Body of Immorality

by Brandon Berntson

  It wasn’t the pain and panic taking control; it was a challenge, a game he and Red Joe were playing. It was about acceptance, the slip leading Charlie into a wonderland of light!

  “Man!” he shouted. “I feel great!”

  A slow itch throbbed at the wound. Charlie wanted to reach in and dig at it with his fingers, claw at it with his fingernails, but that would only make it bleed more, wouldn’t it? The thought alone sent jagged twists of pain, like a laser, through his thumb and up his arm. Pain ascended to his shoulder, a quick stab to his heart.

  Did the knife have that much success without him realizing it?

  He’d show this comical jester! He wasn’t easily upstaged!

  Amy suddenly came to his mind. He wondered what she’d say, what she’d do. How would the doctors respond?

  You think you’ve got problems now, chief. You just wait!

  If they bandaged him up, sealed him in plastic, he’d suffocate in his own blood. He’d bleed through the stitches, tear them out one by one. They’d keep him for tests!

  Thanks, Doc, but I think I’ll let this one ride itself out. I mean, I feel great! Feel like a champ! Can’t seem to stop bleeding. Can’t seem to run out of blood, either. Go figure! Hey, I can’t explain it! I don’t think you can, either. You mind if I go home now?

  Once he let Red Joe have the reigns, Charlie felt better instantly. If this was insanity, what was all the hype about? He should’ve cut himself years ago!

  He’d have to call the plant, tell them he wouldn’t be coming into work.

  Permanently, Red Joe said.

  “You like your enchiladas with or without blood,” Charlie said, and giggled. “They’re bloody good.”

  You should do songs, commercials, Red Joe said. It’s all Entertainment!

  Red Joe had a way, at least, of pointing out the brighter side of things.

  Making the decision it could only get better (seeing Amy now, the neighbors, or anyone else was not a good idea), Charlie went to the phone jack, grabbed the chord, and yanked it from the wall.

  There, he thought. No incoming calls.

  Back to the original plan. Since he’d sliced his thumb, Charlie experienced a surge of hope.

  “This is a job for Tenebrook!” he shouted. “Move over, jester! No more fun and games!”

  You’re going mad, Red Joe said. And that’s okay. Madness will help you.

  Charlie Tenebrook went to the kitchen. He found a candle and some matches in the junk drawer. Thanks to his swoon over Amy, he was anxious for romantic evenings. Many candle-lit dinners had been savored in this very apartment.

  He fixed the candle to a wooden holder. Charlie struck the match. He smiled as the flame burst to life. Sulfur wafted—welcome—into his nose. He breathed it in. It was part of the healing process. He touched the flame to the wick.

  Much as the knife had done, the flame, too, had a voice of its own:

  Go ahead, you stupid bastard. You think this is gonna work? You must be an idiot. You think you got pain now? But hey, it’s not my thumb!

  In the recess of cold, silent space, Charlie thought: Maybe this isn’t a good idea.

  Throwing the match away, he braced himself. Charlie held tightly to his left wrist with his right hand.

  Shouldn’t you have a belt to bite down on, so you don’t sever your tongue? Red Joe asked.

  “Belts are for sissies,” Charlie said, preparing for the pain.

  He clenched his eyes. Tenebrook thrust his hand into the flame.

  Flesh hissed instantly. Blood boiled. Smoke curled into his face as tears sprang to his eyes. The smell of searing, cooked skin filled his nose. Agonizing pain reared through the wound. Charlie hopped up and down, danced, and cried. Determined, however, he kept the wound directly in the flame.

  “YEEE-OOOOWWWW!” he howled.

  Charlie pulled his hand out, traumatized, scarred, branded by pain. He jumped from one foot to the other. He turned on the cold water with tears blurring his vision. He thrust his hand under, whimpering as the wound cooled. Sirens wailed in his ears. Colored lights flashed in his head.

  That’s just the stage, Red Joe said. And congratulations.

  Charlie inspected the wound, his lips trembling. Raw pink and white dots of tissue bubbled. It was, in all aspects, substantially worse. He hadn’t done a thing but make it bleed even more.

