As they moved from room to room, Mano told Pepe and his mother things that he wanted both of them to know, like a kind of personal tour. In the bedroom Mano said, “This is where I keep my books.” In the kitchen he said, “This is the pantry door where I marked how tall I was each year with a pencil.” In the living room he said, “This is the stool I sat on to tie my shoes.”
Once outside, the lights in the windows of the nearby houses were off. The boys talked very quietly as they walked down Last Street past the front of each house. The black poodle followed close behind. As they walked past Pepe’s house, they felt relieved to notice the lights were off there, too. Mitzi and The Butcher were asleep.
“Did you get in trouble?” asked Mano.
“He said I can’t see you anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Church.”
As the boys lumbered toward the river, the moonlight washing over the bed sheet holding Sisi’s corpse, Mano knew love. He could feel love’s weight in his arms and back, and he could see it in Pepe’s arms and back, too, and in how his legs moved. He measured Pepe’s gait with his eyes, and then he tried to walk like that, too. Once on the banks of The Cure, he would tell Pepe all about his mother before they sent her off. Mano wondered if it would be too strange to have their first kiss after that.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Pepe said. “I’d rather be punished every night than not see you.”
“What if you’re locked away for good?”
“There’s no such thing as for good.” Pepe’s stubble glowed in the moonlight.
As the boys walked up a little hill, on the last few steps toward The Cure, they could hear its rush of water, but that rush of water was mixed with laughter.
Pepe stood up on his toes to look at the river, then turned around to face Mano. “Turn around. Let’s go back.”
“What? Why?”
Pepe saw what Mano had yet to see—Enid Pine and Mary and Mimi Minutes smoking cigarettes beneath the trees on the bank.
“Hey, look at that little cloud!” yelled Mary above the sound of the river.
No, no. Pepe and Mano both turned around and tried to shuffle away quietly into the dark.
“Now it’s moving away,” said Enid. “It looks so sad.”
“And so bright,” added Mimi.
Pepe and Mano found a line of bushes further down on the banks of The Cure. They hid themselves behind the bushes, and they set Sisi’s body on the ground there. As the three girls approached the black cloud, Mano and Pepe sat on Sisi’s body and tried to make themselves as small as possible.
“It stopped,” said Enid.
“It’s so beautiful. I want to touch it. Let’s lift Mimi up and see if she can touch it,” said Mary. She and Enid ran toward the bushes where Mano and Pepe were hiding. Mimi lagged behind, moving like a lowercase j.
“Mano?” Enid’s voice came out as a surprise to everyone, and Mano’s name was spoken with elation, in a way like he had never heard it before. Her voice was an announcement, as if he was now supposed to take a lit stage.
Mano moved around sheepishly behind the bushes without standing up. “Hi, Enid.” The sound of Mano’s voice was the opposite of Enid’s. He kept his head down, and stayed seated secretly on top of his mother’s corpse.
“Is that your cloud?” Mary asked.
“No.” Mano had second thoughts about his answer. “I mean, yes. That’s mine.”
“It’s so sad,” said Enid.
“It’s just a cloud,” said Pepe.
“Who’s that?” asked Mary.
“It’s me, Pepe,” said Pepe.
“What are you doing here?” asked Mary.
“Don’t worry about it,” answered Pepe.
“Can we touch it?” Enid asked, far more interested in Mano and his black cloud. She kneeled down to be close to Mano.
“Yeah, Enid wants to touch it,” giggled Mary.
Mano interrupted her giggling. “You can’t touch it.”
“Why? What happens if we touch it?” asked Mary. Mary never liked the first answer to any question.
“It’s not a thing. You can’t touch it like that.”
“But it’s a cloud,” asserted Mary.
“It’s a cloud, but a cloud isn’t a thing. It’s nothing. You can’t touch it,” explained Mano.
Mimi finally caught up to the group. “We sure miss having a boy around at the factory.” She made sure to emphasize the word “boy” for Mano’s sake. “Nice boy haircut.”
