Catastrophe Jones

He wakes without a gasp, without a start, and the silence of it belies the horror that lives behind his eyes. Shadows and broken things, sharp edges seeking to carve out the inner supports of him, hollowing him out, waiting until he collapses, so they can fill up the empty spaces, and use him, stand him up again on a skeleton of black lies, vicious misery, and a cold-fire-hatred.

He waits to walk around as a marionette, and wonders if he is, already, and simply didn’t notice the transition.

In the silence of the morning hours, he prepares for the day like any other, readying his things, and the things of those he loves, waking them with gentle touches, gentle words, shepherding them out into the world, watching them go and then standing in the doorway of the house that threatens to swallow him, every time he is left in it alone. The groans of the floorboards under his feet are familiar, known, but they still sound like the muted whimper of those he cannot forget, those he has lost, those who have fallen, years and years and years ago.

The only thing that quiets the cry, that dulls the sharp claw of memory, is his garden. He tends a patch of strawberries, works the soil with his hands, plucks up each weed with deft fingers, mounds over the earth in the winter, uncovers it in the spring, wakes it and talks to it without any words. He wakes it with gentle touches, as he does for those he loves, and puts it to sleep in the same fashion, and year after year, he carefully harvests its fruit, and shares each sweet red jewel with family and friends, marveling over all he has received, observing his life with the wide-eyed wonder of a child who simply cannot believe his luck, but will accept it, for now.

Now and then, when the phone rings, he looks at it as though it were  a snake, ready to bite.  He answers it before anyone else might, and each time he feels a sense of trembling relief when it is merely the Elk’s Club calling for a donation, or the neighbors, asking about the crab apples that keep falling into their yard from the tree on the property line. Now and then, when a car remains behind him for too long, he’ll take a different route home, watching the mirrors and all but running out of gas until he’s certain he’s no longer being followed.

He goes to bed every night after locking up and checking every door and window, turning out the lights and making sure things are in their proper place. He curls up where he belongs, nestled in a warm comma.  He keeps his eyes open in the dark, holding out against closing them as long as he can, wanting to keep the taste of strawberries on his tongue, so memory will stay asleep for just a little while longer.

The day begins with the heart beating, leftover, on the table. It sits there, still beating, still bleeding, and she’s still weeping, pleading even, but the man with the knives never looks at her. He never looks at anything but his edges and the block, and the tubs. His hands touch wood and metal with confidence and love. They touch scale and flesh with confidence and surety. They touch insides with confidence and carelessness.

His hands, not the butcher’s, but the hands of the man who invited her in, long ago, invited her in and up and all the way home reach to touch her and she does not flinch but she wonders if it’s because she’s not sure which heart is hers. The one beating beating warm inside, or the one beating cold outside.

And then come the questions.

Which one? Which one for you? And for you?

It’s only a small thing, only a little pinch. I didn’t mean to, he says. I’m sorry, she says. On a glass plate, under a silver dome, under a trembling hand holding combs that never stay and shawls that are never pinned.  Un-dish-cover this, she sings, but she’s old and made of paper, and her rushes are disappearing, melting away in the bottom of the little boat. How many needles can you knit with, before your fingers disappear? How many shelves are there, and is the shape a box, an egg, a rabbit, a mouse, or something altogether darker?

When we speak of the killing and the hurting, do those words belong to the same one, or is the one that’s killing the one that’s hurting? I know she’ll ask herself which is her, and which is not, and how long it will keep beating there, outside of her, a wreck without even the shell to pretend the protection.

How many games will we play before we close the book and wind up the worsted and scold the kitten and brush away the leaves and wake up and find ourselves in a sunny afternoon, and still fifty feet from the pond?

More importantly, when will dinner be ready?

Everything was perfect until the fairies showed up. Everything went along and made sense. Everything had its good points and its bad points. School was long, but I got to make spitballs, and dip Penny’s braids into the inkwell in my desk.  Church was long, but singing hymns was nice. Vegetables at supper were always awful, but if I ate mine, I always got dessert. There was a system, and when I followed it, I could be sure of certain consequences.

Until they showed up.

They ruined everything.

Now it’s all sunshine and light, no matter what you do. Now if I want six spoonfuls of golden syrup on my oatmeal at breakfast, I can have it. Now if I don’t do my homework, the teacher doesn’t care. Now if I dip Penny’s braids into the inkwell, she doesn’t notice at all. No one yells, and nothing happens.

We thought they were beautiful, like little angels covered in white down, pure and made of light. We thought they were perfect, and it seemed so, but instead of inspiring joy and goodness and a penchant for doing right, all they do is inspire complicity and benevolence. Except in me, somehow. Mother always said I was stubborn. And I thought it was wonderful, at first. I behaved well, for awhile, almost scared into the idea of Hell, but then I cut a class, because I had wanted to watch them — and the teacher didn’t care. I noticed when I left some of my peas uneaten, I still got pudding. And when I didn’t wash behind my ears, Mother kissed me goodnight anyway.  Then I didn’t make my bed. I didn’t brush my hair. I didn’t brush my teeth, and I didn’t turn in my homework, and I didn’t come home on time, or study, or pay for my lunch milk, or go to violin lessons, or help with the housework, or tell Gran I loved her when I secretly thought she smelled of violet powder and old pee, and then I broke dishes, and pulled Penny’s hair and wrote dirty words in the lavatory, and cut holes in my bedsheets.

