Quicksand

by Steve Toltz

  The striking, eerie cover featured a charcoal sketch of two burning eyes peering out from a crack in a coffin lid, yet inside, as Morrell had indicated, instead of the expected drawings, the accompanying illustrations were stark black-and-white photographs that I browsed without understanding their context—haunting photos of an empty field, an elegant fir tree veiled in mist, a vermilion sunset, vines tangled around an oak box, dazed eyes smeared with mascara, a plume of smoke over a small hill, an ornamental jar on a stone-tile floor, a white shroud, two bodies facedown in the snow, a pair of bagpipes, a brick chimney, a sturdy pile of rocks, and an empty child-sized suit laid out on a bed. I would like to submit The Fussy Corpse into evidence as exhibit B.

  This is how it begins: Four exhausted and irritated pallbearers were carrying a fussy corpse across half a dozen cemeteries when their arms got tired.

  Understood. If we’re time sensitive, Your Honor, in summary, the book tells the story of a recently dead boy who doesn’t want to be buried “just anywhere,” and the four pallbearers who carry this disenchanted corpse to every continent, into teeming cities and small towns, into rural and urban communities, into remote tribes and off-the-wall cults, where he is offered every type of funeral that is conducted in human civilization, but nothing appeals. He does not want camphor placed in his orifices and armpits while loved ones wail and scratch their faces and wear their clothes inside out; he does not wish to be mummified or to be buried with soldiers or under a tree or in his own garden or in a low-ceilinged cave cut into stone or in an unmarked grave or along with his belongings or with family members or with a sacrificed ox or with his knees drawn up to his chest or in a sand dune or with a corpse bride. Nor does he want his body covered with rocks nor to be placed in a three-humped rectangle-shaped casket nor on a bed of sweet-smelling spices, and he does not wish to be dusted with talcum powder or dressed in a suit or placed on a mat or covered with yellow cloth, and he has no interest in hearing chanted verses of scripture or bagpipes or love songs, and he is not inclined to have his internal organs removed and the body cavity filled with salt, and he does not wish a rope to be wrapped around his legs and neck and pulled tight to make him into a ball; nor does he want to be dumped at sea nor shot into space nor cremated and his ashes placed in a mausoleum or on someone’s mantel or immersed in running water or scattered in a rose garden, and he has little interest in facing the setting sun or Mecca or Mount Kailash, and he does not want to be embalmed or tied to a stake on a hilltop and eaten by animals or vultures or carried on bamboo poles or placed on a pyre of sandalwood, and he especially does not want those flames aroused by clarified butter or to have his skull broken with a long pole or for his body to be covered in flowers or uncut hair or steel bangles or a short sword, and he does not want to be swathed in a white cotton sheet or placed in an unlined coffin or in a simple pine coffin with holes drilled in the bottom or in a purified room with or without an untasseled prayer shawl—

  In short, he turns his nose up, is ambivalent, and outright refuses every human method of disposing of a body. Eventually, with a heavy heart, he decides it is much less hassle to remain alive. And that’s when the story takes its surprising turn! The reveal at the end of the book is that the corpse is not a real corpse but a young boy with leukemia, his ghostly pallor due to his prolonged sickness and iron deficiency, and the pallbearers are his brothers who have broken him out of the hospital and put him in a coffin to help the young boy confront the stark reality of his inevitable death.

  I closed the book and felt like I had been shot with an arrow and slung across a saddle and galloped into hell. Perhaps due to the frankness of Mimi’s photographs and the unsentimental manner in which the prose tackled the subject, the tale was almost unbearably poignant and weird. The library had grown calmer, the students had ceased their loud whispering, having retreated to their respective smartphones. I couldn’t understand my oppressive, mixed overreaction; everything paltry inside me bristled and throbbed repulsively. It was as if I had recognized myself in the fussy corpse, in that boy’s attitude and overall dilemma. Absurd. I left the book on the table, but then came back and returned it to the shelf. I didn’t want any children to happen upon it.

  VII

  That night, I dug out the pornographic poster of Mimi Underwood and sat on my bed looking at her dark, large, distended nipples and her exquisite—or in her mind, revolting—birthmark, that I found at the worst lovely and at the best incredibly erotic. About midnight, staring out of my window into the black sky and a misty halo of moon, I called the number on the poster. Your Honor, because in this era I recorded all calls to women for education and training purposes, I submit exhibit C, the following recording dated March 31st, 2013:

  Hello?

  Hello, Mimi Underwood! What’s that I’m hearing?

  I’m brushing my hair.

  Sounds knotty.

  What do you want?

  It’s Aldo Benjamin. The guy from the—

  I recognize your voice. What do you want?

  You recognize my voice? I’m flattered.

  Don’t be. It’s unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. What do you want?

  You didn’t change your number.

  I’ll say it for the last time.

  This is the woman who beat me with a car antenna, isn’t it?

  An apology, then?

  I find it almost inconceivable that you didn’t change your number.

  You’ve called at a bad time. I’m having the worst week of my life.

  That’s what you said last time! I bet you have a lot of worst weeks. Did you know we went to the same high school?

