Corrosion

by Jon Bassoff

  While in the hospital he’d been visited by a soldier in his brigade and this soldier said that he should consider himself lucky, that nearly everybody else in the Humvee had been killed. Well, that got him good and riled and he told the soldier that there were some things a hell of a lot worse than dying and those sons-of-bitches had it easy compared to him. And then he made the soldier an offer that he couldn’t refuse. He gave him one of his dog tags. He instructed him to find his father in Ohio. Told him to give his father the dog tag. Tell him the story, just like it had happened. Only tell him that he’d died. And in exchange for this deception he offered the soldier $5,000.

  Well, the soldier had done what he’d been told and so Joseph Downs was dead, another corpse in the desert, only now he wanted a resurrection, and don’t we all?

  CHAPTER 28

  And it was all beginning to make sense now, my destiny was manifesting itself, and I had God to thank for that. And I remembered my father the scientist saying that God had decomposed and we must not weep for him. Well, my father was wrong. God was alive and well, but we couldn’t understand his ways, not most of the time.

  So what were you doing in the mountains? I asked Joseph Downs.

  Hiding, he said. Nobody saw me; I saw nobody else. I was a ghost and nothing more.

  But now he’d decided that he didn’t want to be a ghost anymore, he decided that maybe life was worth living even without a human face. And now he was going to return to his childhood home and he wasn’t sure how his father was going to react, didn’t know if it would be joy or fury or both.

  My own father had never been accepted by the scientific community, that’s why he’d moved to the mountains. Oh, but he’d showed me some things, showed me the way chemicals reacted, and I couldn’t help thinking of all the cans of Sterno he’d hoarded, just in case, Benton, just in case.

  And when Joseph Downs was done talking about himself, about the war, about his death and rebirth, he started asking me some questions, out of curiosity, out of politeness, and I dreaded when people asked me questions. Questions about my past. Questions about my family. Questions about my future. I answered each and every inquiry with a lie, made up outlandish stories, and he glanced at me nervously from the corner of his eye, and I wondered just what he was thinking then.

  Two hours of driving and eastern Colorado was the devil’s land, nothing but sagebrush and dirt all dusted by the snow, the occasional farm, occasional car, occasional piss-pot town. The wind never stopped blowing, and don’t you know the wind drove people crazy, caused normal men to slaughter their families and then sit in front of the television watching game shows with the volume up full blast until the police arrived.

  And you see strange things out on the plains, and you wonder if the driver sees them too: an old woman on the roof of a shanty, spinning a weaving wheel; a dusty roadside billboard advertising 6 Gals For $1.00; a grain elevator tilted like the Tower of Pisa; an auctioning of slaves in front of a textile mill; a destitute family lying facedown on the railroad tracks.

  My Browning knife was in my front pocket, and I knew I’d have to use it, but I’d never used it on another human, just our dog, after she broke her back, to put her out of her misery. Dad had put her in the wheelbarrow and made me push her out through the woods and I slit her throat and watched her twitch and die, and I cried for a long time, and my father helped me bury her, but my mother was sick in bed.

  So you wonder if you can actually do it, start thinking that it’s a hell of a thing killing a man, and then you remember that you’ve got God on your side, and you realize that Joseph Downs is The Soldier, and you realize that you’re Joseph Downs.

  Before the war, I had a girlfriend, he said. She’s still in Ohio. Who knows, I might go knocking on her door. I think she’ll scream in fright…

  Joseph Downs laughed at the thought. And that’s when I pulled out my knife. With one quick motion I jerked his head toward me with my left hand and sliced horizontally across his throat with my right. Blood started gushing from the hole in his throat, and he tried controlling the car, but it was no use, it careened off the highway and went rolling through a frost-covered field of nothing, eventually coming to stop in front an oversized wooden arrow pointing upward, reading Prepare to Meet God.

  But Joseph Downs wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. He was squeezing his neck, trying to hold in the life, but blood was seeping through his fingers, and he was staring at me with eyes of death, and I thought of Jesus, and I was still holding my blood-smeared knife.

