How true that is. Andrew frequently wavered as to whether Robert’s delusions were to his benefit or not. Sometimes it felt like it might be best to call it quits and return to CryoLife for the next five months. But would they really grant him a new identity? All he knew about Brigman and Zuniga were their exaggerated smiles and patronizing verbiage. The level of overcompensating didn’t bode well for their actual honesty.
“But that wasn’t the end of it. The obsession started taking over every aspect of my life and nine months later, I was busted. You recall me mentioning my fiancée?” Santino glanced at Oz. “The one with the hair that smelled like watery cherub feces?”
Oz removed his cigarette and they exchanged a smile. “Some people leave a lasting impression.”
“She calls me hysterical saying they’re going to have to put her cat Fluffy down because it’s old and in pain. And what am I thinking? This is literally, the best thing ever.”
“Why?” Andrew asked.
“I’d never taken apart an animal that hadn’t been hit by a car. God, do you know how hard it is to find a dead cat that’s not putrefied in Georgia? If it’s been baking for too long, it’s a soup in there. It’s like splitting open a water balloon. One pop and it’s done. Hardly satisfying.”
So many things I’ll never regard the same way – road kill, water balloons, the Sistine Madonna.
“I’d never been so excited in my life – which is a finite measurement not requiring creative elaboration. I went with my fiancée to the veterinarian’s office and held her in my arms as the cat slipped away.
“After it’s gone, she asks what’s going to be done with Fluffy’s body. The guy says how they cremate, and my fiancée is upset about this. ‘How could they burn Fluffy.’ So I suggest taking the cat home and giving it a funeral. Putting its body in a box with catnip or something. She loves this idea. And then the situation gets better.
“On the way home, she says, ‘I can’t bear to see her, Santino. Will you put her in the box with the pillow and her bell? I don’t want to look at her cold and lifeless.’ More bawling. But I’m just …” He held his hands in the air. “Handel Hallelujah chorus! I had no idea how I was going to put it back together.”
And there goes The Messiah.
“I waited until my fiancée fell asleep before going to the garage. I take Fluffy out and lay her on the workbench. I turn on the overhead lamp, unsheathe the scalpel, and, guys, I’m telling you. That first split on an animal that wasn’t crushed to death … To see the organs poke through the seam like budding flowers. Or then when you—”
“Santino. No one else gets a jones off this shit.”
While Andrew didn’t have Natalie’s extreme sensitivity, he’d been feeling that weight near the back of his mouth that came before a gag. For the first time, Oz’s interruption had been welcome.
He turned from Santino and made eye contact with him.
Oz had brown eyes. They were a warm, caramel color, and his pupils were easily discernible from his irises, unlike some brown eyes Andrew had seen, including his own. In contrast to the rest of Oz, the eyes could belong to anyone – a man or a woman. As a result, they were much less painful to look at than the rest of him.
Unfortunately, as he was across the table Andrew couldn’t utilize the makeup-Cubism technique. Maybe that was a good thing. He caught Oz’s smile, which seemed genuine. For the first time since meeting him, the man had done something without the motivation being an attempt at shock value, cockiness, or drawing attention to himself. It’d just been nice.
So Andrew smiled back at him before returning to Santino.
“True, it’s not for everyone. Long, beautiful story short is that my fiancée walked in on me dissecting her beloved pet cat. She’d had that cat since it was a kitten – which, by the way, are not great. There isn’t enough of them.”
“Cutting up a kitten is like jacking it in the shower. Works in a jam, but not the real McCoy,” Oz offered.
This comment didn’t merit a smile.
“You could put it that way,” Santino answered as if agreeing about the weather. “But she never wanted to speak to me again and blew my secret in the open. Fortunately, my parents were still under the ‘my son is alive, it’s a miracle’ spell. They thought I wanted to change my career plans to be a veterinarian. Which I did, but only for access to fresh animals.
