days he throws some color at the easel and swirls the brush around, yearning for his subconscious to take over and carry the ball. If he's feeling particularly passionate, he uses the charcoal. That hasn't happened for a while.
There's a storm outside.
Wind drives the thrashing rain down upon the city and the madmen and murdered float and roll in the alleys. Families crawl onto half-submerged buses as great surges and swells of water funnel over the dispossessed pedestrians. Lash's mother would have called this the end of the world, and she would have said it happily. He knows it's only another bad day.
The church directly across from his window is full of black motion, music, and activity. In this part of the city, the buildings have gargoyles doing what they were made to do: their mouths are spigots designed to ease rain overflow.
Lash knows that the word gargoyle is actually a bastardization of "gurgling." The stone beasts are named for the sounds they make. He's full of useless information like that. It's just more shit that doesn't make him money.
A child stands framed by stained glass and stares at Lash, with a strange intent, perhaps a great and worthwhile purpose.
Okay, so Lash tries not to let his urban paranoia carry him away, but you really gotta see this kid. Tow-headed, huge brown eyes, acutely pale skin, and dressed well in black slacks and a white formal shirt buttoned all the way to the collar. In the movies, creepy ten-year-olds are always ghosts come back to fuck up your week.
The kid sticks his tongue out.
You know what you have to do. Lash remains an adult for about three seconds, and then the undying adolescent takes over, makes him growl at the boy. They watch each other through throbbing sheets of water bursting and boiling on the windows. The kid sticks his thumbs in his ears, wriggles his fingers, miming laughter. Lash sticks his pinkies in his nostrils, yanks his nose wide, cocks his head.
These are all faces he's painted many times before, back when he tried to hone his small amount of talent. Sketching passers by while seated in front of the museums and ritzy tourist traps. Children used to get pissed at him for staring, they'd give him the finger, do guppy lips. Their parents would threaten him and pull out their cell phones, miming how they were calling the police. The Japanese would take a hundred photos of him, blinding him with the flashes until he packed up. He figured the guys in front of the Louvre probably didn't have to suffer through this kind of crap, but who knew, maybe they did.
The kid points at Lash, then moves his hand slightly aside, indicating he should take a look.
Somebody's on the ledge.
Well now.
He thinks for a second that it might be himself. You always had to be ready. You could never be too sure. He does that sometimes, sneaks up on himself. You took what comforts you could afford. It's kind of fun actually, watching himself jump. Unless it's happening to him, with the bastard sort of prancing and laughing behind him.
Iwuvyou begins yipping, tangling into circles, stopping to sniff at the floorboards, then recovering and leaping around the apartment.
It's the kid's mother. Lash knows it as soon as he sees her.
You don't have a story unless you get mixed up in the middle of things. Somehow, he's tripped over an energy curve, a quantum field, a cosmic force that connects the parent to the child. She's running from gangsters, gonna pop in and plead for him to help save her son. Offer herself to him as payment, but he's a hero here, gotta refuse. For a bit. Goes to scope the scene, outwits the mob–the amateur who's more pro than the professional hitmen themselves. He comes back and the woman has double-crossed him, she spikes his drink. But he's switched glasses. She keels over, gagging, hands about her throat, the blood spiking from her ears. He heads across to the church, discovers it's a money laundering biz, the kid is really a midget with a .45. Lash busts him a good one in the chops, steals the briefcase lying at the pint-sized feet, it's full of cash. But the bills are marked, it's all a waste, he returns to his apartment, opens a can of beef stew for Iwuvyou, thinks about tomorrow.
The lady out there on the ledge is shuddering so badly she might knock herself off. Dressed in a black dinner dress, wearing pearls, she's about a dozen feet away, twenty-six floors up. Her arms are stretched over her head and she's holding onto a gargoyle, gripping it around the throat like a careless weekend lover. The beast is giving Lash that macho barroom grin, telling him, Yo buddy, fuck off, she's mine for the night. Go find another lay.
Rainwater surges into her face and obscures her features. The wet black hair drapes in savage coils and batters her shoulders. Lash opens his window and the storm howls in answer, a thundering thrum roaring above him. On occasion, you can almost believe in God.
"Hi," he calls to her. "You wanna come in?"
She takes a hesitant step into mid-air, leaving her foot out over the precipice, as if considering what it might feel like not to have anything under you. Lash has screwed around like that a little too, on really awful nights. A bottle of tequila in one hand, a Bible in the other, some woman loud in his mind and the loneliness turning the back of his skull to steel.
