Old Man Scratch

by Rio Youers

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said, mastering the innocent expression. He must have thought I was so dumb, when all the time I was stringing him along—leading him like a carrot leading a donkey. “There’s something down there. I have no idea what, but it shines, Scratch. It shimmers.”

  He licked his lips and scratched him armpit. “Shimmers, eh? You think it’s something valuable?”

  I shrugged. “I tried lifting it out, but it’s too heavy, and I can’t get a handhold.”

  “Pantywaist,” he said, almost under his breath. The theme to Deal or No Deal played behind him, and I could tell that some part of his tiny brain was being drawn to the music, like a child drawn to the jingle of an ice cream truck.

  “I could really use your help, neighbour,” I said. It was like snapping my fingers. He narrowed his eyes and smiled.

  “What’s in it for me, Johnny?”

  “That depends on what we find,” I said. “If it turns out to be a whole lot of nothing, I’ll apologize and shoot you a two-four for your troubles. If, however, it turns out to be something valuable … well, I promise to make it worth your while.”

  “Split her down the middle,” he rumbled. I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a demand.

  “Let’s see what we find, Scratch. How about that?”

  “Splitsville, Johnny.” He tipped a wink and displayed a wide, uneven grin. He couldn’t resist the big close: “Deal … or no deal?”

  I thought he would smell a rat if I crumbled too quickly, so I pretended to give his offer some thought. I shuffled my feet and shook my head. After a suitable stretch of time—just when I sensed Scratch growing impatient—I smiled and nodded.

  “Deal,” I said.

  “Pantywaist,” he grunted again. He slipped on his boots—didn’t lace them up, just clomped across the porch and down the steps with the laces whipping this way and that, striding toward my garage. I had to hustle to catch up to him, and my old bones don’t like to be hustled. However, there was an impetus at work, and it carried me. It was the same force that had driven me to this course of action. It sang inside me with a beautiful, mysterious voice, like a siren. I was helpless to resist. The wheels of revenge were in motion, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop them.

  Only then did I realize that I intended to go through with my plan. One way or another, whatever the outcome, my problems with Scratch Clayton were about to come to an end. My heart galloped at the prospect and a cold rash of sweat covered my chest. I thought for one second that Scratch sensed something amiss, because he pulled up and looked at me with a questioning expression. I forced a smile, as if everything were peachy. Scratch shook his head and strolled on, and I was grateful that there wasn’t much more than grey sponge floating between his ears. He had no idea—couldn’t read my false expression, and couldn’t tell that my heart was pounding. In fairness, it may have been greed that kept him from seeing these things, but I’m not ruling out stupidity. No, sir.

  I stayed two steps behind him, feeling the impetus pushing me along, like a prison guard ushering a shackled prisoner to his cell. It was a power both terrible and romantic. Scratch clomped across my lawn in his big boots. I heard his breathing, somewhat drawn and ragged, and found this encouraging. It reminded me that he was an old man, after all, just like me. After experiencing his strength, and his wicked, unfeeling soul, I had begun to wonder if he wasn’t part machine. Hearing his wheezy breaths as I followed him across my lawn, I knew that he could be brought down. A voice in my head recited a tired but wonderful saying: The bigger they come, the harder they fall. The voice sounded like Melinda’s, but I knew it was the impetus. I was determined—the impetus was determined—to make sure that Scratch fell hard … and that he didn’t get up.

  My garage was full of the usual crap: gardening tools and boxes, my snowblower, my lawnmower, an old set of golf clubs, lawn chairs, rusty skates and snowshoes … all this and more, most of which will never be used again. I had done some rearranging so that, at first glance, it appeared that I had indeed been cleaning the garage, when all I really did was push most of the junk off to the side, clearing the middle. I had even simulated a trapdoor with a piece of plywood, and swept dust on top to blend it with the garage floor. The effect wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. It only had to fool Scratch for a few moments. That was all the time I needed.

