Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  —and revealed his burned, terrible, ruined face.

  I did not blink at the sight of him.

  I did not look away.

  I did not gasp, cry out, groan, or whimper; to have done any of those things would lessen me in his eyes—his eye, his one, perfect, azure-blue eye—and I did not want him to think ill of me; I wanted his understanding, his strength, his respect and blessing: I was looking at a face that had known more pain, horror, and suffering in its few brief years on this earth than any ten people who lived to the age of ninety would ever know or imagine or turn away from when confronted by.

  So I did not make a sound; that act, and that act alone, may be the only moment of genuine grace I offered the world in my entire life.

  But I did weep; the tears formed instantaneously in my eyes and just as quickly streamed down my face and I did nothing to stop them.

  I wouldn't allow myself to.

  Because even though all their confusing words were still swimming around in my drug-addled brain, even though I still didn't know for certain what was happening because no one had yet said it outright, even though I was still scared shitless and wishing now I'd never agreed to make the drive down to Kansas, some dimly-lighted corner of my mind was whispering the truth of what I was witnessing but did not want to accept.

  "Can we please take it off now?" asked Rebecca.

  False-Face looked at me, picked up his gun, then nodded his head. "I do not know how you are going to take this"—he rose to his feet and stepped to the bed, pressing the business-end of the silencer against my jaw—"but if you try anything, I will harm you."

  I was still looking at Thomas as he wept into Arnold's chest; Arnold stroked the back of the boy's scar-clumped head, whispering, "It is all right, Thomas, it is, I promise, there, there, it will be all right, you will see…."

  Rebecca exhaled with relief as she pulled off her wig to expose a moist, jagged, discolored scalp, speckled with a few tufts of stringy hair, that covered only two-thirds of her head; the rest was a slightly dented metal plate. She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders in a girlish, oh-well way, then reached up and slowly, carefully, with precise and clearly practiced movements, began removing the sculpted prosthesis that was her nose; underneath was a set of exposed sinus slits that bubbled with thick, colorless mucus every time she breathed. Setting the nose into a clean handkerchief beside her, she reached into her mouth and took out the partial plate; almost every one of her upper teeth had been removed—and none too gently, judging from the blackened appearance of her mangled, deeply-rutted gums. She then peeled away her left cheek from earlobe to jawline and, after that, the layer of latex that had been underneath the false cheek; there was nothing below that but gleaming bone. She sighed, a three-year-old (Are we done yet?), looked at me, popped out her left, glass eye, then put the partial plate back into her mouth.

  "I am sorry," she said. "But I had to take that out for just a minute. It is so uncomfortable sometimes. I put it back because it is not easy to understand me when I do not have it in."

  "Okay…?" I said, almost nodding but then—as False-Face pressed the gun closer—deciding against it.

  "You seem very nice," Rebecca said, then unbuttoned the top three buttons of her off-white blouse. The flesh across her chest was badly scarred, but as ugly and painful-looking as it was, it seemed like a scab on a knee compared to the coarse mass of misshapen tissue that clung where her left breast had once been; she seemed to blush—it was impossible to be sure—as she reached down into the sports bra and removed the expertly-shaped foam-rubber replacement. She laid it next to the prosthetic nose, then picked up a jar of cold cream from the floor. "I have to go into the bathroom and scrub the rest of the base off. Will you excuse me?"

  "Of course."

  She looked at False-Face. "I think you should be nice to him."

  "I think you need to let me worry about him."

  "Okay, then." She gave me a little wave—her wrists, like Denise's, were encircled with bruises and scrapes—then turned away; that's when I saw the thumbnail-sized and shaped scar at the base of her neck. Had Grendel scorched her with a lighted cigar, laughing while she squirmed and whimpered and smelled her own flesh burning?

  Rebecca went into the bathroom—I could see my pants and underwear draped over the shower rod—and closed the door.

  In the corner, Thomas had stopped crying and was singing to himself again. I recognized the tune, I knew I did. But from where?