  Brightness isn’t one of your more redeeming qualities, is it? Red Joe asked.

  What could Tenebrook do? Pain paralyzed the left side of his body.

  Weeping openly, brokenly—knowing the best man had won—Charlie danced in agony through the kitchen. Blood streamed from his hand in a steady flow to the floor.

  *

  Amy came by the next day.

  Tenebrook didn’t care about the carpet, the stained hardwood in the hallway where he’d cracked his head open. Bloody hand-prints patched the cupboards, the walls, and the refrigerator. Pools and trails followed him from the kitchen to the bathroom. He’d come to the conclusion, of course, that this wasn’t your average wound. Something else was at play here. He’d learned to accept this macabre situation with a bright, red heart. Most of that, of course, was Red Joe’s doing.

  A knock from the front door startled him, his heart skipping a beat, spilling more blood.

  Amy, Charlie thought.

  He crept through the hallway, treading lightly on the floor. He peered through the peephole.

  She looked more furious than worried. She must’ve tried to call and realized she couldn’t get through because he’d ripped the jack from the wall. Her lips curled like a roller coaster, eyes igniting the door in anger, blonde hair spilling to her shoulders in bright, silver curls.

  Don’t worry, Amy, he thought. You’re mad for the wrong reasons. Nothing we can do about it now, babe. Just wait, though. You’ll understand.

  He wanted to open the door and explain the situation. Once he showed her, she’d understand, wouldn’t she? But he wanted to spare her the horror, not scar her for life.

  Amy tried the knob. He watched it click back and forth. Thank God he’d locked it! She called his name from the hallway:

  “Charlie! Charlie, are you in there?”

  He closed his eyes to the soft, musical sound of her voice. He fell in love with her all over again. That she was stubborn and concerned about him at the same time!

  When she stomped, defeated, down the hallway, Tenebrook breathed a sigh of relief. Still, his heart broke a little inside.

  Something wet tickled his ear, spilling down his neck. He wasn’t surprised when he stuck his finger inside and found it wet with blood. Red Joe was taking the act now to a whole new level.

  Bleeding from the ears now, Charlie thought. How is that possible?

  Charlie shook his head and let Red Joe do what he came here for.

  *

  Before long, he was a river, a waterfall of crimson gore. Both ears bled continuously down his jaw and neck. The roots of his hair emitted blood at a slow, steady pace. He wiped it constantly from his eyes so he could see. He bled from under his fingernails, his nose. His eyes were tearful, scarlet orbs. When he looked down, to his horror, he saw the hole in his penis oozed blood as well.

  Part of him wanted to shriek in denial, but this was Red Joe’s territory. Charlie hadn’t realized how comical the situation was until now.

  It did no good crying.

  Why, baby, why?

  What about a doctor?

  Details, baby, details. A doctor would be useless.

  Why bother crying, he thought? If he let the horror consume him, he could embrace the situation with dark humor. That would help. Charlie acknowledged horror in a fiendish, comical light. With the slightest adjustment to his attitude, he could be more than he ever thought possible.

  Yeah, and what a situation it is. Not the best money can buy, but good enough for some brand new shoes. Who needs controversy? Politics? A little abnormality is all. Make it up, take it up, and wrap it in a bow.
>
  It was just a setback, an obstacle in the road to everyday travel.

  Boo-hoo hoo. It’s just a minor wound, baby. It’ll get better soon.

  Yes. Crying? Hell.

  Red Joe had never had more fun in his life!

  Where’s that float-tube? Someone get me some sunglasses! Who needs to go to a river? We have one right here! Paradise, I say! Paradise! Don’t even have to leave the apartment to go on vacation! Where’s the goddamn brochure?

  *

  Charlie (Red Joe) loved it. Recognizing beauty in the situation was vital.

  You simply must bring in more red, darling. More red is always the thing, you know?

  Charlie was laughing now. He couldn’t stop laughing. The shift from one extreme to the other kept him rolling with humor. Yesterday, he’d been Charlie Tenebrook, supervisor of the plant, owner of a new Toyota, the beau of Amy White.

  Now, however…

  “A scientific experiment has gone terribly wrong!” he shouted, and laughed again. He was the Crimson Avenger, perhaps a better villain than a hero.

