Corrosion

by Jon Bassoff

  Uncle Horace and Aunt Rose each shook his hand and said certainly we will, certainly we will, but I didn’t do any such thing, no reason to kiss up to a devilish troll. And so he glared at me with those suspicious eyes, said, see you around, Benton, see you around.

  You think you’ve got it all figured out? You don’t know shit! You hear me? You don’t know shit!

  * * *

  Two days later, I left the mountain town of Silverville for good, made my way back to the Skull Shack, and they threw me a farewell parade, all the miners and fur trappers and whores lined up on Gold Street with their American flags and noisemakers and wind-chapped faces. Children hoisted on shoulders, babies soothed with bourbon-dipped pacifiers, pretty girls whispering and giggling. From the top of the hill, I could hear the high school marching band play “Auld Lang Syne.”

  But there were some strange goings on in the mountain and there is a world outside of my head. A dervish of snow falling and falling, and somewhere in the morning light a bowed psaltery playing a single note, never-ending. A small brick chapel, appearing like a fever dream, and behind it a graveyard. And an old man leaning against a fence, watching while a woman wearing a ragged beaver-fur coat—his wife maybe—digs into the earth with a round-point shovel. I stopped walking, said what are you digging the grave up for, and he said, don’t you know the undertaker was a lunatic? Yes, mister, we have some reliable information that he desecrated all these bodies buried here, fucked their eye sockets and so forth, and now we diggin’ ’em up to make things right again. The dead oughta have some peace, don’t you think?

  Well, I didn’t know what to say, so I kept right on walking and I wasn’t sure if the undertaker was crazy or if this husband and wife here were crazy, and then I placed my hands on my ears and I screamed and screamed, trying to exorcise the demons and angels, and the old man and his wife both smiled at me, their faces ravaged and pale.

  * * *

  We stayed in the shack, me in the living area, Constance down below, and we had enough canned food and soda to live for a month at least. She wasn’t well, she told me she wasn’t well, and she begged me to call for help, but it was too late for that. I’m sorry, I said to her, tears streaming down my ruddy cheeks, I’m so sorry. But if they find out the things I’ve done, they’ll tie me up and lock me up. And if they find out the things I want to do, they’ll take me to the Castle, and there’s no escaping from there…

  But it wasn’t just Constance who was ill. My own health was failing: headaches, bloody noses, peeling skin, uncontrollable shaking. Casualty of war. I wondered what the Soldier would do.

  He had a woman, you know. Elizabeth was her name. She was captured by a band of terrorists, raped and mutilated. Well, the Soldier came looking for her, and he found her, but they stuck a knife to her throat, said give us the information we need, we’ll spare her life. And he stood there for a long time, and you could tell he was torn, the choice was between country and woman, and he shook his head and said, do what you need to do, and they sliced her throat, and he got good and mad and took care of each and every one of those Iraqis, and when he left, his uniform and face were covered with blood and he shook his head and said, God help me, but I ain’t no traitor.

  * * *

  The winter was a cold one, and the snow never stopped falling, and darkness came earlier and earlier until there seemed to be no light at all. And there were moments of happiness, moments when I convinced myself that everything was going to be okay, but those moments disappeared like tears in the darkness, and misery crept through a crack in the window and sat on his haunches in the corner of the cabin, glaring at me with grim satisfaction.

  CHAPTER 26

  A week or more later they came for me. Nighttime and I could see them marching up the hill, a group of men, some in uniform, some in overalls. The authorities and the townsfolk. Holding torches and rifles and baseball bats.

  Well, Constance must have sensed their presence because she got excited, started shouting and pounding on the latch. They knew about me, but they couldn’t know about Constance, so I unlocked the padlock, and my hands were shaking and my nose was bleeding, and I opened the hatch door, and Constance had climbed up the ladder, and she didn’t look much like a human anymore, and I kicked her hard in the temple and she screamed, then went toppling down the ladder like a rag doll, and then she was on the floor of the cellar, and she wasn’t moving and I didn’t know if she were dead or alive, I didn’t know if I were dead or alive, and I closed the hatch and locked it and covered it with the throw rug and a stack of wood, and then they were pounding on the door, saying, c’mon Benton, we know you’re in there, but the door was jammed shut with another pile of wood.

  I knew this could be the end for me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight, see I had the Father and the Soldier and the Christ Rat on my side, the Holy Trinity, so I used the fire poker to shatter the back window, and then I pulled my body through, and the broken glass cut through my skin, and I could hear them at the front door, pounding with those axes and baseball bats, and then I was running across the mountain floor, and each breath was a terrified scream, and only I knew that every tree was a murdered corpse, forever frozen with gnarled limbs, only I knew that the sky was swirling with tortured spirits and fallen angels, only I knew that the dirt was readying to open up and swallow me into its maw, and where was that music coming from, that strange music, deathly doo-wop from the broken speakers of a transistor radio.

  I raced across the side of the mountain, feet sliding in the snow, grabbing a hold of branches when I could. The sky was as black as death itself, the moon a sliver of bone. And from behind, ghostly voices echoing across the mountain, unearthly firelight flashing spastically across the terrain.