  Leading Scratch to the garage, coaxing him with buried treasure, turned out to be the first and last easy part of the ordeal. I didn’t expect it all to be easy (I’ve been around for seventy-one years, and that’s long enough to know that things rarely go the way we want them to, and very few things are actually easy), but I had underestimated just how tough Scratch was. He was like an old action movie star. Jack Palance or Charles Bronson. Old enough to draw a pension, but still leaping rooftops and fighting twenty-year-old cowboys. Those movies are scripted, of course, and full of stuntmen … but we watch them and think, Holy smokes, that is one tough old bastard. Well that was Scratch: one tough old bastard. I had a script of sorts—I saw in my head how I wanted it to go, but knew that once we were rolling, the script would be tossed and I’d have to improvise.

  One take, that was all. No second chances, no director to shout “Cut!” and no goddamn stuntman, either.

  If I had known how difficult it would be, how truly demanding on body and soul (even now, two months later), I would still have gone through with it. The act was beyond my character, but it was something I had to do. I tried to think of it as a necessary evil, like laying a trap to get rid of a pest. Except Scratch wasn’t a mouse or a rat, he was an alpha-shaker, one tough old bastard, a man with—albeit hard to believe—a heart and soul. The aspect of my own soul that has become more God-fearing over the last ten or fifteen years reminded me that Hell was the consequence for this course of action, and that Melinda would not be waiting for me there. A stronger force insisted that my soul was bound to Melinda’s, and that she would be waiting for me at the gateway to eternity no matter what I did. I had accepted the possibility this reunion could happen sooner rather than later, but my aim was to achieve peace, whatever the cost. The impetus had created turmoil in my emotion, but the premise remained elementary: two men walk into a garage, but only one walks out.

  The garage door was rolled most of the way up, but Scratch still had to duck to get under it. He moved immediately toward the small square of plywood on the floor, and I moved toward the bag of golf clubs. I selected a three-iron, took a firm hold of the grip, and hammered it cleanly off the back of Scratch’s skull. I didn’t even take a practise swing.

  It has never been my game. I haven’t played in close to ten years, but even when I played twice a week, I rarely broke one hundred. I considered it a social exercise—a chance to shoot the shit with my buddies, then hit the nineteenth for a couple of beers. The fact that my short game was terrible didn’t bother me in the least. It was never about winning, or even playing well. It was only ever about enjoying the sunshine and smiling with my friends. That being said, hitting a sweet shot always gave a buzz of satisfaction, and I found I hit more sweet shots with the three-iron than any other club. I even used to tee off with it—could ping the ball one hundred and eighty yards down the middle of the strip, if I had my swing working.

  I guess I had my swing working that night, because I don’t recall ever hitting a sweeter shot. The three-iron whooshed through the air and hit the back of Scratch’s thinker with a thunderclap sound that made my toes curl. I didn’t know what to expect. I had hoped to drop him with one clean shot, but that didn’t happen. Like I said, Scratch was tough. His knees buckled but he didn’t go down. I saw his head split open in a long, neat line, reminding me of the way dough will split when it’s rising.

  “Holy Christ Jesus!” he said, raising his hands and shaking them, like an overzealous minister about to start babbling in tongues. He turned toward me, staggering a little. I must have knocked some of the good stuff out of his brain because
he didn’t know what had happened, even though I stood in front of him holding a golf club with bloody clumps of hair matted to the head.

  “Jursk!” he barked. He may have been trying to say Jesus again, but it certainly didn’t sound like it. It sounded like jursk. I saw the crown of his head darken with blood and watched it begin to trickle down the pits and crags of his face in bright, zigzag lines. His eyes were cloudy with confusion.

  “Charrdo.” Another nonsense word, and it was only when he pointed at the square of plywood on the garage floor that I realized he was trying to say trapdoor. It was pathetic, and I almost took pity on him. Instead I hit him again, wanting to turn his terrible, confused eyes away from me. The head of the iron connected with his jaw, and I saw two teeth ejected from his mouth in a spray of red. They rattled like bullets off the old coffee cans and jars where I store screws and washers (I would find them later, yellow and dirty, with morsels of food still attached to them). Scratch reeled and staggered, but did not go down. He spat clots of blood and looked at me. The clouds of confusion had cleared from his eyes with the second swing of the three-iron. He knew what was happening—was no longer interested in the trapdoor. His top lip trembled and his eyes gleamed furiously in a mask of red. He lifted one trembling hand and pointed at me.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Johnny?” he said, and although he was blazing mad and ready to erupt, he sounded almost civil.

