by Ed Bullins
The young man became impatient and approached the nut-gatherer. He knelt down and scooped up a handful of the nuts and offered them to the distressed one. The naked thing fixed the interloper in its stare. Its eyes were round and yellow, more suited for a snake’s than a bird’s. The yellow orbs scrutinized the bits lying in his extended hand, now easily within reach, and then the bird flicked out its stubby neck; its cruel beak snatched at nourishment. It tore off the outer joint of the index finger from the young man’s hand.
“Yeee …” filled the small glade. The victim sprang away and flapped his hand at the end of his sleeve; then he placed the stump in his mouth and sucked at the spurting blood, before taking out his handkerchief and wrapping his finger in a bandage.
The bird had resumed feeding. Light flared on, the swift pecker was revealed standing in shadows, whirling in its continuous circle.
After he had reduced the bleeding, the young man again returned to the creature. He crouched over it, waiting for it to skip away, but the thing stopped its spins and stared up at him. The gas lights glistened in the reflection of its eyes, and a luminous halo surrounded each iris when the man looked closer. He reached down and took the bird in his hands. With maimed finger extended, he gripped the thing’s drumsticks; his thumbs and forefingers encircling the forelegs; his remaining fingers helping to brace the bird’s hind legs and tail.
“I’m taking you home with me, strange fellow.”
He began walking toward an exit; the creature roosted, tranquil, upon his knuckles; they reached the gate in minutes.
Night was dabbed with jasmine; it was a black interlude when crickets tuned their bows and mockingbirds pursued low melodies. The stars hung like trinkets against night’s sordid veil.
A cab was waiting at the corner; its driver drew on his cigarette, shooing away the fireflies which sought to mate with the fiery glow.
“Can you take me home?” the young man said.
“That’s my job, son.”
“It’s over on Dixon Street.”
“Okay.” The driver pushed open the door; the passenger light uncovered the weird cargo. “Christ! What’s that?”
“I don’t know … found it in the park.”
“Well … just look at it … those eyes … Hey, what happened to your hand?”
“My friend bit part of my finger off.”
“Hey … I don’t know if I can take you. I don’t carry dangerous animals.”
“It’s okay. He’s quiet now and I’ve got him back here with me. He’ll never bother you.”
“Well … if you say so. But I should take you to a doc first. Animal bites are dangerous.”
“Later. I want to get my little friend home safely.”
The cab started. The silent bird turned its broad head toward the park which fell away through the rear window. It then fastened its eyes upon its captor and beat its false wings three swift times.
“How did you find him, buddy?” the cabbie said.
“Just walked up on him. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. God, I’m really lucky.”
“You sure are … that thing will bring you a nice hunk of dough.”
“Oh, I ain’t gonna sell him.”
“No? Then what’s the good of it … what do you want a thing like that for?”
“I don’t know. I just want to get him home right now and feed him. He looked so starved out there in the park.”
The bird didn’t change its gaze but lunged for the young man’s mouth; its beak fell short of the tongue but dug a furrow down the chin and along the man’s breastbone.
“Oww … dammit, he’s started up again.”
“Well … let him go, fellah, he’s not worth it.”
The blue creature was now jerking its legs, causing its restrainer to rearrange his hands. The wound bled freshly.
The driver braked to a halt and bolted from his door, reaching back and pulling open the rear.
“Quick, throw him the hell out. It ain’t right to keep a thing like that.”
“Please help me; I’ve got him.”
“No; no, I won’t touch that thing. Look how he’s trying to reach down after your blood.”
The creature was pecking, frustrated by its stump of a neck, at the young man’s hands; it was unable to reach the wound but pecked the bandage several times, shredding it.
“Stop,” the young man screamed, “I’ll feed you when we get home. I’ll feed you.”
“It’s a devil,” the driver said.
The heavy bird wrestled one foreleg from the clutching hands and fastened its claws upon the young man’s wrist. The claws gripped like tongs and dug in, immediately bringing blood, until the man’s whole arm was slippery red. The creature swarmed over the man’s fists, ripping spots from his palms which he now used to shove the bird from the door.
“It’s horrible,” the driver moaned. “Get rid of it.”
“Help me,” the young man cried.
With a lunge, the man forced the thing from him and out the cab’s door. The terrible beast landed upon its back with its four legs kicking in the air. The driver swiped at it, hoping to stomp its head, but the featherless thing regained its legs and rushed its new assailant; the driver was routed, filling the blackness with quakes and babbles.
The berserk thing scurried back to the cab and leaped through the doorway; the young man was now upon his knees, with hands protecting his eyes, showering tears down his shirt front to converge with the rivulets of red. As the bird extended its neck to examine its prey, the man shot out his mangled hands and encircled the thing’s throat and beat its head against the car’s footrest. The creature kicked out with its many claws, attempting to disembowel its foe, but before the man fainted, he split the monster’s head, exposing its brains. Finally, the blue thing wriggled out of the clamped fists, displaying a limp wing and a partial view of its inner skull. It didn’t bleed; its eyes, still yellow and alert, stared at its host. Then it made one more move toward the unconscious human, to tear a strip from his thigh and turn, to hobble from the vehicle. It scrambled along the street, in the direction of the sleeping flock, looking like some huge rodent or totally diseased hen with a large worm in its beak. It was an earthbound thing which would never leap into the sky to circle the treetops, camouflaging its strange complexion against the backdrop of the heavens.