  "Can I take mine off now?" asked Arnold.

  "You may," replied False-Face. Then, to me: "A grammatical mistake like that would leave us bleeding from the rear for three days." The prosthesis of his upper lip was coming farther loose. He blinked, then used the index and middle finger of his free hand to press it back into place; it held for the moment, but it wasn't going to last: he was perspiring too heavily underneath the makeup. His wrists were bruised, as well; I didn't have to look at Arnold's or Thomas's to know theirs would be just the same; at some point all of them had been handcuffed too tightly for a very long while.

  "What do you want from me?" I asked False-Face.

  "Your help."

  "I might be willing to discuss it if you'd get that gun out of my face."

  "I have heard that before. The last man who said that to me then tried to take this gun away. I killed him. I shot him three times in the face and twice in the throat. And to my everlasting regret, Denise saw him die."

  So he'd killed Grendel in order to rescue her. I couldn't blame him for that. I might even have admired him for it if I hadn't been so fucking scared.

  "I forgot my towel," said Arnold, then called out: "Rebecca? Could you throw out a towel for my face?"

  "Must I remember everything?" The bathroom door opened and a folded white towel sailed out, landing on the bed. Arnold mumbled something under his breath, then said: "Could someone please fix it for me?"

  False-Face sighed, then shoved the gun into the back of his pants and crossed over to the bed, where he unfolded the towel, lay it flat, whispered something to Arnold, then stepped away.

  Arnold was holding his full-face mask by the corners with both hands. A thin layer of latex coated his actual face. After gently placing his mask onto the towel, he peeled away the latex—which had been applied over sheets of plastic-wrap used to further protect his skin.

  I felt the breath catch in my throat.

  Arnold's real face was both horrifying and beautiful; Grendel had scarred every inch of his features with tremendous care, even skill; I knew without having to ask what this was meant to convey, because Grendel—whoever he'd been—had studied the art of Ta Moko; I'd written a paper on it in college.

  Ta Moko was a method of facial scarring practiced by Maori warriors; the free-flowing, blue-black geometrical patterns were intended to convey many meanings: they identified chiefs and social groups, symbolized aggression and ferocity, and—not least of all—disguised the wearer's age. However, the most important function of the moko was to mark a person's individuality; some chiefs used their moko as a signature on land treaties with Europeans.

  Flowing lines covered Arnold's forehead, each of them melting downward into the others until the configuration formed an arrow point above the bridge of his nose; his cheeks were covered in fractal-like whorl patterns of shapes-within-shapes-within-shapes, some of them circular, others elongated; these ran at downward slants, mirroring the angle of his cheekbones, until branching off onto his upper lip; there they intersected and passed to the opposite side of his face, turning downward via the jaw again, and meeting in the direct center of his chin where they became four perfect circles, overlapping so that a fifth was formed in the middle.

  What made the scars even more unique was that Grendel had not used the traditional Maori method of coloring the scars with dark juices taken from indigenous berries; he'd employed some kind of bleach: the scars were a startling shade of deep off-white, giving Arnold's face the look of someone who'd walked in
to a spider's web that was made from human cartilage.

  "Do they hurt?" I heard myself asking.

  He shrugged. "Not as much as they used to. The ones on my body still hurt a lot sometimes." He looked at me and tried to smile but didn't quite make it. "I have them everywhere." He pointed to his back, his arms, his legs… and his crotch. "Everywhere."

  "I'm so sorry."

  "What for? You did not do it."

  "I only meant—"

  "Your sympathy is a little late for any of us," said False-Face. "So if you could just keep it to yourself, we would all feel better."

  I glared at him. "I wasn't being condescending."

  "Yes, you were. You just did not know it. Which I find is the case with most pretty people."

  "I'm not pretty."

  "You are in comparison to us." Then he laughed. "Shar-Peis and Pit Bulls are pretty in comparison to us, now that I think about it." He caught the expression on my face. "Do not look at me like that. This is not self-pity. It is a simple statement of fact."