  And then he died and it was easy to tell when it happened because his shoulders slumped and his face relaxed and his eyes stopped blinking. I sat there for a long time and the wind stopped blowing and everything was quiet and still and he was squeezing his own throat; he had strangled himself to death.

  * * *

  I opened the door and stepped out of the car and looked around. There were miles and miles of loneliness and desolation and it was as good a place as any for Joseph Downs to die, and I vomited on the ground and wiped my mouth, and I knew what I had to do, but I was feeling unsteady and dizzy so I lay down on the ground and stared into the sky of gray and thought it sure is a funny world.

  I might have fallen asleep, but not for long, because I heard the distant sound of an engine and I sat up and crawled behind the pickup, peered over the bed. It was a semi, but the driver didn’t slow down, never noticed the wayward truck or the corpse inside, and even if he had, better to keep moving, better not to stick your nose into such disasters, benefits are minimal.

  Once I’d gotten my bearings straightened out, I walked around to the other side of the truck and opened up the driver’s-side door. It was harder work than you might think, but eventually I pulled the veteran’s body from the truck and dragged it around back. I reached into his pockets for his wallet. I popped open the trunk, and then the wind started blowing again, and I pulled him up from under his arms, and I was sweating and breathing heavily, and then he was inside the trunk and I slammed it shut, and the Mountain seemed like such a long time ago.

  * * *

  I sat in the pickup and looked through his wallet and I felt bad, like I was violating him, but then I remembered that he was dead as hell, and you couldn’t violate a dead man. Inside the wallet there was a picture of a girl, and she had blonde hair and blue eyes and she was pretty enough, and she thought Joseph had died and now Joseph had died. There were no credit cards, but there was cash, close to five hundred dollars, and I knew that would get me started. And then I looked at his driver’s license, and that caused me to lose my breath, because his face in the picture wasn’t deformed, his face in the picture was handsome and proud, and he was ready to go to a foreign land and serve his country, save the world. The world hadn’t been saved, his country hadn’t been served, his body and soul had been maimed and left for dead.

  And the other thing that got me was that he was only nineteen years old, and I was only sixteen years old, and why had we both suffered so much, well, the devil was having a laugh or two.

  I drove and the world was desolate except for some cottonwoods lined against the banks of a river with no name. There were railroad tracks and feed elevators and finally a water tower and some dilapidated tract houses and a sign reading Welcome to Thompsonville, Home of 1,372 Friendly People. I exited off of Interstate 6 and came to Main Street and there were boarded-up windows and a bar and a liquor store and a diner and a hardware store.

  I parked in front of the hardware store, and it was called Fred’s, and there was a dead soldier in my trunk, and I walked inside, and the cashier at the front of the store was a trashy little blonde, and I figured that maybe I could show her a thing or two, but I thought better of it and just nodded politely.

  In the front of the store was a round-point shovel, and I grabbed that; then I started wandering up and down the aisles, and I found a mason’s jar and a gasoline siphon and a container of Sterno, and I brought this stuff to the cashier and laid down a hundre
d-dollar bill and she looked at me with a strange expression and she wanted to know what I aimed to do with this stuff and Joseph Downs was dead and Joseph Downs was alive.

  CHAPTER 29

  Back in the car, still driving west, thinking about Constance and rats and war and insanity and…

  The sun was setting and I could feel the darkness before I saw it. Endless miles of frozen dirt and buffalo grass. I could have left him in the wheat fields somewhere to rot away like Mother, but he deserved a proper burial and so did I. Drove a while, found an old abandoned church with crows circling the steeple, and everything was in sepia. I parked a ways away, and I was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and I stepped out of the car.

  Off in the distance the lightning flashed and a low growl of thunder followed. The headlights shone on the frozen soil, and I pulled out my shovel, and once again I was digging, and in my pockets were flowers for the grave.

  Hands bleeding, muscles aching, I pressed on.

  Things didn’t have to end this way.

  My destiny was never chosen for me.

  Love was waiting for me.