“Before you ask, I’ve never hastened the death of any poor creature for my own pleasure. I don’t need to. There are plenty in my line of work. And I can keep pieces I especially like. The brain Oz gave you, that was a good one.”
Santino leaned across the table and took an olive Tinks had discarded on his napkin.
“It was a difficult extraction. You see, the rat skull is relatively weak.” He removed the tiny plastic sword that’d skewered the olive and held it above the fruit’s flesh. “If you press too hard to split it open—”
“Santino!”
Oz’s reprimand pushed Santino out of his trance, and he dropped the miniature sword.
“My apologies. I can get carried away.” He flushed and rubbed the back of his neck.
Andrew swallowed and looked away from the nearly bisected olive. “You seem happy about it. You have a way to do what you want, and you’re not hurting anybody.”
“But it’s nothing the me before the CryoLife procedure would’ve done. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d be a computer analyst with a wife and family. Now, think about me having dinner with a girl. She asks what my hobbies are and I say, ‘I love dissecting animals. Keeping their various parts in jars on my shelves.’ How does that sound?”
“But it’s not dangerous. You’re not dangerous. And it’s only animals, too. That’s not so bad.”
“People aren’t exactly the same, no.”
“He’s also a necrophile.” Although Oz hadn’t raised his voice, it felt like he’d shouted it into a cave. The last word boomed off the walls and echoed back. “Know what that is, doll?”
Andrew tucked his hands behind his elbows and waited for Santino to refute Oz’s assertion. But the man’s only response was to toss back the remainder of his Sazerac and motion for another.
“Oh, my God.” Andrew felt his cheeks go numb.
“Once you’ve been dead, it could be said that developing a taste for them follows logic.”
“Shut up, Oz.” Santino gave him a glare and then fished the lemon peel out of his glass. His voice was thick with shame as he spoke. “My unnatural behavior is the result of brain damage caused by the CryoLife reanimation. I was a normal man before that procedure.” He dared to look at Andrew, his face red. “Dear, I never had these feelings before they did this to me.”
“But if you ever decide to kill yourself, do it draped across his porch in some sexy lingerie.”
“Oz!” Santino slammed his glass on the table, and some of the brown liquid sloshed over the rim. “Put your fucking filter on, or I’ll do it for you!”
“Lighten up.” Oz tilted his chair again. “No one’s judging you here, brother.” He took the cigarette from his mouth. “This is a judgment free zone. We’re all broken. We’re all monsters. You’re with your own kind.”
“I may be a sick man, but what I do doesn’t hurt anyone. The animals or people.”
Andrew studied Santino as an awkward silence unfolded. Though there wasn’t the same rage and jealousy as he had when looking at Oz, there’d still been some level of envy. For his short hair, his glasses, his height. The way his hands were large like Robert’s, but the fingers were slender. For the damn sweater with shank buttons that fit him so well. Even the bantering friendship he had with Oz was appealing.
You can’t be this. Look at you. You can’t be this thing. You can’t be—
His thoughts ceased.
This is what people see when they look at you, Andrew. They see a normal woman. They assume you must do normal things. Not that you would go telling the world your secret, but they decide before you’d have the ch
ance. They tell you what you are from a glimpse. You hate that. Yet here you are, doing the exact same thing to someone else.
It’d always felt like there was a distinct difference between feeling guilt and shame. For Andrew, guilt had the action feel of “I’ve done something wrong” whereas shame was more a state of being, a condition. “I, as a human being, am wrong.”
I am. And I’m sorry.
“It’s not against federal law. Only a state law in Georgia.” Oz tapped his cigarette on the ash tray. “It’s a felony in Alabama. And in Florida. So we have to go to South Carolina for him to get his kicks, in case he gets caught. I was fine with take out or delivery, but we always have to dine in. It’s such a boring drive.”