I behaved in every awful way I could think of, and everyone was still… nice. Everyone was still sweet and kind and didn’t seem to pay much attention to what I did, or didn’t do.

Not sure if this will get their attention, but if all these guns and all this gasoline doesn’t do the trick, nothing will, and then what will I do?

The day he was Judged, Arnold Lorry was in the middle of telling off a bum. Any other morning, he normally would have handed over all the change in his pockets, up to and including pound notes. He had a great love for his fellow man, and a great sympathy for those who’d fallen on hard times. It wasn’t easy to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, he imagined, if you hadn’t any decent boots. And besides, “there but for the grace” and all that, right?  That morning, however, after a wretched commute, a dressing-down by his boss, spilling tea on his best slacks, burning himself in the process, and realizing he’d lost his pair of tickets to the match that weekend, he was in a rather foul mood.

The beggar had thrust a dirty hand out, without so much as a “Please” or even a “Help a fellow out, sir?” or anything at all, and Arthur had already given everything he had to a man on the previous corner.  “Sorry, chap,” he murmured. “Sorry, but I’ve nothing left,” he said, and there was true apology on his face, though it was hard to muster, considering the day he’d been having, but the bum wouldn’t have it.

“Don’t need your sorry!” he snapped. “Just wanted a fucking fiddypee, is all.”

“I gave every last piece to the man round the last corner, mate,” Arnold said, shrugging politely, a frown creasing his forehead.

“S’not true,” the bum said plainly. “You’ve more in your fold, I’ll wager.”

“Well yes,” Arnold said, now distinctly uncomfortable. “I’ve another tenner in there, but it’s for the Church plate on Sunday…”  His voice trailed off, and he looked at the bum, frowning as he thought of the face his sainted mother would make if he didn’t have the note to drop in the plate on Sunday.  “So I’ve nothing else to–”

“Liar!” the bum snapped. “You’ve fifty quid behind your ID. You keep it there for emergencies, and you know I need it more than you do!”

Arnold’s face went white, and he grew rigid, the instant the bum shouted at him. “Don’t presume to call me a liar, sir!” he said right back, his hands clenching into fists. “Whether you need it more or not, I worked for it, I earned it, and I’ve already given to another man, and to the Church, and to charity, and I donate time and money and I won’t have you telling me what to do with my emergency fif–”  And just then, Arnold realized what the bum had said, and his voice gave out. How had the man known how much, and where he kept it. He frowned, and his voice grew hard and angry, and he leaned in, his lips in a thin line as he snarled, “I don’t know how you know about my money, or where I keep it or why, but I’ll thank you to stay away from me, and out of my business, you filthy rag. You take your pennies and you buy your fucking bottle or your snort or your cunt for the night and you keep your grubbing fingers out of my pockets, I don’t owe you anything!”

The bum stepped back, and Arnold felt every bit of himself tremble as the grime fell away, revealing massive wings, snowy white, a halo of golden curls, and pure, glittering raiment covering what was obviously an angel.  “Arnold Lorry,” the angel proclaimed, “you’re an ungenerous man, selfish, and a liar to boot. How say you?”

Arnold fell right to his knees, his heart thundering in his chest, trying to move up to his throat. “Oh, oh, oh my dear sweet fucking merciful Christ,” he babbled, staring up at the angel, tears streaming down his face.  “I’m an awful man, but you see, I swear, I give. I give always. It’s just a bad day, can’t a bloke have a bad day?”

“No,” the angel answered, with a shrug, his voice apologetic. “I already gave to the man before you; I’ve no mercy left.”

They move in the dark, not at all silent, great thundering footsteps clashing against the ground, clumsy beasts with their reflective eyes and hissing calls. They scream at the moon and bait one another, tails twitching, claws catching on every little thing. They fear nothing, at this time of night — anything that looks like terror is merely a play-act; they bottlebrush and puff up, and their bared teeth are more of smiles than anything else.

They taunt the caged one, and listen to her whimpers, listen to the thump of her tail, begging for friendship, for attention, for anything but these long, dark hours of neglect, and the whine she makes through her wet black nose as she watches them gallivant without her, as they cavort, taunt, tease, and terrorize.

They climb subtle mountains and breathe in the night’s scents, catching the briefest hint of far off prey, some nesting bird, only just out of their reach. They sing, longing and high, raking themselves against any object that will stand still long enough to feel itself gouged and flayed.

They are kings and priests of the night, lovers and murderers, and they will dance what precious secrets they have, until the darkest hour, when they will mourn the moon, and grow silent as the its death promises the sun’s birth. There, they will lie down, and die a bit, themselves, falling into silksoft sleeps and tail-twitching dreams, waiting to do it again, as soon and as often as possible.