  “This is for Melinda, you piece of shit,” I said, even though Melinda would be spinning in her box if she could see me. I took another swing but Scratch was ready. He turned and blocked with the meaty part of his shoulder, then lunged at me before I could attack again. He pushed me backward and I bounced off the garage wall so hard that everything turned white and swirly. Items clattered to the floor and the three-iron slipped from my grasp. He came at me again. I heard him grunting and spitting as he took hold of my shirt and threw me to the other side of the garage. I collided with a stack of boxes filled with old quilts and curtains. Melinda had pestered me to cart those boxes to the Sally Ann Thrift Store for time out of mind, and thank God I procrastinated. If they hadn’t been there, my old bones would have slammed into the shelving where I keep what few heavy tools I own. The air pounced from my lungs. I gasped and slumped to the floor. There was a terrible pain in my chest and my left hip was throbbing, but I found a thread of strength and got to my feet.

  “Dirty bastard,” Scratch growled. His huge, trembling form swam into focus, bloodstained and snarling. He staggered toward me with his fists clenched. I reeled to the left and tripped on a stray loop of extension cord. There was nothing to break my fall this time; I hit the floor hard and felt something in my hip pop loose. I rolled onto my back and saw Scratch double over. At first I thought he was laughing, then I realized he was coughing. Thick strings of blood dangled from his lower lip. He spluttered and heaved, hands on his knees.

  I had fallen next to the rake, which had been dislodged at the beginning of our struggle. I grabbed it and used the support of the handle to get to my feet. Scratch was still bubbling and wheezing. He had lost a lot of blood. I jabbed him in the ribs with the blunt point of the handle, then turned it around and bounced the prongs off the back of his head. More blood spattered from the gash I had made with my first swing of the three-iron. Scratch dropped to one knee. He called me a dirty bastard again, then grinned, showing the gaps in his mouth where his teeth used to be.

  “You won’t beat me, Johnny,” he said.

  I moaned, thinking he was probably right. I tried to whack him with the rake again but put too much weight on my left leg. My hip screamed and I fell. Now Scratch did laugh. He rose to his full height and staggered toward me. He mumbled something, grabbed two fistfuls of my shirt, and pulled me to my feet.

  “I’ve hurt you, Scratch,” I said. My voice was frail, but the words were heavy with conviction. “You’re bleeding like a son of a bitch, and you’re going to have the mother of all headaches tomorrow morning. Mission accomplished.”

  “You don’t know what hurt is, neighbour.” He sprayed blood and spit into my face as he spoke. “But you will. Hear me now … you will.”

  He pushed me backward and I took a crazy spill over the lawnmower, landing awkwardly, feet in the air. More items fell from their hooks and shelves, thudding off my arms and chest, clattering around me. Scratch shambled forward. He grabbed my shirt again, and as he tensed to pull me up, I reached for one of the fallen items: a half-full tin of paint. I grabbed the plastic handle, Scratch lifted me, and I swung the tin with every ounce of strength in my soul. There was a sickening crack as his jaw broke. Fans of blood opened from his mouth and the gash in his head. He turned through ninety degrees on the heels of his unlaced boots, teetered for a few moments, and then collapsed. There was something poetic about the way he fell, appropriate to his size. He went down like a building in a controlled explosion, crumpling from the bottom and dropping as all the rigidity left his body. A cloud of dust rose around him. He groaned twice, then was silent.

  I wanted to collapse beside him, to fall in a similar heap and either die or wait for the pain to go away. Everything hurt, and my heart thudded so hard it made my dentures rattle. I knew that if I dropped beside Scratch, I would not get up for a long time. Maybe not ever. I looked at him. He was alive, but barely. Every now and then his arm or leg jerked, or he drew in a long, stricken breath, and exhaled with a whuff-whuff-whuff sound, like a dog having a bad dream. I thought of all the movies I’d seen where the bad guy goes down, and the audience believes he is dead—and so does the hero—only to have him rise for one final, thrilling shock moment. I didn’t want that to happen in real life. I’d had quite enough shock moments for one day. I threw the tin of paint at him and it bounced off his head with a cartoon thonk! sound. I saw only half his face. He was covered in blood. Red from the waist up.