“You go with him? You help him?” Andrew wasn’t sure what to make of this. What kind of a person—
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s not my scene, but he’s my friend. And I’m the one with the connections.” He smirked. “It may not be illegal, but about any way he could get a body is. Unless you know the right people to get you an all-access pass. Then it’s a buffet.”
“Oz, just stop.” Santino covered his face with his hand.
“You people. Holy fuck. This is what you are now. No reason to be ashamed of it.” Oz threw back the gin in his glass and set it on the table empty. “So you like a cold one? Who gives a shit? It’s who you are, thanks to that fucking procedure.”
I’m wrong. But you’re a jerk.
“It’s not your fault.” Oz added. “This is what you are.”
“And what are you, besides a fucking asshole?” Where Andrew had scooted away from Santino, he moved his chair back and unfolded his arms.
“Between a fucking asshole and a shitting asshole, I’ll take the former.”
As much as Andrew hated Oz, his chest tightened with yearning to be this man. He wanted to cleave him into pieces and collapse in a puddle of pathetic crying.
Oz tipped his chair back on two legs, crossing his ankles on the table. He was wearing a red polo and dark jeans. Without his pharmacist’s coat, Andrew could see how well formed his upper arms were, and how he sported numerous tattoos and tribal bands.
“But in answer to your real question, I’m the best.” He pulled the cigarette from his lips. “And hence, the last.”
You look so perfect on the outside. Andrew glared at him. You’d better be feeling the same disemboweling, burning pain I am. If there’s any justice in the world, something had better be tearing you apart inside.
Chapter 15
“Like Santino, well, like most people I’ve met, for me it was a car accident,” Tinks began.
Tinks’s voice broke the intense, angry stare Natalie had trained on Oz. Usually, he didn’t mind feeling conspicuous, but something about the way she examined him made him feel less in the spotlight and more on the operating table.
She coughed. “That’s how it was for me too. I suppose there aren’t a lot of ways a young person dies, but their brain could remain in good condition for the procedure.”
“I’ve thought the same. I also find most people don’t have the sense they’re dying. They are unconscious, or think they’re going to pull through. But I was devastated. I knew I wasn’t going to make it.”
You and me both, brother. Those terrifying, precious moments of realization before it comes. Life is pieced together. Solved, whether you like it or not.
“It was at night, and I’d taken a hairpin turn too sharp. Suddenly, I’m on my back in the mud and I couldn’t feel my body from the waist down. I wasn’t in pain or anything. Only shocked.
“The paramedics got there before I registered what’d happened. They were leaning over me with these twisted looks – like they were so disgusted that their entire face was shrinking. One guy turns around and is retching, while another one falls to his knees beside me.
“I can’t see it, but I feel that he’s pressing something into my hand. I run my fingers along these individual beads, and when I close my fist I feel the edges of the cross in my palm. And that’s when I knew I was going to die.”
At twenty-one, you think you’re going to live forever. Shit happens to other people, not to you. You’re invincible with plenty of time. Oz looked across the table at Natalie. She glanced at him before returning to Tinks. You lived longer the first time than any of us did.
He wondered what it was like to make it to twenty-five intact. Without having one’s insides scooped out, dreams stolen, and existence made meaningless.
If I’d reached twenty-five, things would be different. Even if that fucker still brought me back. With more time being … complete. I could’ve changed the world.
“The paramedic starts praying – Sacred Heart of Jesus, reparation for my sins, assist in my last agony, commend my soul. All that good stuff.”
“I take it you’re not religious?” Natalie asked.
Tinks briefly lowered his eyes to his napkin. “What is God if He allowed this to happen to us? And if He is and stood by watching, why should I commend anything to Him? Why should I give a fuck what He thinks of my sins?” When there was no reply after several uncomfortable seconds, he chuckled and continued. “But, in retrospect I guess even if there was a rosary in the middle, someone was at least holding my hand.
