Ashes Page 5

  Two men rose from the log they were sitting on. One was dressed in a Union cavalry uniform, bright with polished leather and buttons. The other was Tibbets, in his prisoner's rags. Tibbets made a motion with his hand for Wilkie to sit. Wilkie nodded to the cavalry officer and sat rubbing his hands before the flames.

  "This is Wilkie," Tibbets said.

  Wilkie glanced up, about to ask the dead prisoner how he knew Wilkie's name. But in the land of the impossible, why shouldn't he?

  The officer gave the open-handed Rebel salute. "Welcome."

  Wilkie wondered why no one brought weapons to bear on him. Then he noticed that none of the men were armed. He studied the men sitting across the fire from him. They wore gray Confederate jackets. One of the men had cornbread crumbs in his beard. The soldiers nodded in greeting, then turned their attention back to the warm pork that filled their hands.

  "Where do I go to surrender?" Wilkie asked the officer.

  The officer's mouth fell open, then, after a moment, a laugh rolled from deep inside his chest. The other men around the fire joined in, along with several groups from nearby campfires. When the officer regained his composure, he said, "You don't have to surrender, son. Why, the war's over."

  "Over?" Wilkie knew the South was getting beat, after Chattanooga and Gettysburg everybody recognized it was just a matter of time, but there was still plenty of Confederate pride and bodies yet to be used up. He couldn't imagine Lee handing over his sword without playing a last trump card or two.

  "It's over for all of us," Tibbets said, waving his arm to indicate the entire camp that seemed to stretch on toward the stars.

  "But you're dead."

  The laughter fell away. Wilkie looked around, expectant, a sheen of fear on his cool skin.

  "How many did you see die?" the officer asked quietly and not unkindly, like a wise uncle explaining something to a wayward nephew. "How many did you help kill?"

  Wilkie looked at Tibbets.

  "The bullet bites both ways," said Tibbets. "Doesn't matter whether you're breathing or not. You're still dead."

  "This is a war," Wilkie said.

  "War's over now," the cavalry officer said. "A civilized camp is in the best interest of both sides."

  The officer sat and pulled a stick from the fire. It bent with the weight of a hunk of cooked ham. He passed the stick to Wilkie.

  Someone strummed the guitar chords to "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic." The officer began singing in a rich bass voice. The Confederates wiped their lips with their sleeves and added their voices to the chorus that rose across the camp. Wilkie didn't know the words, so he listened as he ate, listened, listened, as the night fell on, forever.

  MURDERMOUTH

  If only they had taken my tongue.

  With no tongue, I would not taste this world. The air in the tent is buttered by the mist from popcorn. Cigarette smoke drifts from outside, sweet with candy apples and the liquor that the young men have been drinking. The drunken ones laugh the hardest, but their laughter always turns cruel.

  If they only knew how much I love them. All of them, the small boys whose mothers pull them by the collar away from the cage, the plump women whose hair reflects the torchlight, the men all trying to act as if they are not surprised to see a dead man staring at them with hunger dripping from his mouth.

  “ Come and see the freak,” says the man who cages me, his hands full of dollar bills.

  Freak. He means me. I love him.

  More people press forward, bulging like sausages against the confines of their skin. The salt from their sweat burns my eyes. I wish I could not see.

  But I see more clearly now, dead, than I ever did while breathing. I know this is wrong, that my heart should beat like a trapped bird, that my veins should throb in my temples, that blood should sluice through my limbs. Or else, my eyes should go forever dark, the pounding stilled.

  “ He doesn’t look all that weird,” says a long-haired man in denim overalls. He spits brown juice into the straw that covers the ground.

  “ Seen one like him up at Conner’s Flat,” says a second, whose breath falls like an ill wind. “I hear there’s three in Asheville, in freak shows like this.”

  The long-haired man doesn’t smell my love for him. “Them scientists and their labs, cooking up all kinds of crazy stuff, it’s a wonder something like this ain’t happened years ago.”

