by Tom Reamy
Henderson finished with his witnesses and started toward me. “Hello, Rankin. Don’t you get enough of this on duty?”
“Just passing by. What happened?”
He groaned and shook his head. “Couple of kids in a knife fight over a señorita. Wonder if she was worth it.”
“The way she’s carrying on, the wrong one musta lost.”
“Yeah.” Another siren approached. “Here’s the ambulance. See you around, Rankin.” He walked away, being very official, moving the onlookers back another inch.
I looked over the crowd and saw him almost immediately. He was about twelve feet from me, his eyes on the blanket. As usual no one was paying him the slightest attention. I edged toward him as they put the body in the ambulance. The crowd began drifting away but I kept my eyes on that beautiful boy. I wasn’t sure if I had seen him before, they all looked so much alike.
He turned and walked north on La Brea. I followed him across Melrose. A few people were still milling around the intersection, but I couldn’t let him get too far away from my car.
I overtook him, touched his arm, and said, “Excuse me.” I had my badge in my hand when he turned with a startled look.
My face was only a foot from his. I saw the clear, healthy skin and the bewildered gray eyes that looked at me with recognition. All the artists for the last thousand years have been trying to paint that face on angels, but their poor fumbling attempts never came close. It was only for an instant but I had to look away or be overwhelmed.
The traffic on La Brea moved by us silently, like a movie with the sound turned off. But, oddly enough, I could hear the hum and click of the traffic lights as they changed. I realized I was still stupidly holding my badge in my hand, and put it away. I forced myself to look at him again.
“Will you please come down to the station with me…” My voice cracked. Come on, Rankin, get hold of yourself! “It’s purely a routine matter.”
“What do you want?”
It was only four words, but I realized I’d never heard one of them speak. How can you describe music to a deaf person? Any actor in the world would trade his prick for that voice. My own words stopped and we looked at each other. Get your shit together! You’re acting like some poor fairy who’s just been propositioned by Robert Redford.
“I can make… this official if you refuse to cooperate.”
His shoulders sagged slightly. He nodded.
He followed me to the Dart without protest. I had been a little worried because I wasn’t in uniform and wasn’t in a squad car, but he didn’t seem to notice. I had my revolver handy when I handcuffed him to the door handle, but he sat slumped in the seat looking at nothing.
I took the Hollywood Freeway to the Pasadena Freeway. I was going down Colorado Boulevard when he said, “Why are you doing this to me?”
I glanced at him but he was still looking at nothing. I almost turned the car around. I wish I had, but I didn’t.
He didn’t say anything else as I got on the Foothill Freeway and headed east through the San Gabriel Valley. It was almost dawn when I pulled off the pavement winding up Mt.
Baldy. I opened the gate to the gravel road down the canyon. I drove through and put on the padlock I had brought with me. I drove up the canyon a couple of miles until the road ended at a cabin. It belonged to a director friend of mine who was on location in Jamaica and would be for several months. He’d let me use it before. Besides, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
I had to break a window to get in, but that could be fixed. I’d brought a pane of glass and a cutter. I turned on the electricity at the meter box and took him in. I took the chain I had brought, handcuffed one end to his ankle and the other end around the commode. Now he could use the bathroom and the bed, but the chain wasn’t long enough to reach the bedroom door or the window. He didn’t complain through any of this. He acted as if he didn’t even know I was there.
I unloaded the car, put on a pot of coffee, scrambled some eggs, and tried to get him to eat something but he wouldn’t. I finished eating, unpacked my clothes, took a shower in the other bathroom and went to sleep in the other bedroom.
He still wouldn’t eat when I woke up. I took another shower and shaved. I moved a chair just out of the limit of the chain—he hadn’t given me any trouble but I wasn’t taking chances—and sat down to watch him.
He was still sitting on the side of the bed, where he’d been when I put on the chain, his magnificent body relaxed and his beautiful face calm. His cheeks were as smooth as ever. I knew for sure he didn’t have to shave. His hands were folded in his lap and his eyes seemed to be on them. For two hours he didn’t move except for gentle breathing. I didn’t realize so much time had passed until the room began to get dark.
I turned on the lights and went to him, holding out my hand. “Give me your wallet.” He acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “Give me your wallet,” I said again, louder.
He looked up at me then, puzzlement in his eyes. “I don’t have one.”
‘‘Stand up,” I said. He hesitated for a moment, then stood. I went over him quickly. He was telling the truth. He had no wallet; nothing but empty pockets.
I returned to my chair and sat, watching him. He stood where I had left him, stood as calmly as he had sat. “How many of you are there?” I said. He didn’t seem to hear. “Look, we might as well get a few things straight. You’re gonna tell me everything I want to know. We can do it easy or we can do it hard. It’s up to you.”
He stood for a moment in the same position, then looked at me. “I don’t know.” His voice still made the hair on my arms stand up.
“You must have some idea. A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?” He shook his head. Maybe he wasn’t going to let it be easy after all. I let it go; there was plenty of time. “I can fix you something to eat if you want. I’m not trying to starve you to death. Aren’t you hungry?”