When the ambulance arrives, the young man has been taken by shock.
“I wonder what happened to the poor bastard?” a bystander questions.
“Who knows, probably a teen-aged gang,” she is answered.
Inside the ambulance, the plasma is being rigged, and sedatives rush the young man into nightmares. The attendant asks him: “What happened, mister? What happened?”
“He was so hungered,” the hurt man says. “I only wanted to take him home … to feed him … to feed him well.”
The Saviour
They stand about his bed as his eyes open in the blackness, their fingers pressing into his arms, wedging them against his sides, the fingers clamping down his legs and feet. Into his mouth a gag is stuffed deep, and adhesive tape is pasted across his lips. The blindfold wrings his eyes, pressing them into their sockets to flash in aching novas. The floor they stand him upon is chill. He lifts one foot from the surface, but they jar him still. His tongue pushes behind the gag to keep the soggy lump from sliding into his throat, and his Adam’s apple jerks as spit sloughs past his windpipe.
They shove him toward the door; he gauges the distance across the familiar room in wide steps, anticipating the footstool that they kick from the way. Outside, the winter mist covers his shoulders, but the hands upon him tighten as his tremors increase. Across frosted grass, ice crystals catch between his toes, with the graveled driveway pricky and filled by scuffing sounds from many boots. A car door opens and he is inside, the fingers only tightening. Growls of motor and chewing of gears and a soft acceleration; they jerk him upright; his head snaps, joggling his teeth. He groans as the fing
ers press.
They drive in darkness, a drive through winter night along naked roads. A good car. A well-made, comfortable machine with no other sound from motor or spinning parts than the tick from the dashboard clock. Springs excellent. Comfort. Smoothness and precision. Craftmanship riding in blackness.
Spots glow and circle on the inner lids before his eyes. He strains to see into the blackness and the spots ignite in hues, and constellations spin like microscopic viruses through his blind brain. A lump of saliva passes down his throat, and he flares his nostrils in an extended breath. The fingers tighten and his own tingle while sparks tease the marrow of his limbs.
A cave. Once he was lost in a cave in Virginia. A big cave it was that he and a friend had found and slept in that night. In the morning he had walked far back into its interior, and had smashed his spotlight when he tripped into a subterranean gully. Just the blackness until he was found ten hours later. Blackness and sounds. Sounds of water dripping and small scurryings with tumbles of pebbles scratching down the sides of his trap. He sat and listened and strained eyes into blackness until he could make out the hues and far cosmos.
They drag him from his seat. The sand under feet is gritty. Waves are heard in front of his blindfold, and the frozen breath of the ocean flutters his pajamas. They turn him and walk more than a mile through sand and weeds. Shells dent his soles, and the fingers press whenever he stumbles upon a dune.
A panel slides open and warm air surrounds as they pass inside. Boots beat upon boards and his feet catch some splinters, but their progress isn’t slowed until a door is opened and he is led inside a dank compartment.
They set him upon a stool; he feels its circular edges with the tips of his fingers. Their fingers release, but his hands are banged by a hard object when he tries to massage his arms. The fabrics of his holders’ suits are smooth and tight; his fingernails rustle along the arm of one of them as he snatches his hand away. With a tear the adhesive is ripped from his lips, and the gag is jerked out bringing more skin.
“Hey,” he shouts and someone smashes him in the mouth, toppling him backwards.
Hands grab him up and set him back in place; then the blindfold is taken off. It is black in the room. As he blinks, the hands and fingers fall away and the shift of shiny material and the stomp of boots clop to the door; it slams.
A gull preens by morning light, claws webbed, just short of white froth, swishing up to shore. South, sand trickles to fogbank, where figures stir, smoke rising about their legs, as black poles stretch seaward. From the north a bird sinks to the sand. Two stand, black-tipped beaks upon throats.
Figures emerge from mist, pass the fishermen, as sun reflects green in the swells which rise and speed to shore, collapsing spent white in foam.
Seven gulls stand pestering sand fleas among their tail feathers. Other birds descend; the covey numbers ten, then fifteen. Splashes bring peeps. Water sloshes across feet—shrieks sound as the outer circle pushes. Three birds skate on billows, dragging legs atop crests until the surge breaks streaming against the sand as the flyers veer up and swerve about. One wave spills over the flock. Squawks and trampled feathers, but calm settles; a few peck at beer cans, others shred gum wrappers. They all sweep to the sky.
Man and dog race over a dune; the man splashes to the surf, shouting, scolding the poodle to obey. A woman staggers after them. Waves smash; she screams, struggling to high ground. The man beckons with his back to the sea; water swamps him to the waist. Upon a rise the dog meets the couple where it has waited; the trio continues north, and there is laughter.
Birds soar above the shore and out to sea and in about the cliffs. Sun shows waves; the waves dark within, their depths indigo where shadows swim. Footprints and claw marks scatter among butts and shells. Gulls stream by until one spirals in and settles.