  The second man laughs and points at me and I want to kiss his finger. “This poor bastard should have been put out of his misery like the rest of them. Looks like he wouldn’t mind sucking your brains out of your skull.”

  “ Shit, that’s nothing,” says a third, this one as big around as one of the barrels that the clowns use for tricks. “I seen a woman in Parson’s Ford, she’d take a hunk out of your leg faster than you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’”

  “ Sounds like your ex-wife,” says the first man to the second. The three of them laugh together.

  “ A one hundred percent genuine flesh-eater,” says my barker. His eyes shine like coins. He is proud of his freak.

  “ He looks like any one of us,” calls a voice from the crowd. “You know. Normal.”

  “ Say, pardnuh, you wouldn’t be taking us for a ride, would you?” says the man as big as a barrel.

  For a moment, I wonder if perhaps some mistake has been made, that I am in my bed, dreaming beside my wife. I put my hand to my chest. No heartbeat. I put a finger in my mouth.

  “ I’m as true as an encyclopedia,” says my barker.

  “ Look at the bad man, Mommy,” says a little girl. I smile at her, my mouth wet with desire. She shrieks and her mother leans forward and picks her up. I spit my finger out and stare at it, lying there pale against the straw, slick and shiny beneath the guttering torches.

  Several of the women moan, the men grunt before they can stop themselves, the children lean closer, jostle for position. One slips, a yellow-haired boy with tan skin and meat that smells like soap. For an instant, his hands grip the bars of the cage. He fights for balance.

  I love him so much, I want to make him happy, to please him. I crawl forward, his human stink against my tongue as I try to kiss him. Too quickly, a man has yanked him away. A woman screams and curses first at him, then at me.

  The barker beats at the bars with his walking stick. “Get back, freak.”

  I cover my face with my hands, as he has taught me. The crowd cheers. I hunch my back and shiver, though I have not been cold since I took my final breath. The barker pokes me with the stick, taunting me. Our eyes meet and I know what to do next. I pick my finger off the ground and return it to my mouth. The crowd sighs in satisfaction.

  The finger has not much flavor. It is like the old chicken hearts the barker throws to me at night after the crowd has left. Pieces of flesh that taste of dirt and chemicals. No matter how much of it I eat, I still hunger.

  The crowd slowly files out of the tent. In the gap beyond the door, I see the brightly-spinning wheels of light, hear the bigger laughter, the bells and shouts as someone wins at a game. With so much amusement, a freak like me cannot hope to hold their attention for long. And still I love them, even when they are gone and all that’s left is the stench of their shock and repulsion.

  The barker counts his money, stuffs it in the pocket of his striped trousers. “Good trick there, with the finger. You’re pretty smart for a dead guy.”

  I smile at him. I love him. I wish he would come closer to the bars, so I could show him how much I want to please him. I pleased my last barker. He screamed and screamed, but my love was strong, stronger than those who tried to pull him away.

  The barker goes outside the tent to try and find more people with money. His voice rings out, mixes with the organ waltzes and the hum of the big diesel engines. The tent is empty and I feel something in my chest. Not the beating, beating, beating like before I died. This is more like the thing I feel in my mouth and stomach. I need. I put my finger in my mouth, even though no one is wa
tching.

  The juggler comes around a partition. The juggler is called Juggles and he wears make-up and a dark green body stocking. His painted eyes make his face look small. “Hey, Murdermouth,” he says.

  I don’t remember the name I had when I was alive, but Murdermouth has been a favorite lately. I smile at him and show him my teeth and tongue. Juggles comes by every night when the crowds thin out.

  “ Eating your own damned finger,” Juggles says. He takes three cigarettes from a pocket hidden somewhere in his body stocking. In a moment, the cigarettes are in the air, twirling, Juggles’ bare toes a blur of motion. Then one is in his mouth, and he leans forward and lights it from a torch while continuing to toss the other two cigarettes.

  He blows smoke at me. “What’s it like to be dead?”

  I wish I could speak. I want to tell him, I want to tell them all. Being dead has taught me how to love. Being dead has shown me what is really important on this earth. Being dead has saved my life.