  The hole was dug. Not six feet. Deep enough.

  I walked back to the truck, head down, shovel dragging behind me. More lightning and thunder, more wind howling across the plains.

  His face was burned and charred, but the pain and sadness were gone forever. I pulled him out of the trunk and as I staggered across the ice-covered ground, grasping the soldier tightly in my arms, I could feel myself transforming, could feel my old soul begin to rise and vanish into the waiting darkness and gloom.

  And the other dog tag was still around his neck, and I pulled it off and placed it in my pocket and I pushed him over the edge and he rolled onto his back and he was staring up at me with those terrible eyes and I stared back for a while, and I blinked first; then I picked up the shovel and covered him with dirt and ice and snow and there was no absolution or blessing or prayers.

  From partial to complete transformation:

  I siphoned gasoline into the mason’s jar, halfway full, then opened up the container of Sterno and scooped up a handful and placed it in the jar, used a stick to mix it up. My father said, you never know when they’re gonna come for you, you never know, and you can mix napalm with gasoline, and when ignited, it can kill or wound because the napalm will stick, don’t you see, and third-degree burns aren’t painful because the nerves are killed, but hit someone with a small splash and they’ll survive, and they’ll be in pain, and they’ll have hideous scars, and this should only be used in self-defense, Benton, and Sterno is the same thing as napalm, and you never know when those neo-fascists will come after you, you never know, Benton.

  A Comanche warrior, I used my fingers to cover my face with the Sterno/gasoline mixture, and then I sat on the ground and clasped my hands together and prayed for a good long time and I thought about all the hurt and sadness I’d ever felt, and there was no turning back for me this time, Constance, Constance, Constance.

  In my pocket there was a lighter. In the ground was Joseph Downs. On the plains the wind was blowing. Where was the mountain? Far away now. Far away now. Far away now.

  And then the flames are everywhere and I’m choking and my eyes are bursting. Muted screams. The squad leader: My fucking leg, my fucking leg! My best friend Dan: Where’s help? Where the fuck is help? And then quiet, the world shimmering in reds and oranges and yellows.

  Time drifting forward then backward then sideways. And trucks crashing through the flames. Soldiers with gas masks. Joseph Downs in the ground. A soldier appearing in front of me, head jerking spastically, shouting instructions, no sounds heard.

  His hand is grasping mine and pulling and I want to stay in the truck in the burning truck where I can rest and be redeemed and he pulls me out, this angel in the night, and a dozen more gas-masked angels hover over me, shaking their heads, and the wind is blowing hard and cold.

  I’m lying in the snow, I’m lying in the desert and my face is burning and everything is blurry and the world is dying and I pray to God that I’m dead, and he doesn’t listen, and the ground begins to tremble and the Soldier rises, arms stretched, nails in his palm, sanctified at last…

  And when he spoke, his voice was only in my head and I covered my ears, but that only made it louder:

  Who are you? he said, causing blood to spurt from my nostrils.

  Benton Faulk, I said.

  No, no, no! Who…are…you?

  I don’t know.

  Don’t fuck with me! Who are you? Who the fuck are you?

  No answer.

  Then he reached into my pocket and pulled out the dog tag and placed it around my neck and my brains were seeping from my ears.

  Let’s try again. Who are you?

  Downs, I mumbled.

  I can’t hear you. Speak up.

  Downs! Joseph Downs!

  Better. What happened to your face?

  I was wounded in the war. IED.

  Yes, yes! Now repeat after me: My name is Joseph Downs.

  My name is Joseph Downs.

  I served my country proudly.

  But I couldn’t speak because my mouth was filled with fire.

  Say it!

  I served…

  What?

  I served…

  Keep going!

  I served my country…my country…

  Yes?

  Proudly. I served my country proudly.

  And then staggering to the car and hitting the engine and glancing in the rearview mirror. Screams and laughter and screams.

  My name is Joseph Downs. I served my country proudly.

  PART THREE: JOSEPH DOWNS (2010)

  “There are too many of them; you can’t kill the world.”