  “Bastard,” I said. I limped to the other side of the garage and retrieved my three-iron. I barely had the strength to breathe, but I hit him again … and again … and again. When I was sure he was dead—he had to be dead—I dropped the bloodied golf club and sagged against the wall, and it was only the voice of the impetus that kept me from sliding into a weeping, shuddering heap. It told me that I had to keep rolling, that the job was only half-complete.

  I had to drag Scratch to the bottom of my driveway.

  It had started to rain. The sound of it hitting the roof of the garage touched some raw place inside me. I cringed as I worked, thinking that the rain sounded like sin.

  I wrapped one end of the extension cord around Scratch’s ankles and secured the other to the hitch on my Buick. I had to cut the cord; I didn’t want Scratch trailing thirty feet behind my car. The closer he was, the easier it would be to drag him into position. He didn’t moan or stir as I bound his ankles and secured the knot. I climbed behind the wheel, flipped on the windshield wipers, and eased into drive. I felt his dead weight behind the vehicle—felt it scuffing and bouncing through the vibration in the steering wheel. I looked in the driver’s side mirror and saw one arm dragging limply through the gravel, illuminated by the taillights. The top of his head, dark and torn, occasionally bobbed into the rearview as the Buick juddered along the driveway’s uneven surface.

  The voice of the impetus kept me moving, like the crack of a whip. It had taken on a shrill, skittering tone. I pondered statements of the insane, how they claim to have been coerced by voices in their heads, and wondered if I would pay with my state of mind.

  Thunder moaned in the distance. I wiped Scratch’s blood from my eyes as I crawled onto Sideroad 13, into the apex of the hairpin. I dropped into park and stepped out into the rain. My hip throbbed, sending waves of pain up and down the left side of my body, and I needed the support of the car to get me to where Scratch was sprawled in the driveway. His body was sodden and twisted, with his shirt pulled out of his pants, all the way to his armpits. The rain bounced off his big, pale belly. It fell into his blood-splattered face.


  “Roadkill,” I sneered, dropping to my knees beside him. A zipper of lightning opened the night and I flinched. Scratch’s face illuminated for half a second—splashed with blood and rain. It took fifteen minutes to unravel the extension cord from his ankles (his weight, dragging behind the car, had tightened the knot). The work was made easier by slipping off his boots, and I thanked him under my breath for not lacing them.

  I had to drag him to the exact spot where I had dragged every other dead, wretched animal—a distance of no more than six or seven feet, but at that moment it looked so much farther. I puffed and groaned and prayed for strength, working in the glow of the taillights and the occasional flash of lightning. The rain fell harder, hitting my back in icy pellets. I wept, dragging Scratch’s body inch by inch, tugging him by the arm, then the leg. I tried rolling him but he was too heavy. I could do nothing but pull and drag in tiny, weary increments. My body begged for mercy, but I kept working, thinking of his wicked ways. The rain lashed down and the thunder boomed. I recalled how Scratch had threatened Melinda. Put a lid on it, missy … I’ll put you through the wall, I swear to God. I lugged his body to the spot at the side of the road. I vomited twice, and I think I may have passed out once, but I got the job done. I don’t know how long it took, but I did it.

  I collapsed against the Buick’s trunk and looked at him, lying on his back with his arms open, one leg bent. You son of a bitch, I thought, hating him for making me do this, but hating myself more. I looked beyond him, at the fenny land—the not-so-funny land—neighbouring my property to the west, and implored whatever was out there:

  “Come get him,” I said.

  I stumbled behind the wheel and started to reverse down my driveway, using the mirrors because it hurt too much to crank a look over my right shoulder. I didn’t get very far when I registered movement from the spot at the side of the road. I stomped on the brake and the wheels locked, sliding in the gravel.