“Cut it out, Mimi. Quit trying to be tough like your sister.” Mano knew just how to hit Mimi where it hurt. Pepe laughed under his breath.
Mary felt proud that Mano considered her tough. “Why did you cut your hair?”
“I’m The Barber now,” answered Mano. “The Barber has to have short hair. Everyone knows that.”
“Can I?” asked Enid. She wanted to distinguish her sincerity from Mary’s.
It was Mary’s duty to catch Mimi up on the conversation. “Mano’s The Barber now. Enid wants to touch The Barber’s cloud. The Barber says it’s not a thing.”
“Ooh, Enid wants to touch it,” snickered Mimi alone.
“We already made that joke,” said Mary.
Mimi let her laughter trail into an embarrassed sigh.
Mano and Pepe stayed still on Sisi’s body as Enid picked up Mimi and positioned her on Mary’s back like a backpack. The three of them started making plans to build some sort of pyramid out of their bodies that would reach the black cloud.
“Please, stop.” Mano stood up to grab a stick. “Here, you can touch a little corner of the cloud, but that’s it.” With his stick, he stood on his toes to knock a little corner of the black cloud off. Finally, after some maneuvering and jumping, a piece of fluffy blackness fell onto the ground in front of Mary. It bounced on the ground a few times, then rolled around. It looked alive.
Mary picked it up and played with it in her hands. “It feels so sad. It feels heavy and wet.”
“Let me feel.” Mimi grabbed the piece of the blackness from her sister with her only hand. “I want to eat it. I want it inside of me.”
“You can’t eat it!” fired Mano.
“Why not?”
“Ok, go ahead and eat it,” he said resigned.
“No, here, I’ll eat it first.” Mary grabbed the piece from her sister’s weak grip, and touched it to the tip of her tongue.
“Go on, eat it.” With her one hand, Mimi pushed Mary’s elbow up so that the blackness smeared on her nose.
“Fuck off!” Mary wiped the smear off on the end of her sleeve. The end of her sleeve glowed, but only Mano and Pepe noticed. “I’m going to eat it. Just give me a second.” She stretched her neck in preparation.
Mimi grew impatient and grabbed part of the blackness for herself, and put half of it in her mouth immediately.
“Hey! What are you doing? That’s mine,” shouted Mary.
“It’s not anyone’s!” Pepe reminded everyone.
“What’s it taste like?” Enid asked Mimi. Both Mary and Enid leaned in for an answer.
Mimi swallowed her bite of cloud, and her mood changed entirely. The corners of her eyes softened. She looked back at the river. “It tastes like nothing.”
“What do you mean it tastes like nothing?” Mimi still held a piece of her piece of blackness in her hands.
“Yeah, what does nothing taste like?” seconded Enid.
“Like nothing. I don’t know. It tastes like the past.”
Mano walked over to the triangle of girls. He turned them into a square of three girls and one boy. “Give it back, please.” He held out his hand.
Mary mindlessly gave what she had left back to Mano, because her eyes were now on something else entirely. She quickly became much more interested in the thing wrapped in a bed sheet that Pepe was sitting on. “Wait! What is that?!” Mary asked.
“Is that a dead body!?” Mimi shouted.
Pepe stood up and yelled. “It’
s nothing. Get the fuck out of here!” He pointed toward the factory. “I’ll tell The Foreman you’ve been out late at night, and all your parents, too.”
Mary became a different kind of animal after Pepe’s threat. “The Foreman doesn’t give a fuck about anything you have to tell him.” Her face twisted. “I also have a feeling that The Butcher would be pretty interested to learn that you were out of your house while he slept, walking your boyfriend and his stupid poodle down by the river in the middle of the night, carrying a wrapped up dead body around. That doesn’t sound so good, does it? I bet he thinks you’re at home asleep. Doesn’t he?”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Pepe’s voice was backing down.
“Hmm, maybe I’ll go with my mother tomorrow to the butcher shop and let him know, just as he’s cutting the leg from a lamb with the cleaver you sharpened.” Mary looked at the dead body. “Now, tell me, Pepe, what exactly do we have here?