  “ You poor schmuck. Ought to put a bullet in your head.” Juggles lets the cigarette dangle from his lips. He lights one of the others and flips it into my cage with his foot. “Here you go. Suck on that for a while.”

  I pick up the cigarette and touch its orange end. My skin sizzles and I stare at the wound as the smoke curls into my nose. I put the other end of the cigarette in my mouth. I cannot breathe so it does no good.

  “ Why are you so mean to him?”

  It is she. Her voice comes like hammers, like needles of ice, like small kisses along my skin. She stands at the edge of the shadows, a shadow herself. I know that if my heart could beat it would go crazy.

  “ I don’t mean nothing,” says Juggles. He exhales and squints against the smoke, then sits on a bale of straw. “Just having a little fun.”

  “ Fun,” she says. “All you care about is fun.”

  “ What else is there? None of us are going anywhere.”

  She steps from the darkness at the corner of the tent. The torchlight is golden on her face, flickering playfully among her chins. Her breath wheezes like the softest of summer winds. She is beautiful. My Fat Lady.

  The cigarette burns between my fingers. The fire reaches my flesh. I look down at the blisters, trying to remember what pain felt like. Juice leaks from the wounds and extinguishes the cigarette.

  “ He shouldn’t be in a cage,” says the Fat Lady. “He’s no different from any of us.”

  “ Except for that part about eating people.”

  “ I wonder what his name is.”

  “ You mean ‘was,’ don’t you? Everything’s in the past for him.”

  The Fat Lady squats near the cage. Her breasts swell with the effort, lush as moons. She stares at my face, into my eyes. I crush the cigarette in my hand and toss it to the ground.

  “ He knows,” she says. “He can still feel. Just because he can’t talk doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. Whatever that virus was that caused this, it’s a hundred times worse than being dead.”

  “ Hell, if I had arms, I’d give him a hug,” mocks Juggles.

  “ You and your arms. You think you’re the only one that has troubles?” The Fat Lady wears lipstick, her mouth is a red gash against her pale, broad face. Her teeth are straight and healthy. I wish she would come closer.

  “ Crying over that Murdermouth is like pissing in a river. At least he brings in a few paying customers.”

  The Fat Lady stares deeply into my eyes. I try to blink, to let her know I’m in here. She sees me. She sees me.

  “ He’s more human than you’ll ever be,” the Fat Lady says, without turning her head.

  “ Oh, yeah? Give us both a kiss and then tell me who loves you.” He has pulled a yellow ball from somewhere and tosses it back and forth between his feet. “Except you better kiss me first because you probably won’t have no lips left after him.”

  “ He would never hurt me,” she says. She smiles at me. “Would you?”

  I try to think, try to make my mouth around the word. My throat. All my muscles are dumb, except for my tongue. I taste her perfume and sweat, the oil of her hair, the sex she had with someone.

  Voices spill from the tent flap. The barker is back, this time with only four people. Juggles hops to his feet, balances on one leg while saluting the group, then dances away. He doesn’t like the barker.

  “ Hello, Princess Tiffany,” says the barker.

  The Fat Lady grins, rises slowly, groans with the effort of lifting her own weight. I love all of her.

  “ For a limited time only, a special attraction,” shouts the barker in his money-making voice. “The world’s fattest woman and the bottomless Murdermouth, together again for the very first time.”

  The Fat Lady waves her hand at him, smiles once more at me, then waddles toward the opening in the tent. She waits for a moment, obliterating the bright lights beyond the tent walls, then enters the clamor and madness of the crowd.

  “ Too bad,” says the barker. “A love for the ages.”

  “ Goddamn, I’d pay double to see that,” says one of the group.

  “ Quadruple,” says the barker. “Once for each chin.”

  The group laughs, then falls silent as all eyes turn to me.

  The barker beats on the cage with his stick. “Give them a show, freak.”

  I eat the finger again. It is shredded now and bits of dirt and straw stick to the knuckle. Two of the people, a man and a woman, hug each other. The woman makes a sound like her stomach is bad. Another man, the one who would pay double, says, “Do they really eat people?”