  Unless you can save the world by bleeding to death, he thought.

  He didn’t wear clothes. Clothes were too heavy. From every appendage, every orifice, he was scarlet from head to toe. Even the wound, like a canyon was traveling up his forearm toward his shoulder. The pain had—for whatever reason—noticeably subsided. The blood was beyond his knees, too—gathering at such momentum—it was now a lake in his apartment.

  Charlie smiled, holding his arms out on either side. He looked toward the ceiling.

  This madness had changed him. He welcomed whatever death (if any) would come. Something, he knew. It had to give sometime. Anything…

  Maybe I’ll grow gills, he thought. Imagine the stardom, your followers, walking in your own bloody footsteps, sitting in the same bloody chairs.

  He could already hear their applause. They loved him!

  “Thank you,” he said, bowing. “Thank you.”

  Red Joe was a gentleman. He savored the spotlight, every second to perform this wondrous act of miracles.

  Tenebrook, however, withdrew to the shadows. He was no longer around. He sat comfortably in the back of the theater and wondered how it was going to end.

  *

  Todd Dos was not a healthy man. He was not a thin man by any means, either. He was, in fact, an obese man, a man shaped by idleness. Television and beer were among the finest marvels of the civilized age. If they could somehow put a toilet under the seat of the recliner (another brilliant invention), he would be the happiest man alive. He’d never have to leave the recliner, his biggest dream. Standing up meant a long emptying of the bladder and undoubtedly missing one the funniest parts of his favorite sitcoms. To sit, drink, and giggle was a goal Todd Dos endeavored to capture every day in his degenerate, hapless life.

  The remote control (another brilliant invention) was on the arm of the chair, the beer cans piling up alongside him. He did not believe or care about chilled beer or trashcans. Convenience for convenience’s sake was part of the dream as well.

  He was watching his favorite sitcom, The Simpsons. The Simpsons was the only show that truly spoke to Todd. The Simpsons and Married with Children. Character, he constantly told the television. He was able to relate and appreciate the sitcoms because of character, why the rest of America tuned in as well. The Simpsons and Married with Children were, according to Todd Dos, the most brilliant programs among the finer arts of Entertainment!

  He’d rented apartments throughout the years, endured pestering neighbors, unsympathetic landlords. He recounted a myriad of things going wrong with apartments over the years: water damage, bad electrical, bad plumbing, paint peeling from the walls. It came with renting on the cheap side of town.

  When the overhead light darkened, however—dripping a strange, foreign substance into the fixture—Todd’s brows came together because this was something he hadn’t seen before.

  Vexing him—because The Simpsons had just started—Todd Dos stood up. He left his beer on the carpet. He stood on the recliner, examining the light fixture, and squinted.

  “What the—fuck?” he said.

  Messes didn’t bother him as long as they were his own, but he didn’t know what this crap was pouring into the fixture. It stank, too.

  Todd looked at the wall and saw the same dark substance oozing from the electrical sockets, two thin trails spilling down the wall like tears. Was it…red, he thought?

  Todd Dos detested having his evening interrupted, pulled from his favorite time of day, his favorite show. It was a cruelty of the bitterest kind.

  Cursing under his breath—show and beer forgotten—Todd Dos stomped across the living room, opened the front door, and slammed it shut.

  He stormed upstairs to Tenebrook’s apartment.

  *

  Eternity, Red Joe thought. Sublimity, light, reflection.

  Perhaps, yes! Grace. How could he not enjoy this madness without a little grace?

  A bit deeper and he’d be doing backstrokes. Deeper, and he’d smile for eternity, hoping for the best.

  He was thinking these thoughts when the acerbating knock came from the front door. He’d been expecting it for some time now.

  That wasn’t an ‘Amy knock’, Charlie told Red Joe.

  His flesh produced blood at an incredible rate. It deepened through every room in the apartment. The miracle wasn’t that he was bleeding at such phenomenal velocity, but that the blood was continually pouring with momentum from his flesh.