Mano pleaded. “Please, don’t.”
“Mary, let’s go home. Leave him alone,” said Enid, siding with Mano.
“What’s everyone’s problem?” Mary made her case. We’re just going to have a quick look. It’s a dead body! We’re not going to hurt it. How could we possibly hurt it?”
Sisi’s toes peeked out of the sheet and looked like white flowers in the moonlight.
“Who is this?” demanded Mary.
Mano felt faint, and fell into the bushes. He couldn’t see anything but a purple blur on the edges of his vision. Pepe stumbled over to Mano and held him. He wiped sweat from Mano’s face while answering Mary’s demands. “It’s nobody!” shouted Pepe.
“Did you kill her?” shouted Mary back.
“Yeah, did you kill her?” echoed Mimi.
Enid pulled on Mary’s elbow. “Let’s go home.”
Mano was trying not to pass out. “Please, just go away and leave us alone.”
“Oh my god, you killed someone? Who did you kill?” asked Mary.
“Let’s just look,” suggested Mimi.
“This isn’t right, Mary.” Enid put both of her arms around Mary’s waist and tried to turn her around. But it was too late. Mary had lifted the sheet to see an arm, and she had become something more like a wolf than a girl. As she picked up the arm, she pulled on it so slightly just to show the others. But the entire arm fell off. Sisi’s body was so sodden from a decade of soaking in the bathtub that it came apart at the slightest tug, like wet paper.
Mary held Sisi’s whole arm in her arms. “Her arm fell off.”
That’s the last thing Mano heard before passing out.
“Get out of here! Leave her alone!” shouted Pepe as he lowered Mano’s body carefully to the ground.
Enid ran over to Pepe and Mano to help.
“I have her whole leg now, too. It fell off when I touched it.” Mary laughed wildly.
It all happened too fast to be stopped. Mary moved quickly to uncover the sheet near Sisi’s head so that she could look at her face. To her surprise, she didn’t recognize the body. She moved Sisi’s head so that it would look straight up, so that she could get a better look, but Sisi’s head fell off into her hands. “Her head fell off.”
Pepe let Enid hold Mano. She held his head and tried to fan his face with her empty hand.
Pepe tried to kick Mary off the body, but it was like kicking a wolf off half a bloody sheep. Mary growled and scowled, and showed her fangs.
Mimi said, “Look, I have two arms now.” She waved Sisi’s other arm around in the air by her deformed shoulder, which looked like a squashed pumpkin with a dirty sweatshirt on.
As quickly as the scavenging began, it ended. The two girls had already scattered, like the wolves they had become, each of them with whole parts of Sisi in their arms. Mary had Sisi’s head, a leg, and an arm, and Mimi on her back. In Mimi’s arm was an arm.
What remained was nothing that could be recognized as a corpse. Her body looked like what’s left of a smoked trout after it’s been eaten. Pepe and Enid couldn’t even really see the spine. It was just some other kind of deathly remainder. The death of a death. A good death that died horribly.
Enid and Pepe shared an instinct to put Sisi back together before Mano woke up, to gather her parts up in the sheet, and carry what remained to the river. But there were no good recognizable parts left. There was no center. Only fleshy smears. A thing with no center can not be held or lifted. There wasn’t enough left of Sisi to be a thing.
Enid sat silently next to Mano while Pepe wadded up the bed sheet. He held the sheet in front of him like a baby.
“Go home, Enid.”
“Can I...I want...” Enid wanted to help somehow, wanted to erase any involvement of her own in the previous ten minutes. She started to pick up what remained of the piece of black cloud on the ground.
“Go home!” Pepe yelled at her this time.
Enid tried not to cry.
Mano was barely awake. He thought maybe he was dreaming the two voices that were now crying and yelling on the other side of his closed eyes. He thought about that word: Home. His home, now, was everywhere, scattered into every dark corner.
“But what about...” Enid started to ask any question.
“Enid, please.”