  I waited a moment, then decided to let the subject drop. "Do you have a name?"

  "Yes, I do."

  I waited, then waited some more, and finally said: "This is usually the part of the conversation where the other person introduces themselves."

  "Is that so?" he said, knocking on the bathroom door. "Rebecca?"

  "What?"

  "Is everything all right?"

  "I am trying to pee, if you do not mind. What do you want?"

  "Are his pants and underwear dry?"

  "Since my arms are not five feet long, I cannot tell from here—and, no, I am not going to stand up and check."

  "Told you she was in one of her moods," said Arnold to False-Face. "But do you listen to me? No, you do not. I am just Arnold, who everyone thinks talks to himself." He looked at me. "I do talk to myself, sometimes, but mostly it is just that no one listens to me when I try to tell them something."

  "Fine," said False-Face. "From now on you can do all the talking."

  "That is not what I meant."

  "Mind your tone, Arnold."

  "Why do you always sound like that when you speak to me? You talk like you think I am retarded."

  "Do not start with me, Arnold. You will not win."

  "Would you guys like some privacy for this?" I said. "I'd be happy to step outside and—"

  "Knock it off!" shouted Rebecca from the bathroom. "Or else when I come out of here, I will start pinching you where it will hurt, I swear it."

  "I am sorry," said Arnold.

  False-Face exhaled, his shoulders slumping. "Me, too."

  Thomas started his song over.

  "Okay, then," said Rebecca. "Now would someone turn on a radio or the television or something? I do not want you listening to me do my business."

  Arnold rose from the bed and crossed the room to turn on the television. He flipped through the channels until he found a music video station, then turned up the volume. "Better?"

  "Thank you," said Rebecca.

  Arnold looked at me. "We all lived in the same room. There was only one toilet, so we always had to use the bathroom in front of everyone else. Privacy is still a little new to us."

  "Shut up," said False-Face. "What did we agree on?"

  "I have not said anything about anything, man, not really."

  "And you will not. I am still in charge here."

  "I heard that." Arnold sounded, for the first time, like a child; apologetic, embarrassed, worried that he'd just gotten into trouble. "I did not mean to do anything wrong."

  "Just… be careful what you say, all right?" False-Face looked right at me. "I am not sure we can trust him yet."

  Arnold looked at me, then shrugged. "He seems cool to me."

  "You said that last time, and look what—" False-Face stopped himself, then shook his head. "Never mind. It seems like we are all talking way too much for our own good."

  I raised my hand like a kid in class. "Can I ask something?"

  False-Face tilted his head but made no reply.

  "Would you please tell me what your name is so I'll know what to call you?"

  "Why is that so important to you?"

  "It's common courtesy. Besides, you know a helluva lot more than that about me. If you want my help, it seems the least you could do is tell me your name. Call it a gesture of good faith."

  He thought about it for a moment, then said: "Christopher."

  "As in the saint and 'Robin'?"

  "…Robin?"

  "Winnie-the-Pooh Christopher Robin."

  He squinted, looked at Arnold, and then said: "I have… no idea what that is."

  My mouth may have actually dropped open. "You're kidding?"

  "Three guesses."

  I laughed out of surprise. "One of the most famous children's books of all time and you have no idea—?"

  "What did I just say? Did I mumble? Do you have trouble hearing? I do not know what that is! I have never heard of it! I have never read it! So how could I understand the reference?" He was getting progressively more agitated. "Are you trying to make me feel stupid? Is that it? Or do you just want to confuse me so that you can pull something while I am busy trying to make sense out what you said?" He stormed over to the bed and punched me in the nose, then shoved me up against the headboard, cracking the back of my skull against the wall. "I do not need anyone else to ever make me feel stupid and worthless again! Do you understand?" He grabbed my throat with one incredibly strong hand, holding my head in place. "None of us needs to feel like that, not ever again! Ever!" He squeezed harder, pressing me into the wall and headboard as blood from my nose streamed down his hand. "AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU?"