The kid's mother wriggles her toes out there and kicks off her high-heeled shoe. Looks Italian, the pair goes for at least a grand. It fires down like a missile and clunks a street sign. A shadow darts from behind a garbage can and scoops it up, vanishes again.
The sigh at the back of her th
roat is violent yet reassuring. He knows what an overpowering sensation it can be, to have to force yourself to find reasons not to let go.
She puts her foot back on the ledge and does the same thing with the other one, taking the endless step, shirking out of her shoe. Lash thinks, Okay, this here lady, she has a few issues to deal with.
Who're you to get in the way of that? Nobody gets in the middle of yours.
He closes the window, looks over at the words on the wall and tries to decipher them. This is an equation with theme and substance but no context. His father used to do this all the time. The man, a part-time poet, would wake up in the middle of the night and scrawl on a notepad beside his bed. In the morning asking Lash, Can you make this out? Is this an L or a K? This say recitation or resuscitation?
He opens the window once more, tries again. "Hey, if you want me to help you, just tell me, all right?"
She turns towards him but all that hair still flies wildly around her head, a miasma of her own delirium. The kid continues making faces, maybe at Lash, maybe at his mama. The church clamors with blaring pipe organ hymns, prayers reaching over the drenched spires and steeples. You finally have your soundtrack. Iwuvyou is digging the music, hopping along on his back legs.
Lash is tempted to go out there, show her how it's really done. Think about it. The savior, giving her his hand, reaching while she flinches and shrinks away. This could be one of those really whacked-out lovers' moments here, like a suicide pact between strangers. So you go, Okay, how about this? We'll try it pretty much together. Me first. Taking that step over the big edge, giving her a nice smile, demonstrating to her how there's nothing to it. Now that would be a change. That would be something. She follows maybe a second behind you, the both of you twisting in mid-air, fighting and clawing towards each other as you fall, until you embrace a fraction before you hit.
He shuts the window.
Perhaps this is a chance to get back to the work. WOMAN ON LEDGE: SERIES FOUR; In Varying Shades of Blue. She can wait there posing for him while he paints, going, Don't move now. Try not to shiver so much. The light is fading. Come inside, we'll hump each other into the dust bunnies under the bed, and then we'll resume tomorrow.
There are priests down on the street now. Folks in robes. Lash always thought they dressed in black, but there they are in vestments of red, blue, brown, gold, and white. Several are hooded, with their arms folded across their stomachs, hands hidden within their oversized sleeves. The restless souls of Benedictine monks float from the chapel, passing harsh judgment on all of humanity. Other children are dressed like the kid in the window, unwavering and stoic. A doorway filled with pre-teen ghosts.
Nuns gape and wave. Not even frantic waving, but the Hey, how're you doin' type. Lash nods back, gives a Come on up gesture. They all frown and move away.
Lightning seizes the sky and ignites the world. You're tapped into the elemental design of the universe, with your hand on the lever that works the turbine of the abominable engine, and you've got about nine bucks in your pocket. Your jeans don't fit right around your hips. Your elbows are covered in dead skin. The heavens shake their fists in your face, promising further pain. You are tied to the fountain of souls by your endless common dread. There have always been heinous wraiths under your bed, at the back of your closet. Incantations and maledictions are scrawled in your high school yearbook. Your friends were set in place by the infernal arch-dukes to trick and deceive you. You recall your father's poetry and realize he was trying to warn you about this.
The woman is at the window.
She's crouched there, pressed against the glass, staring at him through all her hair. She snorts water. Fingers clawing, she's perched and gawking. He leans closer. The nuns and monks and kids are all screaming up at him now, shouting words that might've held meaning once but no longer contain enough humanity for him to understand. There are tongues not meant for a mortal mouth.
"You want me to let you in?" Lash asks her.
She shakes her head, body as solid as the gurgling stone spitting up beside her. He still can't see her eyes. She has weight, this lady, intent and function. If she's got a message for him she's certainly taking her time delivering it. He maneuvers against the pane, trying to be as fluid as the downpour on the other side.
So, she doesn't want to go over and doesn't want to come back inside. Then what?
From one moment to the next we make our moves. Even if you're only thrashing in your nightmares, you're still on the go. What's he supposed to do now? Paint her that way, hunched over and about to be washed off the rim of the world?