  I knew the mountain well, but when the moon disappeared behind the clouds, it became too dark and I was disoriented, lost in the cold and the snow, afraid that my frost-covered remains would be found, burrowed at the base of a lodgepole.

  And I could tell they were closing in, could hear their voices echoing across the mountain, saying, we know you’re out here, Benton. Show yourself before you freeze to death. We don’t aim to hurt you, Benton. We just want to make things right.

  And moments turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours, and I prayed to God with all of my might, and God showed some sympathy, revealed a hiding place, a hiding place where I couldn’t be found. A tunnel, barely visible in the darkness, and from the back of the cavern, voices whispering lovingly for me to come join them, and I pulled my way through the narrow opening, and it was cold and dark, and I felt like a blind man, unable to see inches in front of my eyes.

  But I knew that a safety awaited me, a temporary sanctuary from the motley crew on the side of the mountain, its members howling in anguish at having lost their prey. My body was aching, slashed badly from the broken glass, and every movement filled me with pain, and still I pressed forward, a soldier in desperate retreat from his enemy.

  The tunnel went on forever and the voices from the world became muted and then vacant and I never wanted to hurt Constance but it was the only way, and my heart was filled with anguish and fear as I climbed deeper into the cave, and I realized that now I was an animal, and I growled, and then suddenly my eyes sharpened and I could see with perfect clarity, could see the sinkholes and the speleothems, could see the bats and the flatworms and the ghosts…

  I crawled forward, and I figured I would never turn back. I could smell the rot of my mother’s body, could hear the screams of Constance’s nightmares, could see the death mask of my own face.

  And the men who were searching for me, the men who wished to do me harm, they were gone, all gone, and I’d rather be eaten by the worms than spend my days in the Castle, so I placed my head on the cold ground and closed my eyes and slept and woke and there were bats and there were screams, and they were my screams, and God spoke to me, said I am with you, I will never leave you, my child, and I cried, but the tears were acid and they b
urned my skin, peeled it right off, and then my head was nothing but a Halloween skull, lolling back and forth, back and forth.

  And after a night of forever, morning came, and a streak of light from somewhere, and I pulled myself forward, a soldier badly wounded, and it wasn’t long until I reached God’s temple, a small asylum at the end of the cavern. There was water on the floor and strange-looking crystals growing from the ceiling and for a moment I thought I was dead, but then I felt the slashes on my body and the melancholy in my brain and I knew that I was still dragging my body and soul across this mean old world.

  So what else was there to do but wait? See, I couldn’t be sure that my executors weren’t waiting outside the cave, hiding behind the trees or in a dug-out trench with their rifles and torches, and I was sure they’d burn me at the stake. I had no food, but I could drink the water from the filthy stream, and dysentery was the least of my concerns.

  And there were voices coming from everywhere, so I covered my ears with my hands and rocked back and forth and couldn’t you see it coming full circle, my father being dragged off to the mad house and finally them coming for me. You don’t understand the kind of things they will do to me! There is a certain Dr. Freeman who drives from town to town in his lobotomobile, and he uses an icepick, places it beneath your eyelids, pounds it in with a mallet. Haven’t you seen all of his patients wandering across the country, zombie-like, cognitive-reasoning mutilated, souls bleeding on the linoleum? You want me to join them in that horror flick? Well, do you? This was certain: I had to keep my wits about me.

  Weeks or more passed and I’d shrunken below 75 pounds for sure, face gaunt, eyes flickering back and forth across my sockets. Eating worms and my own flesh, using a black rock to scrape messages in the wall: I am because I am because I am.

  And then, just like that, the voices vanished and I wondered if it might be safe to go outside. Where were the men who hunted me? Where was Dr. Freeman and his ice pick?

  It was hard to tell the nighttime from the day, hard to tell sleep from wakefulness, hard to tell madness from enlightenment. And if I were to creep out of the cavern and face the world once again, I’d have to do it on my own. There would be no ravens to send from this here ark, no voice of God making promises a day too late.

  And so with true grit I returned to the narrow tunnel, all filled with disease-soaked bats and ravenous rats and everything not-so-nice, and I crawled on my scab-covered belly, and everything smelled like mildew and the end of the world, and outside the Mountain was still there, and it never goes away does it?

  CHAPTER 27

  It was morning time and the snow had stopped falling and the sun was rising above the craggy mountain, saying how do you do, Benton, good to see you back among the living, pity that it ain’t gonna be for long! I trudged through the snow, and sometimes it reached above my knees, and I kept alert for the Searchers, kept alert for the Lobotomist, but it was just me, not even a crow screeching.

  My jacket was warm and so was my pom-pom hat, but my jeans were soaking wet and I couldn’t stop shivering, teeth a broken metronome. For a few minutes I wished that I were dead but then I worried about hell and what it would bring, so I kept pushing through the snow, searching for a familiar tree or rock, searching for Hansel’s breadcrumbs.