  —Davis Grubb, Night of the Hunter

  CHAPTER 30

  I stepped outside of the truck, the snow crunching beneath my bloodstained boots. A bedroom light flashed on, and I saw Lilith in the window. She was wearing a long white gown and her face was otherworldly. I stood in front of my hearse, the shotgun dangling from my hand, a steel appendage. Somewhere in the distance a lonesome train whistle blew. I pulled back my hair with my hand and started walking slowly toward her door. And now I knew what I was going to do, what I had to do. Choices aren’t made. There is no free will.

  I stood on the porch, listened to the murderous wind chimes in the breeze. I’d been here before. You can’t undo the things you’ve done. The door was unlocked and I opened it slowly. I entered the living room, warped floorboards beneath my feet, a distorted soundtrack. The morning light shone through the curtains, dull and muted. And then I heard Lilith. Victor? she called, fear in her voice. Is that you?

  Victor. So that was the vaquero’s name.

  I shook my head, grinned. Not Victor.

  I walked through the living room, glancing around, taking in details I hadn’t noticed before. An old fireplace, all bricked in. Television on a whiskey carton. Matryoshka dolls on the mantel. A portrait of a dead ancestor on the wall, but no photographs of the living.

  Lilith called out again, voice panicked, pleading for her Victor, but he’d gone back to his warm home, left her all alone to face the big bad wolf and other monsters in the light. The shotgun was in my hand. I’d killed men in Iraq. I’d never been to Iraq. Truth? What is truth?

  The door to the bedroom was closed and it was too quiet and I knew she was in there. I stood outside the door for a long time, my elongated shadow spreading down the hallway. I pictured her huddled on her bed, eyes full of horror, body trembling, anticipating the coming apocalypse. I knew that terrorized feeling well. How many nights had I lain awake in my own bed and stared at the shadows moving on the wall, listened to rats scurrying on the floor, tasted the blood dripping from my lips, felt that reverberation of dread in my soul? Yes, I knew what she was feeling, and I was more than glad. Any compassion I might have had for the woman had vanished when I’d seen the vaquero leaving her house as the sun lifted ab
ove the snow-covered plains.

  Shotgun at the ready, grin spread across my melted face, I pushed open the door. Lilith was inside, but she wasn’t huddled on the bed. She was standing with her back to the door, arms folded, gazing out the window at the bloodshot sky. Her hair was now black, chopped short. She’d gotten a new tattoo on her shoulder blade—Chinese symbols, meaningless. I stood just inside the doorway, lowered my weapon. She knew I was there but didn’t turn around. I watched her. How badly I wanted to strangle her, how badly I wanted to fuck her. She was less than human, and aren’t we all. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, sad. I thought you were in jail, she said. They told me you’d be locked up for good.

  I leaned against the wall, took a load off. Sympathetic judge, I said. What with me being a war hero and all. An old friend bailed me out. It doesn’t matter. Freedom’s the worst prison of all.

  Lilith nodded her head slowly, traced her finger down the window. And what are you going to do, Joseph? Rape me? Kill me?

  Maybe.

  She turned around, raven hair untamed, face smeared with last night’s makeup. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at my face, then my gun, and then back at my face. Her lips spread into a grin and she laughed. God, she said, you really are gruesome.

  And what can a fellow say to that? She was cold and hard and mean. I took a few steps so that I was standing right in front of her. Our eyes locked and neither of us blinked. Then she loaded up and spat a good one directly into my face. I wiped the spit off with the back of my hand, thought about it for a second. Blood burning behind my eyes, I gripped the barrel of the shotgun and swung hard, connecting flush with her cheekbone. She staggered backward, spun around, and then collapsed to the floor, a rag doll that nobody wanted anymore. I took another step forward until I was looming over her. She was in bad shape, moaning and groaning, grabbing at her face, writhing in pain. I almost felt bad about what I’d done, but then I remembered the world and the way it was, and I reared back and kicked her hard in the stomach. She grunted and gasped and I kicked her one more time, then let her be. That was all the loathing I could muster.