They're chanting below, and there's enough of them now on the street to be heard over the madhouse thunder. He really doesn't want to see how many maniacs that might take, but he looks anyway. Christ. If it's sacrifice they need from him, they won't get it. He can just imagine. He's God's right hand, the avenger, the bearer of the flaming sword. He spins and the woman is actually the embodiment of hell taking over the city, with a heart of pure eternal darkness made reality. The sword is tied across his back and he snakes it free, bears up beneath the hideous weight of righteousness. The point is perfect blue fire, holy and eternal, and he rams it through the window into the center of the abomination. Poison spurts and gushes, scalding his hands as he hangs on. She opens her enormous, fanged mouth and lets loose with a screech made up of all mankind's sins. The sword is torn from his grasp. The tempest sweeps her up into the merciless ashen sky and suddenly a ray of warm sunlight slices through the oppressive darkness. He drops to one knee and his mother–golden and forgiving–wafts down on iridescent wings and blesses him. She heals his blistered hands.
He stares at the woman and says, "It's time for you to make a decision, lady. Today you must make a change."
But she's set in grim determination and hunkers down on the ledge, watching him without eyes, the coiling hair writhing in the rain. Her kid, multi-colored and outlined in the stained glass across the way, a martyr who doesn't shave yet, glares at Lash and sticks his tongue out again.
"Fine," Lash says. "See if I give a damn. What, like this is my fault? You think I'm to blame? Is that it? You've got it wrong. We're just alike."
The pane rattles viciously in its frame. Cracks appear but the window holds. Maybe it's merely another test of wills. The things out there being forced in, and him trying to hold up under the barrage. No different than yesterday. He waits for her to crash into his arms. Two minutes go by, seven, nineteen, but it doesn't happen. Iwuvyou curls up beneath the radiator and gnaws a chew toy. The cracks divide, scuttle in other directions, and abruptly stop.
A meeting is inevitable but his patience is beginning to lag.
He clenches his teeth, trembling with anxiety, and swings to the canvas. The paints splashed on it are still fresh, and he uses a brush to swirl them together, slowly urging a pattern from bedlam. He lets his subconscious ride the wave of anguish that's been building since his dog tore out his heart. Lash shuts his eyes, turns his head up, loosens his shoulders so his arms flop this way and that, just close enough that he can touch the canvas while he sways.
After an hour, he opens one eye and squints at what's there. It's a self-portrait of a sad man trying desperately to smile.
A hand clasps his shoulder and Lash spins to face himself. He's standing there with his tongue out, facial muscles contorted, giggling like a moron. Lash punches himself in the mouth and knocks himself down. He sits on the floor pouting, starts whimpering and sobbing, looks over and holds his hand up, like Iwuvyou. Look at me, I'm so cute. No wonder the girls in the bars think he's an asshole.
There's a storm inside. The woman is in the same position, but the cracks have grown more jagged, and they're beginning to take the form of his father's handwriting. Is that a D or a V? Is she spelling redemption or revulsion? He listens to himself weeping.
Lash lies on the bed prepared to dream with a new and luminous intensity. He gets up off the floor and struggles to the easel, stares at
the bed and wants to kill himself. Perhaps a little later, as soon as he finishes making this face. Next time that Lash wakes up thinking, This is it, you're finally dead, maybe the sorry son of a bitch will be.
Introduction to "Thief of Golgotha"
by Joseph Nassise
The question of faith has consumed man as long as he has been telling tales. From Milton's descriptions of the war in Heaven in PARADISE LOST to Shelley's examination of the roles of creator and created in FRANKENSTEIN, we have sought to know the unknowable, to explain the unexplainable. It is a search that, fittingly enough, has roots in our very souls, and as such is impossible to ignore.
In the same manner, tales of horror have long been a part of our literary tradition as well. Ever since primitive man first gathered around the campfire, hoping its light would hold back the darkness and whatever it might also be hiding, we have told stories designed to soothe our fears. In them the theme of good versus evil manifests itself repeatedly, for it is this struggle that most fascinates us as a race. Horror fiction appeals to us because it reflects—both symbolically and in broad strokes—the real horror of the world in which we live, while simultaneously hinting toward the redemption that is found by struggling against the evil and despair that surrounds us.
For as long as I've known him, Tom Piccirilli's fiction has combined the religious and the fantastic, never once failing to take our expectations and give them a good twist when we aren't looking. He forces us to examine beliefs we've long held sacrosanct, to consider them from other angles, other viewpoints, and to make decisions of our own rather than to simply accept the status quo. In his latest effort, "The Thief of Golgotha," Tom does it again, this time with perhaps one of the most notorious criminals in all history.
–Joe Nassise, author of RIVERWATCH and HERETIC
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