  I wondered how Constance was doing all alone in that fruit cellar, and I had been all alone in the cave, don’t you forget that, and I wondered if she were hearing voices, I wondered if her God was still alive. Something you should know, Constance moaned when we made love, and it wasn’t a moan of pain it was a moan of pleasure, so for those who say I’m a monster, I say I’m not a monster, for those who say I’m a monster, I say you’re the real monster!

  And then down the mountain a bit, a clearing and a path, barely visible in the snow. I was wheezing and I felt dizzy and I suppose I was staggering a bit along that trail. I thanked God that the day was sunny and not as cold, and it wasn’t long until I found the dirt road that took me down the mountain, and I knew that I had to be careful because you never knew when the sheriff and his friends would leap out of the woods, baring fangs, so I walked behind the trees, parallel to the road, listening for engines, hoping I might be able to thumb a ride somewhere, somewhere far away.

  Midmorning and the sun was lifting upward when I heard the faint hum of a motor, and I stood out there in the middle of the road, hoping he might stop, but it was a big old Caddy, and a fellow in a cowboy hat laid on that horn and I had no choice but to dive back into the snowbank. My hands were numb, and I wished I had my bottle of plum brandy, but instead I settled for a pinch of snuff, and then I wiped the snow off my clothes and laughed out loud and kept right on walking down that winter mountain road.

  And time passed, and for a long time there were no more automobiles barreling down the mountain, and I got to feeling lonely and tired, maybe more lonely and tired than I ever had been, and so I began singing a song, and it was a song I had never heard before, but it was a song that had existed forever: From the darkness in the sea to the sunshine on the hill in the forest filled with trees my shadow has gone still and my mother had once said that there were those rare moments in our lives where there was an opportunity for real change, where we could leave our battered souls by the side of the road and pick up a new one that hadn’t been so badly mutilated, but we had to know when those moments were because once they’re gone they’re gone and then we’re stuck with our old souls and that’s just about when all hell can break loose…

  So I guess I knew from the time I saw the yellow headlights appear around the bend, I guess I knew from the time the old Chevy pickup slowed down and groaned to a stop, I guess I knew from the time the passenger-side door flung open, I just knew that this here was one of those moments.

  I got into the pickup and pulled the door shut behind me, and I said I sure do appreciate the ride and then I looked up and I almost felt sick because his face was a mess, all burned and deformed, and he stuck out his hand and I shook it, and he said his name was Joseph Downs and where are you heading, and I said I just need to get off the mountain, and he said are you running from something, and I said we’re all running from something, aren’t we?

  Well, I was in luck because not only was he leaving the mountain, but he was driving clear on through to Ohio, where his folks were. Said he hadn’t seen them in some time…

  And then we didn’t talk for a while, and he turned on the radio, old-time jazz, and hell was on my mind, a vague threat, but it couldn’t be worse than the piss-pot known as Earth, so I rested easy on that, and I watched out the window as the snow and the mines and the trees rushed by so fast.

  And nobody knew where Constance was, nobody knew if she were alive or dead, and I was a person of interest, but there were no roadblocks, there were no sheriff cars with their lights flashing in time.

  By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, the sun was sinking and the sky was turning a mess of pastels. Joseph Downs turned off the radio and pulled out a cigarette and asked if I wanted one, and I said thankee much, and we both smoked, and I knew he was going to tell me his story, knew he was going to tell me about his face, knew this was a story I didn’t want to hear.

  Tells about being a Marine, about being stationed in Mosul. Tells about his convoy driving down this dirt road, trying to secure the area. Tells how it was pitch-black and their lights were off and they wore night goggles. Tells how they came to a bridge over a canal and how the bridge exploded and his eardrums exploded and the Humvee exploded. Tells about how there were flames everywhere and the insurgents had gotten them but good and he knew he was hurt bad but couldn’t feel any pain. Tells about the detached legs and arms he witnessed, the decapitated heads. Tells about being pulled out by a soldier with a gas mask and then finding himself in a chopper, flying over the burning desert, not sure if he was dead or not, wishing he was.

  And he told me this story over the course of an hour at least, and he cried and laughed while telling it, a
nd I listened to every detail, memorized every detail, and it occurred to me that this guy was a real hero, and it’s better to experience pain and heartache than to experience nothing at all…

  They wouldn’t let me see a mirror for some time, he said, and when they finally did, they had all sorts of doctors and orderlies and psychiatrists at my bedside. And I saw my face, and it wasn’t a face that I recognized. I cried for a long time after that. You go to save the world. You don’t figure that it’s you that’ll need saving.

  They’d tried calling his parents but hadn’t been able to get a hold of anybody. And when he found out that the hospital was trying to contact his next of kin, he got very angry. He didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to him, didn’t want people to see his face, didn’t want people to see his soul. And the orderly, an Asian woman who smelled of lavender, promised that they wouldn’t call again, not until he was ready.

  Well, by this time Joseph Downs and I had both torn through a handful of cigarettes and I offered him some snuff but he didn’t want any. Never cared for it, he said. And now the Mountain was in our rearview mirror, and so was the Skull Shack and the nightmares inside.

  As he continued talking, I could feel strange sensations on my arms and legs, parasites crawling under my skin, and I knew that I’d contracted whatever disease my mother had had…