Enid kissed Mano on the forehead. Mano wondered if it was Pepe who kissed him, but he could tell that it wasn’t Pepe’s lips doing the kissing. Mano pursed his lips a little. A kiss there would solve something, he thought, but he wasn’t quite sure what.
As Enid walked away, Sisi’s black cloud broke into two, a kind of transference of misery. Half of it followed Enid a few feet above her head down the hill. She looked up and liked it there. It made her feel close to Mano. The other half hovered over Mano as he considered opening his eyes to see Pepe, or keeping them closed so that he wouldn’t have to see what had become of his mother.
It would be dark for a few more hours. Neither boy said a word. There was little to say or do. There was nowhere to go back to. The only thing either of them could do was to lie on their backs and close their eyes. Listen to the river. Wait for the sun to come up through the trees.
Pepe set the bed sheet next to Mano, and then lay beside him. Pepe wanted to tell Mano that he loved him, but something in the back of his throat stopped him. It wasn’t the time, maybe. He thought to just be quiet, and to hold his hand. That was all there was to do. Instead, he said, “Mano, I’m sorry.”
Inside of Pepe’s hand, Mano’s hand felt like a new heart that beats on the outside. A new heart to replace his old dead one.
“Thank you, Pepe.”
Then Pepe died.
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
15.
“Pehhh...payyy.”
Mano’s eyes had been closed for so long that everything looked brighter when he finally opened them again. Everything was so bright, Mano thought he was dead. The black poodle was sitting on a rock. The black cloud was gone. The Reckoner must have already stood itself back up, and his blood must have already washed away in the rain.
The top of a fern twitched and squeaked. Mano walked carefully toward the fern, ready to fight, and saw his mother’s bed sheet there. He must have carried it with him into the woods in the hours before the sun came up. A sharp pain flashed behind Mano’s eyeballs when he saw his mother’s sheet. It was better now to be dead, Mano thought. Death is nothing, and nothing was all he could handle at the moment.
Mano carefully pushed the fern aside with his foot. Two black birds were pecking at the sheet, trying to get out. In the folds, they were preening their wings. They had pecked two perfectly round holes from the center of the sheet. He unfolded his mother’s sheet to look at the birds. They were just as he had always imagined. Once free, they swooped through the air in three giant circles and then landed on the bare branches of The Reckoner. They were the most beautiful animals he had ever seen.
“How did you get in there?”
Mano removed his glasses, and slipped the sheet over
his head. He lined up the pecked-out eye holes over his eyes, and placed his glasses over his eyes on the outside of the sheet. Everything lined up just perfectly. He felt at home inside his mother’s bed sheet. The black birds perched on top of his ghost head. Their claws scratched at his head lovingly
“Thank you, ma’am. They’re just what I wanted.”
Then he floated back out through the woods the same way that he imagined he must have come in.
Back in town, in the back chamber of Lady Blood, Father Mothers III was preparing for the next weekend’s fiery homily about the contract with hell that non-believers were signing. With Lil’ Jorge watching from his stool in the corner, Mothers practiced gesturing wildly with his hands in front of a mirror. He pushed his finger into his fist, back and forth, to illustrate what God’s Finger was doing to those who sinned. Lil’ Jorge attempted the gesture with his own fingers, but it just looked like he was polishing an apple.
“No, like this.” Mothers held Lil’ Jorge’s wrist with one hand, and pulled on his index finger with the other. “We’re being killed like this because we’re sinners.”
Lil’ Jorge nodded and smiled.
Mothers’ teeth jutted outward like a beaver as he practiced a few lines about the black birds of Hell. “If you see a black bird, it’s here only because it lost its way in the forests of Hell.”
“What’s a bird?” asked Lil’ Jorge, still bumbling on his own with the God’s Finger gesture.
“They’re from Hell. They’re bad. They swallow boys and girls who didn’t go to church, and they carry their bodies in their bellies back to Hell with them. They vomit the boys’ and girls’ bodies back up in Hell and the boys and girls would have to live there forever, in Hell.”
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