  “Tenebrook!” Dos bellowed from the hallway. “What the hell are you doing in there, Tenebrook? There’s shit all over the hallway! It’s pouring down my walls like the fucking River Jordan! What the hell’s going on in there, Tenebrook?”

  Ah! Sublimity! Red Joe thought. The perfect end to all perfect things…

  Red Joe giggled, thinking how grand it would be to open the door. He’d look out with his ruby-colored face, red eyes, blood spilling from his mouth. He’d reach out and plead in his most bemoaning voice:

  “Help me, please! God!”

  Were his teeth red, too?

  Of course, the hallway, the apartment below…Charlie hadn’t thought of that.

  Red Joe didn’t reply. Enjoying the theatrical display, he put his hands in the air, twirling through the absurdity like a ballerina.

  You’ve got so much love, he thought.

  “Are you gonna open the door or not, Tenebrook? It’s pouring down my walls! It’s a fucking mess down there! Tenebrook?” Dos pounded on the door again. “I’m getting the manager, Tenebrook!”

  Red Joe smiled.

  You do that, he thought. You get the manager, and soon, all will be well. All will be bliss and heaven, comfort and stars. Universal sunshine, galaxies made of clay. Bring your friends. Bring your knives. It’s just a slipshod, roundabout way we’ve cut ourselves.

  There was more to this than simple salvation. Nothing hurt him anymore; nothing panged his ears or made him want to cry. Nothing was that deadly. He had enough ageless time and beauty before him now.

  Crimson Avenger, my bleeding ass, he thought. You’re the King in Red!

  *

  Coincidentally, Amy brought officers, Walsh and Jolves to the apartment at the exact moment Todd Dos retrieved the landlord, Mr. Fyuesterman. All five of them met on the ground floor.

  “What the hell is that?” Jolves exclaimed. He was a young rookie, still harassed by his fellow officers.

  “I don’t know how you couldn’t notice something like this,” Dos said to Mr. Fyuesterman. “What do you do, sleep all day? I’m not paying this month’s rent, either, not with this crap.”

  Fyuesterman looked on with vacant eyes. He was clearly troubled, a man dying to find reason in the unreasonable.

  Amy White looked worried and horrified. Something was terribly wrong, she knew. She’d been trying to contact Charlie by phone, but the line was disconnected. His truck was still parked behind the building. As ofte
n as she came by, he never answered.

  Walsh and Jolves had been reluctant, even rude to her. He was probably avoiding her, they’d said, and if he was that spineless, he wasn’t worth the trouble. Please, she’d begged. If she hadn’t found them sitting in their patrol car down the street eating burgers and fries, she might not have gotten anyone to help.

  Reluctantly, the five of them stood at the bottom of the stairs now. A thick mass of blood spilled down the steps, pooling around their feet. Their faces were identical: shocked, bewildering expressions of disbelief, horror, and revulsion.

  “That can’t be what I think it is,” Walsh said, but he knew otherwise. The smell was powerfully acrid. The color, unmistakable.

  Jolves acknowledged Walsh and nodded, distracted by the long, slender legs of Amy White.

  “If that’s blood, then I’m John Lennon,” Jolves said.

  “Sure looks like blood,” Walsh said, ignoring Jolves.

  “Well, are we gonna stand here and admire the scenery,” Dos said. “Or are we going up?”

  Both officers ignored him.

  “Maybe you should wait by the patrol car,” Walsh advised Amy.

  The look she delivered said otherwise.

  “All right then,” Walsh said. “I guess nobody minds getting their feet wet.”

  They started up the stairs, eyeing the blood. Todd Dos said something to Mr. Fyuesterman who hadn’t spoken the entire time. Mr. Fyusterman was in a trance.

  “It just can’t be blood,” Jolves said.

  Amy White let out a groan.

  *

  How many parts do we dare play? he thought.

  Charlie Tenebrook had officially left the building. Red Joe hadn’t heard from, talked to, or acknowledged the poor sod. Red Joe had taken over.

  “Just stand aside, stand aside,” he said. “Who’s got that musical number? Lights, please.”

  Charlie had to accept the situation eventually. What choice did he have?

  Just a bleeding man here, Red Joe thought. Just kinda bleeding a little. Just kinda not running out of blood, either.