by Adrian Birch
I tried to go back and piece together everything that had happened the previous day as best as I could.
First, I remembered that when my boss dropped me at home, Shawn was already there, watching TV, as usual. His station at the couch was pretty much the only place he spent time lately when he wasn’t at work. He has a shift at the mill, which I know can be exhausting, but it'd been months since he’d been out. And lately he’d started saying he didn’t want me to go out with any of my friends alone. One of the reasons I’d been looking forward to the fair for weeks was that Shawn wouldn’t have any choice but to get off his ass and go somewhere. I’d been hoping that maybe we could have a little fun again, for once.
“I’m getting in the shower,” I called out, competing with the blare of Sports Center. “Ian’s gonna be here in an hour, remember?”
After a moment, Shawn yelled back.
“Tonight? We’ll go tomorrow," he said. "No one really shows up until Saturday anyway.”
I should have seen this coming. If my husband never wanted to go out at all anymore, why would he ever go out for two nights in a row without complaining about it? I’d thought things would be different during fair, but I guess I’d been wrong.
I tried not to sound too irritated. “Everyone always goes tonight.” I leaned into the living room and found myself talking to the back of my husband’s head. He was only twenty-six, but his hair was already beginning to thin. “All your friends are going. And mine. Morgan’s already there waiting for me. And Ian’s coming all the way back in the middle of Tyler’s football game just to give us a ride. It would be weird if you didn’t go.”
Before Shawn could respond, I stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I hoped that by putting myself out of earshot he would give up and agree to just go without a fight.
While I undressed, I forced myself to look at the mirror. I’d definitely put on a little weight since high school, but not as much as Shawn had, especially after his accident. But I looked okay, I decided. Nothing like Morgan, who’d somehow stayed as skinny as she was at sixteen. But at least I looked okay.
While the water warmed up, without really meaning to, I started considering what my night out would be like if Shawn did just stay at home. I thought about having the chance to ride into town with Ian alone. I thought about doing shots with Morgan, just the two of us. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst thing after all if Shawn didn’t come. In the middle of washing my hair, I actually started seriously considered persuading him to stay home.
But by the time I got out of the shower I could hear him changing from his work clothes, and I decided not to say anything. I couldn’t. Not after I’d already talked him into going. I’d feel too guilty if I did something like that, anyway. Besides, it would probably be good for us to get drunk together.
Ian pulled up to the house just as I was finishing with my makeup. I wore this new low-cut top I’d bought just for the fair and my tightest pair of jeans. Maybe it wasn’t exactly what they were wearing in Denver these days, but not bad for the Muldoon fair.
I could tell my brother-in-law was in a hurry to get back before the end of the high school football game, but he was too polite to say so. As we came out of the house Ian kept his truck idling, sauntered over to Shawn, and slapped his shoulder.
“Hey, buddy, you all ready for tonight?”
“Yup,” Shawn said. As always, Shawn was a little quiet and intimidated by Ian. “Ready to go.”
“Hiya, sis!” Ian gave me a quick hug, then just as quickly he let me go and hopped back into his pickup.
Ian was in a good mood. On the way over he told us that Tyler got a touchdown, and besides being happy that his son had played well, he was looking forward to being out at the fair tonight too. I could tell.
“You sure you’re okay not drinking?” I asked him. “I’m glad I’m not the one stuck driving.”
I was glad Ian had offered to give us a ride, but the truth is I also liked how Ian got after a couple drinks. He’d been a medic in Iraq, and now he worked as an EMT at our tiny local hospital. When he got back from the war I used to worry he’d break down or something if he drank, but he never did. Mostly he just got less serious and his sense of humor would come out. I’d laugh at his wry jokes, and he always laughed along with me in this kind and warmly boyish way he had. He’s actually really attractive—way more attractive than Shawn—but sometimes I think my sister doesn’t even realize this.
“Who says I can’t have a beer?” Ian winked at me. “It’s fair time. I’ll nurse one for a little while.” He nudged Shawn’s arm. “Just don’t tell Danielle.”
I was pretty sure Ian really wouldn’t have any more than one drink. I don’t think I know anyone who’s more responsible. Besides, if he did, my sister would find out one way or another and kill him.