  "Stop it," said Arnold, grabbing onto Christopher's arm and throwing all his weight into breaking his grip on me.

  "DO NOT MAKE FUN OF ME!"

  Arnold pulled again. "Knock it off, Christopher! He cannot breathe!"

  "DO NOT MAKE FUN OF ANY OF US, PRETTY-BOY! EVER!"

  The room was starting to spin out of focus; my chest felt like it was imploding; the pressure in my skull was almost unbearable.

  Something flew across my field of vision and struck Christopher right in the face. He let go of me and stumbled backward, knocking Arnold aside, his arms pinwheeling for balance as he fell over the footstool in front of the chair by the lamp; he hit the floor with a heavy thud as part of his face fell off—the prosthesis of the upper lip—and then Arnold was on top of him, kneeling on Christopher's chest and holding down his arms.

  "You stop it," said Arnold. "You get hold of yourself right now. You hear me?"

  "Get off my chest!"

  "Not until you calm down." He reached out and grabbed the boot that had struck Christopher's face. "You settle, you do it right now, or I will conk you a good one with this, I swear to God!"

  I bent forward, coughing and rubbing my neck, pulling in as many deep breaths as I could without hyperventilating or gagging on the backwash of blood from my nose. I blinked and wiped my eyes before falling back against the pillows; as I lay there waiting for my heart to stop trying to squirt through my ribs, I turned my head to the side and saw Thomas in his wheelchair, holding the first boot's mate, which he looked ready to heave at a moment's notice. I smiled at him, mouthing "Thanks."

  He nodded his head, then said: "It is not like I really need them anymore."

  The bathroom door flew open and a very irritated Rebecca came out. "All right! That is enough!" She pulled something from the back pocket of her jeans that made a quick, loud sizzling sound and spit out a concentrated flash of bright-blue electricity.

  She lifted the Taser and bolted over to the guys on the floor. "Stop it right now, Christopher"—she made the Taser snap and sizzle—"or I will use this on you."

  Still, he struggled against Arnold.

  "If you think I am kidding," said Rebecca, "then keep it up. You have three seconds to start behaving. One…two…"

  The struggling stopped almost imm
ediately.

  Rebecca nodded her head, smiling. "That is much better. Thank you."

  Arnold rose, the boot still in his hand, and sat on the edge of my bed. "Are you all right, Mark?"

  I wiped blood from my nose and face. "I think so."

  Arnold dug into his back pocket and pulled out a wad of tissues, which he handed to me. I thanked him and pressed the tissues up into my nostrils.

  On the floor, Christopher glared at the ceiling; then, wordlessly, sat up and tore away his hair piece and the rest of his makeup like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum. It couldn't have taken thirty seconds for him to rip it all away.

  The sight of his real face hit me the hardest of them all.

  One of his jaws was completely metal. His nose had been severed just like Rebecca's, only Grendel hadn't stopped there; Christopher's disfigurement extended to the removal of his upper lip and a half-inch of tissue on either side: the center of his face was one large vertical gash, exposing clogged sinus cavities, swollen gums, crooked, discolored teeth, and the shredded remnants of what were once temporalis muscles around the corners of his mouth, leaving him with a permanent rictus grin. His left ear had been torn off. Half of his scalp had been peeled back like an orange, and what little hair remained up there looked like cobwebs covering a piece of spoiled meat. Across the middle of his head, like some toothless maw, was an open wound beneath which a smooth yellowing skull gleamed.

  He looked up at me with tears of rage in his eyes. "On the bright side, at least I will save money on Hallowe'en costumes, right?"

  "Pay no mind, he is just trying to shock you," said Rebecca.

  "He… he succeeded," I whispered.

  She looked at my face, then at Christopher's. "Are you proud of yourself? Hmmm? I certainly hope so, because it is going to take us forever to get your makeup fixed. What have I told you about these little snits of yours?"