He is asleep when they slap him; his eyes pop open to see blackness, and then the blindfold covers. No gag. They jerk him to his feet and lead him through the door and turn. The walk is with fingers gripping, boot sounds and whirling brain lights. Another door opens. There is space. An awaiting. A reaching, then they descend steel stairs, the wide grilled patterns imprinting their cold forms upon his soles. Shakes and vibrations of boots tremble the metal structure, ringing jolts through his spine to brain and blending the shocks across his strapped eyeballs in dashes of pink waves.
Their feet reach bottom. Cement. Damp cement with the steel taps of the boots chinking, and his bruised insteps prancing across the cracks.
They stop. Wet blast of air follows the creak of giant hinges and they climb down deep, greasy stone steps. He slips but is caught by the fingers which shake him fully awake and with one step, they are at the end. Dirt, close packed with pebbled forms, is the floor.
Candlelight pierces his lids as his blindfold is pulled away. His hands reach for his face and halt and start once more, feeling no fingers. Slowly the candles soften until he sees.
Five sit ten feet in front of him behind a wide plank supported by twin sawhorses. They sit upon barrels, and they wear purple robes, black veils covering their faces, all nodding in turn. All wheedle by sign language, coax through gesture and mimic disturbance. All do not see him in the pressure of their activity.
He steps forward, but once again fingers gouge into his arms. His holders are in black; shiny black suits which expose their great chests, biceps and thighs. Red hoods cover their heads; oval holes are cut into the face pieces, with blackness behind the covering.
“But wha—” he begins and is punched in the face by a ringed fist. He teeters upon his knees staring at the black edges of their boots, but the candlelight is too faint to show him the redness which flows from his mouth and mangled nose.
Rows of green line the valley bed with crisscrossing silvery slashes of irrigation ditches. The valley is not seen from the highway running down the coast, but the intersecting dirt road hooks back behind the slope, and the old gully where water bubbles down to the shore in spring opens into the shallow expanse where the groves stand, the sun and ocean mist ripening their berries, keeping the fruit tenders occupied. None find time to circle the hill and discover the sea, and the sand remains for the prints of gulls.
He has been standing for more than two hours. The first time they kicked him they didn’t knock all his wind out, but his pretending got him more. He awoke upon his feet, fastened by the fingers, facing the whispering men who went about their duties.
With a nod, the five robed men face front. And his blindfold is placed back by the fingers, but before the dark, he sees a veil quivering.
The fingers push him about and return him to his quarters. Inside, in the blackness, they remove his blindfold. Their boots draw back, the door slams, and he is left blind in the blackness.
Boot sounds awake him later, the door swinging open, the feel of air currents flow and emptiness, and then a clank of something being placed beside his stool. Boot clicks leave with the door’s slam, and the tap tap tap down the hallway through the blackness.
He reaches out and fingernail scrapes metal. A mug. Water. Through broken nose he sniffs the water; thirst has him gulp the cooling wetness, washing his damaged mouth clear of mucus and clots. His fingers find a pitcher. More water until his belly grumbles. And then he sleeps.
Boot noise brings food, and then water, and after there is sleep in darkness. His fingers become restless; they explore and discover a basin and cot. And then his toilet. One index finger blunders into the baseboard vent which supplies him with air, and is caught for minutes.
The blackness total, with the colored universes spiraling in orbits, pulsating in the shade of his dark vision.
They come. His beard has lost its novelty for him; the black is a place to dream. The walk down is faster. No blindfold is needed, for it remains unlit until the last steps, until the candles shatter his senses in an agony of brilliance.
When he raises his sight to the veiled ones, he sees them standing facing him; all nod once and he is d
ragged away through a side door. He bites his lip, nipping the sounds which squeeze through. His knees sag but the fingers clutch him, his toes skin and lose some nails as they take him down another flight of underground stairs.
It is a wooden table they strap him upon. The lights are of torches and the walls are grey bricks. The blackness crowds in, but torches circle the chamber in a ring of shadows.
The black suits stand on each side of the table; the purple ones file in, their robes swishing the ground, their veils in place. All assemble about him and sway, candles in gloved fists.
“Why?” he asks.
Masks raise and stare across his body into other masks.
“Why?” is the answer.
The mountain in the distance is never reached by the climbers. It sits a day away, snow upon its peak and pines roughing down its slopes to the shaggy forest at its feet before the town where live the mightiest of climbers.
In spring, many encouraged by the youth of the year take up picks and spikes, but these never return. Some may even have conquered the crest. In summer, some vacationers start, but the meadows along the way welcome them to spread their fat lunches. The fall turns the adventurous back to their harvests from which their imaginations have never strayed too far, and winter finds all curled in huts with lusty wives; they thump their mates’ bellies in hope of finding themselves.
The circle of forms about him disappears through the dark exit, lighting up the exit with the passing through of their candles, and now the torches burn. Blackness draws in their lowering wicks. The bonds about him chafe his skin; his feet itch from scabs and scalp tingles with sweat.
Through the entrance slides a white form. It hesitates. He strains to stare. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, come, come to me.”