I was about to ask whether he was taking Haley, his youngest, to the carnival tonight, but that’s when Ian's phone rang.
The gruff, semi-garbled voice on the speakerphone must have been a hospital dispatcher, but I couldn’t make out who it was. “Ian, you there at the school?” the voice asked.
“Just left,” Ian said.
“I guess someone had a fall in the girl’s locker room, or something. Probably nothing, but could you check it out? Ambulance is still stuck here at the hospital.”
Ian switched off the speaker and brought the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
He hung up.
“You don’t mind if we make a little detour, do you? It’s probably nothing, but I gotta check it out.”
“That’s alright,” I said.
But in truth I was feeling selfish and a little disappointed that Ian couldn’t just drop us at the fairgrounds. What kind of town only had one ambulance? I guess Ian’s SUV was the sole backup.
Ian pulled right up to the door of the girl’s locker room. The second half of the football game had already started. I could hear the hum of the crowd over at the field, but the gym was deserted. Shawn stepped from the pickup, but in an old high-school habit he was hesitant about going into the girls’ locker room, which I thought was kind of sadly funny, as if he were still just a kid.
Ian was in a hurry. “Come on in, if you want,” he told us. “We’re a little understaffed.” He laughed. “Maybe you could give me a hand, if I need it.”
I hadn’t stepped into the locker room for years. Bernice Whipple, my old P.E. teacher, was even there. It was like she lived there.
“Hey, Mrs. Whipple.” I gave her my best version of a friendly wave. But she didn’t even register my presence.
She was distraught, expressionless. She went right for Ian. She grabbed his jacket, then she led him toward the showers.
“Here,” she said, whispering. “Here. It’s here.”
I followed behind, trying to stay out of the way.
When I first saw what was on the tile floor—the same place I’d stood showering a hundred times in high school—I thought maybe some kid was playing a joke, trying to scare the cheerleaders or something.
There were shards of broken glass all over the shower, and, right above, one of the big frosted windows had been broken out.
There wasn’t any blood. Just a person, naked, face down. It wasn’t a high-schooler at all, but a grown man, his bare ass in the air, his skin unnaturally pale from head to foot.
He was very obviously not alive.
I’d never seen a dead body before, not ever. But I was sure that no living person could lie that perfectly still.
This definitely wasn’t what Ian had expected when he’d invited us in. He rushed to the body and knelt beside it. In what seemed like one motion, he opened his medical bag and snapped on a blue latex glove. He pinched one of the body’s wrists, gently, checking for a pulse, I guess. But he must not have got what he needed because he put on the other glove, grabbed one of the shoulders, and turned the whole body over.
It jostled onto its back and lay face up.
&
nbsp; I didn’t think I recognized whoever it was, but the face was so sunken and gray I wasn’t sure. To me, it looked like someone that had been dead for a long time, weeks maybe. But I guess I don’t know anything about how bodies decay—the cheerleaders must have used the locker room only a couple of hours earlier, and the body couldn’t have been in the shower then.
Ian touched the body’s throat, again checking for a pulse which I knew wouldn’t be there.
I’d been so distracted by the deteriorated face, it was only now that I noticed what Ian was staring at.
He and everyone else. Mrs. Whipple was letting out this long-winded weeping sound and starting to cry.
Ian glanced at me, obviously regretting that he’d let me and Shawn come here with him. But now there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He returned his attention to the body, maybe not entirely sure what to do next.
It was missing its penis. Where it should have been was just this short fleshy stump. The wound was raggedly scabbed over and looked infected.
I was so stunned that I didn’t even feel sick, not even when I saw what was below the missing penis: two baseball-sized spheres of tightly swollen flesh. They were the testicles, puffed up unnaturally and darkened to a deep, blackish purple, like a pair of giant toxic mushrooms.
I could hear Shawn breathing heavily behind me. I worried he was about to pass out and I wouldn’t know what to do.
"Holy fuck," he whispered.
In the middle of all of this, Ian’s phone rang. He fumbled to answer it.