  Which one? I went to a few.

  Zetland High.

  The one with all the pigeons? Yeah, for a few months about twenty fucking years ago, so what? Thousands of people have been to that high school.

  So what is right.

  So I’m hanging up now.

  I read The Fussy Corpse.

  (silence)

  That makes twelve of you. Did you buy it?

  I read it in the library. Sorry. I have to say it was really something. It should come with a warning to emotionally or psychologically buckle up. My heart has been beating irregularly ever since I finished it.

  So you didn’t buy it, and you didn’t even borrow it. Now I’m really hanging up.

  I understand.

  (long silence)

  Mimi, are your eyes closed or open?

  Closed.

  Mine too.

  (more silence)

  Mimi, I want to tell you something.

  What is it?

  (silence)

  I’ve never been angry in a dream.

  So?

  You know what I hate most in life? When someone says to me, “You know who you look like?” Then they name some overweight and unattractive character actor.

  Why would you think I care about this?

  I’ve always wanted to live in the type of old world-y culture where it’s rude not to marry your brother’s widow.

  Did you want to tell me something more important?

  Yes.

  What?

  I want to kill myself.

  I see.

  Yes.

  You’ll miss New Year’s Eve.

  I don’t mind.

  And the lunar eclipse.

  When’s that?

  Stick around and find out.

  What’s so great about a lunar eclipse?

  And crawling into fresh hotel sheets. And afternoon naps. And crying in a sad movie. And hearing a new language spoken for the first time. And wandering in the desert unable to find your tent at night.

  That sounds terrifying.

  Meeting a new person and watching them form judgments of you as you speak.

  You like that?

  Waking up on a boat to find you’ve drifted into a new estuary. Watching a sunrise with a beautiful stranger who may or may not have stolen your wallet. Crawling into the marital bed after
cheating. Having your earlobes kissed and your toes sucked at the same time.

  How can one person kiss your earlobes and suck your toes at the same time?

  Who said anything about one person?

  Mimi. I have nothing of substance in my life. All I have are my friendships and my love of God—how superficial. It’s all about me, me, me!

  That’s no reason to lose the will to live.

  And I’ve no real job. I don’t even have a trade, or some kind of skill set.

  What are you interested in?

  Well, recently I have become obsessed with people who were mauled by their own dogs or whose children were mauled by their own dogs and who thereafter kept or defended those dogs.

  That doesn’t sound like a trade to me. How old are you?

  Old enough to miss slamming down a rotary phone with enough force to hurt someone’s eardrum.

  What are you afraid of?

  I’m a talented loser. The worst kind. Talented losers become self-aware madmen.

  Aldo, I think I’ll go back to brushing my hair.

  And when I was in my twenties, the girls I knew were having abortions. By my thirties, they had moved onto stillbirths. I’m almost forty. Where’s it all going to end?

  You know where it ends.

  I don’t. I don’t know. Do you think the inability to die could amount to a disability?

  What kind of a question is that?

  You asked me what I’m afraid of. That’s my fear. That there’ll always be some obstacle that prevents me from dying, from removing myself from the earth.

  What are you saying?

  I don’t know. Maybe I’m just overtired. I’ve no energy these days, I’m always distracted, and am often staring into space. Literally—I have a telescope.

  I don’t think we’re at the heart of things.

  Strange things happen to me.

  What kind of strange things?

  It’s hard to explain.

  Try.

  If there’s a foot-sized crack in a thousand-kilometer pavement, my foot will find it.

  Lots of people are clumsy.

  I’m clumsy, sure, no doubt. I had a stubbed-toe and head-lodged-between-banisters type of childhood and I still need to apply special concentration on escalators in regards to foot placement. I have an accident-prone personality. And I can identify with some but not all of the indicators: impulsiveness, cognitive drift, aggression. But this is something else. You know what Freud said? Accumulation puts an end to the impression of chance. I agree. This shit is not coincidence. Have you ever swallowed a fly?

  Once.

  Well, I’ve swallowed bees. And at least twice a year a bird flies into my head. I always fall over when I’m in the middle of yelling at someone. When I play a piano, the lid invariably closes on my fingers. I can never cross train tracks at night without a train screaming out of nowhere or traverse a lawn without the automatic sprinklers coming on. A rung has been missing on every ladder I’ve climbed. I inevitably get sick on my birthday. Whenever I travel I arrive in town the day after the fiesta. And how many overweight women can one man congratulate on being pregnant?

  Quick! Tell me something positive about yourself. Without thinking. Go!

  I’m good at buying presents.

  What else?

  I can pretty much befriend any cat.

  What else?

  I’m out! I got nothing else! You know the bad luck it takes to get a big toe caught in a mousetrap, but I’ve done it, I’ve done it!

  You sound stressed.

  I am stressed. And I know that stress destroys dendrites and neural pathways in the hippocampus, and that stresses me even more. Christ. I need to stand up.

  What was that sound?

  I stepped on some walnuts.

  Was that your knees?

  Mimi, I remember your hair. And your lips. And your eyes.

  Aldo, I remember your wife had left you.

  I think it was for the best. I mean, for my own safety.