“Not that I was terribly compliant. I was screaming at him to shut the fuck up. I wasn’t ready to die yet. But he kept praying until this voice interrupts him mid-beseechment. Tells him to back the fuck off and save the religious shit for another day. I thought it was an angel – this shape in white near my head. And it assured me that I was going to live. That’s the last thing I remember before waking.
“And there was no peaceful respite where I thought things were normal. I knew something was wrong right away.”
Oz remembered the emptiness – the restart of the mind due to a push of Zolpidem. Unlike the others, he’d anticipated that something would be different. A shift in brain cells that could change everything. But any modification would be okay as long as one factor remained untouched.
In the blank space he dug for it. He’d been scrambling, panicking before Brigman read the required statement. Searching desperately. But his soul had been forever mutilated. The gift was gone.
Nothing. Just nothing—
Again Oz almost fell out of his chair. This time Santino had kicked one of the legs. He opened his eyes, but no one else had seen anything. Santino shook his head at him.
I wasn’t asleep. I heard everything. Tinks asked if she liked music. Natalie answered “who doesn’t?” Then he snorted at the irony. Blah, blah, blah.
“I heard music,” Tinks said. “Faint at first, like someone a room away. It was classical music, and whoever played it favored one particular piece. It was on a continuous loop. Every time I came out of the sedation, it was there. And the longer I was awake, the louder the sound grew.
“In a week it went from elevator music to the decibel of a brass band. Since I couldn’t talk, the CryoLife staff only knew I was upset, but not why. And I thought I was going insane. They only had to stop the music."
A rank-2 intonation temperament plotted on a Grassmannian space. Tiny arrows shooting off from a bowed plane. This is music. And it meant something once.
“So the first thing I say when I can finally speak is to tell them to have that motherfucker down the hall shut off his radio or whatever. They look at me with these confused expressions, and it hits me: I was hearing music no one else could. It was entirely in my head.”
Natalie shifted in her chair and folded a corner of her napkin. “Like an earworm?”
“Maybe an earworm on steroids. It’s maddening for the constant repetition, and painful from the volume. When was the last time you broke your teeth from grinding them over an earworm? I’ve had more dental surgeries because of a piece of classical music than I can count. And that’s not the worst that’s happened.”
“Can’t they fix it?”
“Oh, they tried. But they don’t know as much about
the brain as they say. They’re still trying to fix me.” Tinks turned. “How many times have they switched my meds, Oz?”
“A dozen in the past four years. Minimum,” he answered.
“Meds make it lower. So I can think, and talk in a normal voice, and sleep. Actually, once it quieted the first time, I thought maybe it was a gift. You’re familiar with the story of the woman who came back and wanted to play piano?”
Natalie nodded.
He still tells the same fucking lies.
Oz tipped his chair down and leaned across the table. “There’s no woman who became a musical genius. She doesn’t exist. It’s a fucking fable Brigman tells to keep you hopeful they haven’t completely fucked you. Keep you looking for something good in the monster they’ve turned you into.”
“How do you know she isn’t real?”
“Oh, I know. I know.”
Possibly due to being four gins in, Oz knew he may have given something away. He tried to look fierce enough that she wouldn’t question further. And she didn’t.
“He’s right,” Santino said. “Beyond what they tell you in the Center, no one has ever heard of this musical protégé.”
“But at the time, I was unaware of this,” Tinks continued. “The music hadn’t gone away, but the medication made it more like a gnat buzzing in my head. So I started the path to fulfill my musical destiny. I was hearing the piano, so that’s where I began.”
“You said it’s a specific piece?”
“Yes.”
“I’m just curious – would I know it?”
“It’s very recognizable.” Tinks moved the tip of his finger around the rim of his martini glass. “But whatever your damage is, I’m sure you might understand – giving it a name aloud is sometimes too difficult. Most times, in fact.”
These men were Oz’s best friends, but there were times where he didn’t understand either of them. However, he could always be depended on to bring clarity to a situation or force a person to face—
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