He listened. “Yeah, it’s here,” he said. I could tell it was the hospital dispatcher again. “Now you tell me,” Ian said, exasperated, then he paused. “Right now?” Another pause. “That’s not how we do things. I don’t care who—” He stopped and listened again. After a minute, reluctantly he said, “Well, I guess. I guess if that’s what they say. I don’t know. I’ll do what I can. Jesus.”
Ian stood and turned away from us. For a moment he just held his wrist to his head, apparently trying to figure out what to do. Outside, in the distance, the football game’s final buzzer sounded over the loudspeakers.
“Shit.”
Finally Ian turned toward us.
“We have to get this out of here right now.” He gave my husband a hard look. “Shawn, buddy. I hate to ask you to do this. But I need a hand. I can’t get it into my rig on my own. I got pretty strict orders to clear this out before the crowd comes through after the game.” He nodded in the general direction of the football field. “And everyone’s on their way now.”
Shawn was silent. He took one step backwards.
Then he threw up all over a changing bench.
Instinctively, I put a hand on my husband’s back while he retched. I didn’t know what else to do. I glanced at Ian. He looked completely at a loss.
“I’ll help,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
I stepped toward the body before I could lose my nerve. Ian looked extremely uncomfortable, but I could tell he knew he didn’t have any other choice but to accept my help.
“Shit, Ashley,” he began, “you don’t…”
“I can do it.” I said.
I pulled two gloves from the cardboard box in Ian’s medical bag and put them on.
“Shit,” he said, again.
“Just tell me what to do. What do I do?”
Ian took a deep breath. “Alright. Shit. You take the ankles. It’s not far. Let’s just hurry and get this over with. God damn it, Ash. I owe you.”
I tried not to think about what I was doing. I tried to tell myself that this was no different than a dead animal, or a dummy.
But as I clutched the body’s ankles, the tendons and bones beneath the skin felt so human and lifelike that I started to feel dizzy. I tried to breathe, but I hadn’t expected the smell to be so strong. It was definitely the smell of rotten flesh. I wondered if maybe the rancid smell was coming from the swollen testicles; they did look like they were rotting or maybe turning gangrenous.
I had to do something to distract myself so I wouldn’t throw up. I was desperate not to let Ian down. I knew that my sister wouldn’t be able to do this, and somewhere deep inside I’d always understood that Danielle couldn’t ever really let herself imagine what Ian must have gone through in the war. I wondered if by helping him now, in this unlikely way, maybe I could somehow acknowledge what my sister couldn’t.
“What do you think happened to him?” I asked Ian.
I didn’t actually care what had happened, not at that moment. But I couldn’t think of any other way to get my mind off the smell and the body’s sagging, loose weight in my hands as we shuffled through the locker room.
“I have no idea,” Ian whispered. “He must have been trying to peep through the window. And then I guess he fell through the glass.”
“But what about his…?” I started, but I couldn’t finish. “Why is it missing?”
If I could barely bring myself to ask about the missing penis, I couldn’t even begin to mention the bloated testicles. They appeared at the point of bursting as the body swayed between us.
Ian gave me a look of total perplexity and shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“It’s one of those carnies!” Mrs. Whipple was still crying, but she was in control enough to make this last proclamation as she held the locker room door open for us, shuddering. “They’re all on drugs!”
The hardest part was lifting the body into the back of Ian’s SUV.
Ian laid the shoulders on the tailgate while I kept ahold of the ankles. I’d managed to control my nausea, but now my arms were burning. I didn’t even want to think about letting the body drop, or the sound of it hitting the pavement. Ian climbed into the back and pulled the shoulders from the inside, and finally I could let go. I looked around the dark lot outside the gym. I didn’t think anyone saw us, but I could hear the crowd from the game moving in our direction.
“You okay?” Ian asked.
I nodded.
“I’m real sorry, Ash,” he whispered. “Really.”
“It’s okay.” I tried to smile. “I need a drink,” I laughed, “but I’m okay.”
Now Ian laughed too, obviously relieved that I’d been able to handle it. Maybe he was even a little impressed.
After laughing, though, he added earnestly, “Technically you weren’t supposed to see any of this. Right?”
“Right,” I nodded. “Of course. Okay.”