He said nothing.
“Look! It won’t do any good to go on a hunger strike. Not one damn bit of good!” No response. I used my buddy voice. “You can have anything you want. Just name it.”
He looked at me quickly. “I want to leave.”
I laughed. “Anything but that.”
He looked back at his hands. “I would like to bathe.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
He moved his foot; the chain rattled. I dug the key out of my pocket and pitched it to him. “Unlock the cuff and throw the key back.” I picked up the revolver. He unlocked the chain and tossed me the key. He started for the bathroom.
“Wait!” My heart was beating too hard. “Undress in here and leave the clothes.” My mouth was dry and I swallowed. He took off his shirt and hung it on the back of the chair. He took off the shoes and socks and the pants and jockey shorts. His back was toward me but it wasn’t modesty. He just happened to be standing that way. Michelangelo, you bumbling incompetent! If you could see this, you’d take a hammer to all those misshapen pieces of rock you spent so much time on.
He took a step toward the bathroom. I made a croaking sound in my throat. I tried again.
“Stop!” He stopped. “Turn around.” He turned. I felt the blood singing in my ears. I don’t know how long I looked at him. He stood unselfconsciously, totally unconcerned by my staring or his own nakedness. There wasn’t a blemish on him. Light reddish-gold hair was scattered on his arms, legs, and chest. You could hardly see it until it caught the light. There was a darker, thicker patch of pubic hair, and he was uncircumcised. He wasn’t as large as me, or as small as Cunningham. Either way would have been wrong, out of proportion, a staggering flaw. My own that I’d always been so proud of—it seemed now gross and mutilated. I felt the pressure of it and realized I had a hardon.
The gun was pointing at him. What would he look like with a bullet there? Nothing between those perfect thighs but blood. Would he writhe screaming? Would that inhumanly placid face show human agony? “Get out of here,” I said.
While he s
howered, I put the clothes in a grocery sack and stuck them in the closet of my bedroom. When he came out of the bathroom, he looked at the empty chair, then at me.
“You won’t need them. Put the cuff back on.” He sat in the chair, snapped the cuff around his ankle. I could take it only for an hour. I got my bathrobe and tossed it to him. He put it on but only because I told him to. It didn’t seem to matter to him one way or the other.
I wondered if he had ever smiled. What would those perfect lips look like with a big happy grin on them? I could feel goosebumps popping out on my arms.
For three weeks I watched him do nothing. He sat in the chair and sometimes lay on the bed, but I never saw him sleep. I watched him and asked questions, but the only things I learned for sure were: he didn’t eat or use the toilet. He ignored me except when I forced him to answer a question. And the answers were usually meaningless.
Some days neither of us said a word. I would just watch his face and never tire of it, the way you never tire of looking at a perfect piece of art. Then, suddenly, it would be night again. He bathed every day, but I never let him remove the robe until he was in the bathroom. I didn’t want to go through that again.
Sometimes I would force him to speak—not because I expected to learn anything, but because I wanted to hear his voice again. I was trying to find out what he did when he wasn’t siren-chasing. I said something inane like: “Why aren’t you in the movies? You wouldn’t even need talent;
with your looks you could make a fortune. The movies or television would eat you up.”
He turned his head toward me. “My looks?”
“Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”
“I’m ugly.” His fantastic voice colored the words with subtle shades of despair. “Everything is ugly.”
I studied him closely. I think he believed what he said. “Don’t you want to be rich? Don’t you want the luxuries of life?”
“There’s no point.”
“Why not?”
“We’re here such a short time. There’s no point in gathering possessions. There’s no point in anything. And there’s not enough time.”
“Not enough time?”
He had drifted off in a reverie. “A very short time—but it seems like forever.” Impatience, hope, futility, expectation, anticipation; the voice showed it all.
“But how do you pass the time? What do you do?”
I think he sighed. “We wait,” he said. “We wait.”
“What are you waiting for?” I yelled in exasperation. He didn’t answer. I knew better than to continue with a frontal attack. I backed up and started in at a different angle. “You said, ‘We wait.’ Are the others like you?”
“Yes.”
A thought occurred to me. “Do they know you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t they try to rescue you?”
“They’re afraid.”
“Afraid? Of me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes. They would do anything to prevent premature interruption of the cycle.”
I started to ask what the hell he was talking about, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. “How am I dangerous?”
“You can see us.”
“Do you know why I can see you?”
“No.”
“Am I the only one?”
“The only one we know of now.”
“Now?”
“It’s happened before.”
I changed directions again. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I haven’t hurt you.”
“There is danger that you will interrupt the cycle.”
“Why did you come with me so passively?”
“I couldn’t believe you would do this to me.” Again subtle shadings of accusation, hopelessness, and sadness in the beautiful voice. He turned his head to look at me. For an instant, the barest instant, I felt like a real son of a bitch. Then he looked away. He sat on the side of the bed, my bathrobe too big for him, the chain snaking into the bathroom.
Don’t get the idea that he had become an unexpected chatterbox. That conversation is a distillation of three weeks’ questions and silences.