  What do you mean?

  Well, when you think about it, the phrase “until death do us part” inevitably serves to foster murderous fantasies in one or both parties. That clause is a clear inducement to murder! Am I the only one who can see it?

  So you’re still single, then.

  The materialistic, sex-withholding, cynical women of this superficial town routinely sense my low expectations and then lower themselves to fit under them. And not only that, but I’ve completely run out of sexual fantasies. The actresses are too stupid, the models too thin, the waitresses too mean, the shop girls too bitter, the nurses too depressed, and the regular civilians look like they haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years. How is one expected to masturbate in this society?

  Is this an exaggeration of the real you or a toned-down version of the real you? Or is this the real you?

  That’s a good question.

  They say if you want to be loved, be lovable.

  They also say practice what you preach; that’s why I’m preaching threesomes.

  You’re a fucking riot, you are.

  I need hosing down, it’s true. Do you have kids?

  No.

  Are you in a relationship?

  I overheard my last boyfriend refer to my vagina as any port in a storm.

  Shit. I suppose the vertical decline of your fertility is an issue. Do you want kids?

  It’s so late in the game.

  I guess at our age the decision to have children is an expression of the fear of not having children.

  You know what I think?

  Yes, I do. You think living in such a fast-moving civilization means your dreams are obsolete before you have a chance to give up on them.

  I think you called to ask me out and you haven’t gotten around to it yet.

  Why do you think it’s such a taboo to conclude that life isn’t worth living?

  I don’t know. It just is.

  Ten thousand women raped, six thousand children molested, twenty-five thousand men beaten to death. Is there one earth day that isn’t like that?

  I suppose not.

  Then how can you tell me life is worth living? Besides, the question isn’t “is life worth living” but “is my life worth living.” You compare your best day to your worst, and find it balances out quite nicely. You don’t compare your best day with the worst day of a victim of sex slavery!

  Don’t fucking yell at me!

  If you told people with absolute authority that in ten years every child will be boiled in hot lava, I’m absolutely positive that people would still churn out babies. That’s the human race for you!

  You sound like someone who got woken up at the wrong time. Are you sure you meant to ring me specifically?

  Tell me what you think of this equation: Having already reached my potential five years ago, plus eternity, plus a human mind that cannot fathom the infinite, equals madness, right?

  Are you saying you believe you—

  Feel every picosecond and will continue to do so ad infinitum.

  You think you’re actually—

  If I was destined to die, shouldn’t Jeremy’s mother, the fortune-teller, have prognosticated some species of void?

  What are you saying?

  What if from birth I had come down with, that is to say had contracted, an exceedingly rare case of—I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud—immortality?

  That’s crazy.

  Yet what is the inability to cause the irreversible cessation of one’s core physiological function if not immortality? And what is the time value coexisting with that inability if not eternity? What if the end of consciousness is our common disease, and what if someone was immune, or had built up resistance to the disease? And what if that someone was me?

  I’m hanging up now.

  In the face of forever, the contours of one’s life slacken and become not just poorly defined, but permanently resistant to definition. I feel sick. I cannot meet the basic prerequisi
tes for death! How embarrassing! I’ve stolen fire from the gods, without meaning to!

  You think you’re invincible—

  I’m not saying I can’t be hurt. I can. That’s the problem. There’s no freedom in my immortality, it just makes me more vulnerable to pain and suffering. Imagine the setbacks and dangers that I’ll be susceptible to! I might get a thousand-year migraine, or be a few hundred years bedridden, or contract dementia and be combing over precarious memories every morning forever. Or what if I were to be decapitated? Or sentenced to life imprisonment? Death is our wedding with the abyss and I’m the only bachelor in town. This is a sickness. I’m sick. I’m incurable! I’m a candle that can never sputter out! I can break but I can’t erode! I can crumble but not disappear! As time expands, space shrinks. The world is suddenly infinitesimal, every minute a tyrant. I could do anything! Get into any amount of trouble! Or I could do nothing! Make no sound or movement! It makes not the slightest difference!

  I can’t understand a single thing you’re saying.

  And I can’t understand why masturbation is called self-abuse. It’s the only nice thing I’ve done for myself all week!

  Traditionally, who likes hearing this kind of crap?

  Traditionally, you should know, I’ve gone for girls with page-boy haircuts and a high-lesbian intelligence. Actually, wait. That used to be true. Now when I see a woman I think, if I had paid a thousand dollars for a high-class escort and she turned up at my door, would I feel like a satisfied customer or would I feel short-changed?

  You actually think that?

  Let me put it this way. I’m way too old for the raging hormones of adolescence, and yet, and yet, I can’t pass a woman on the street without imagining bending her over a bar fridge, a plinth, or a reception desk—it’s an incredible drag.

  You’re a monster.

  Are you looking at the moon?

  I’ve just worked out why you called.

  I thought I’d be the first to know.

  You want someone to like you for who you were before you became who you are now. You want someone to like you retrospectively.

  I think I called at the right time.

  Do you now?

  Sometimes all you need in life is good timing. I almost never have it. I think I’m actually proud of myself.