  “ Faster than an alligator,” says my barker. “Why, this very one ingested my esteemed predecessor in three minutes flat. Nothing left but two pounds of bones and a shoe.”

  “ Doesn’t look like much to me,” says the man. “I wouldn’t be afraid to take him on.”

  He calls to the man with him, who wobbles and smells of liquor and excrement. “What do you think? Ten-to-one odds.”

  “ Maynard, he’d munch your ass so fast you’d be screaming ‘Mommy’ before you knew what was going on,” says the wobbling man.

  Maynard’s eyes narrow and he turns to the barker. “What do you say? I’ll give you a hundred bucks. Him and me, five minutes.”

  My barker points the stick toward the tent ceiling. “Five minutes. In the cage with that thing?”

  “ I heard about these things,” says the man. “Don’t know if I believe it.”

  My mouth tastes his courage and his fear. He is salt and meat and brains and kidneys. He is one of them. I love him.

  He takes the stick from the barker and pokes me in the shoulder.

  “ That’s not sporting,” says the barker. He looks at the man and woman, who have gone pale and taken several steps toward the door.

  Maynard rattles the stick against the bars and pokes me in the face. I hear a tearing sound. The woman screams and the man shouts beside her, then they run into the night. Organ notes trip across the sky, glittering wheels tilt, people laugh. The crowd is thinning for the night.

  Maynard fishes in his pocket and pulls out some bills. “What do you say?”

  “ I don’t know if it’s legal,” says the barker.

  “ What do you care? Plenty more where he came from.” Maynard breathes heavily. I smell poison spilling from inside him.

  “ It ain’t like it’s murder,” says Maynard’s drunken companion.

  The barker looks around, takes the bills. “After the crowd’s gone. Come back after midnight and meet me by the duck-hunting gallery.”

  Maynard reaches the stick into the bars, rakes my disembodied finger out of the cage. He bends down and picks it up, sniffs it, and slides it into his pocket. “A little return on my investment,” he says.

  The barker takes the stick from Maynard and wipes it clean on his trouser leg. “Show’s over, folks,” he yells, as if addressing a packed house.

  “ Midnight,” Maynard says to me. “Then it’s you and me, freak.”


  The wobbly man giggles as they leave the tent. The barker waits by the door for a moment, then disappears. I look into the torchlight, watching the flames do their slow dance. I wonder what the fire tastes like.

  The Fat Lady comes. She must have been hiding in the shadows again. She has changed her billowy costume for a large robe. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders, her face barren of make-up.

  She sees me. She knows I can understand her. “I heard what they said.”

  I stick out my tongue. I can taste the torn place on my cheek. I grip the bars with my hands. Maybe tomorrow, I will eat my hands, then my arms. Then I can be like Juggles. Except you can’t dance when you’re dead.

  Or maybe I will eat and eat when the barker brings me the bucket of chicken hearts. If I eat enough, I can be the World’s Fattest Murdermouth. I can be one of them. I will take money for the rides and pull the levers and sell cotton candy.

  If I could get out of this cage, I would show her what I could do. I would prove my love. If I could talk, I would tell her.

  The Fat Lady watches the tent flap. Somewhere a roadie is working on a piece of machinery, cursing in a foreign language. The smell of popcorn is no longer in the air. Now there is only cigarette smoke, cheap wine, leftover hot dogs. The big show is putting itself to bed for the night.

  “ They’re going to kill you,” she whispers.

  I am already dead. I have tasted my own finger. I should be eating dirt instead. Once, I could feel the pounding of my heart.

  “ You don’t deserve this.” Her eyes are dark. “You’re not a freak.”

  My barker says a freak is anybody that people will pay money to see.

  My tongue presses against my teeth. I can almost remember. They put me in a cage before I died. I had a name.

  The Fat Lady wraps her fingers around the metal catch. From somewhere she has produced a key. The lock falls open and she whips the chain free from the bars.

  “ They’re coming,” she says. “Hurry.”