About a week later, I went during the nighty to check on him. I hadn’t been sleeping very well. My mind was full of wild, impossible speculations. I won’t go into them but they consisted of men from Mars and other equally incredible flights of fancy. I started to put on my bathrobe but remembered he was wearing it. I tiptoed down the hall stark naked hoping to catch him doing something—doing anything.
The door to his room was always left open. I looked in cautiously. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I turned on the light. He was pressed against the outside wall of the room, my bathrobe crumpled at his feet. His arms were outstretched to bring as much of him against the wall as possible. He didn’t seem to notice me, but then, he never did. I went to him and saw his face, the side of it flat against the wall. It was no longer expressionless. It was filled with the most overpowering hopelessness I had ever seen. I felt my throat constrict. “What’s wrong?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer for a moment—not because he was ignoring me as he usually did, but because he was preoccupied. Then he said, very softly, in a voice caressed by a cold, bleak wind: “The small creatures in the forest; their deaths are so tiny and insignificant. There’s hardly any life energy at all.”
Then he really was aware of me. I saw him retreat until the eyes and face were neutral. I bellowed and slapped him as hard as I could. I remembered them standing around the wrecks. He fell to his knees, the crimson print of my hand on his face. I pulled him up by his armpits and looked into his empty face.
“Stop hiding from me!” I screamed and slapped him again. He slumped against me and my arms were around him, holding him up. Our naked bodies were together, exciting me. The blood rushed to my groin and my erection was painful. He was there, in the eyes, not completely, but there. I put my mouth over his. He neither drew away nor responded but his bruised lips were sweet and I didn’t want to stop.
I had been looking at his placid face for a month. I knew he was capable of emotion if he would let it show. He hadn’t uttered a sound or responded in any way to physical blows. He had to have a breaking point somewhere. I pushed him onto the bed on his stomach. The chain rattled. I rammed into him, trying to hurt him. He was tight, very tight. It must have been painful, but he didn’t cry out or even moan. It had been a long time since the last time—a month—too long. It only took a dozen strokes, my pelvis pounding against the flawless flesh of his buttocks, before I came. I shouldn’t have waited so long. It burned.
I lay on him for a moment, then reached and pulled his face around. It was vacant. I withdrew, still hard. I pulled him into a sitting position facing me. That beautiful face. That beautiful bland, bruised face. I put my hands on either side of it.
“Don’t hide from me. It doesn’t do any good. I can see you. I can see you!” He swam to the surface and looked at me. “Did you enjoy it? Did you even feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Did it feel good? Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you groan? Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you beg me to stop? Why don’t you get mad? Why don’t you curse me? What’s inside you?” I put my hand on his breast and felt the hard nipple against my palm. “Do you have a heart? I can feel something in there. Is it a heart? What would I find if I got a knife and slit you open? Do you have sexual feelings at all?” I grabbed his penis and squeezed. It was soft but firm. “Has it ever been hard? You don’t piss with it. What do you use it for?”
I put his hand on my tingling erection. He didn’t pull away. It just lay there. “That’s what it’s for. That’s how a human uses it!” He started going away again. I slapped him. “Stay with me. Stay with me every second.” I pushed him on h
is back. The chain clattered on the floor. I hooked his knees over my shoulders, watching his eyes the whole time. He tried to go away a few times but I slapped him back. I took a very long, slow time and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
The next morning I drove down the mountain to the village and phoned the Department. With direct dialling you can’t tell where a long-distance call is coming from. My father was worse and not expected to live much longer. Yeah, too bad. I shouldn’t be away much longer. Good-bye.
I started going to him every night. I hadn’t meant to but I couldn’t sleep without him. He didn’t go away anymore and I didn’t have to slap him. The bruises on his face faded finally. He was there all right, but that was all. I never succeeded in bringing emotion to his face.
Finally I began sleeping in the same bed with him, touching him all night, feeling his hard nipples under the palms of my hands.
He woke me one morning, moaning. The window was gray with light and I could see his mouth moving. I touched his face. It was hot and dry. He spoke and the music in his voice was muted. “Why have you done this to me? I never harmed you. I’ve never harmed anyone. All we ever want is to survive until the birth.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s time. The end of the cycle. The birth.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for?”
“I’m not strong enough. I haven’t collected enough life energy.”
“I’ll let you go. I’ll take you back to L. A.”
“It’s too late. Too late.”
He never said anything again. I watched him for three days. His fever got worse and the life went from his vibrant flesh. His skin flaked away in gray scales. He was struggling with all his might against something. I don’t know what. But in the end he failed. His moans were so piteous that I had to put my hands over my ears. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the disintegration of that magnificent creature.
And that’s all he was, wasn’t he? A creature. Something not human. It wasn’t my fault that, by some fluke, I could see them. I didn’t know this would happen. He never told me.
On the second day a hump began forming on his back. He was curling more and more into a fetal position as the hump forced him over. He began bleeding at the mouth. I put the shower curtain under him. When I rolled him over, my hands got covered with something like ashes.