A Pinstriped Finger's My Only Friend (15 page)
Read A Pinstriped Finger's My Only Friend Online
Authors: Robert T. Jeschonek
(...including yours truly...which
hurts
...)
...but they might as well try holding on to smoke. Judd's right leg flares with light, then flickers and disappears. The overweight woman who took his head screams at the top of her lungs as her hands are suddenly left empty.
The guy with Judd's right forearm curses as the forearm ignites, flickers, and evaporates. Another guy clenches his fist around a handful of toes...but light streams between his fingers, and when he opens the fist, the toes are gone.
I watch with amazement as the jigsaw puzzle pieces of Judd Ramsey's body wink out of existence. I wonder where they've gone, and my interest is much more than academic.
I wonder where they've gone...
(Heaven? Another circle of Hell? Another reality? Poughkeepsie?)
...because I'm pretty sure...
(Whoop! There it is!)
...make that a hundred percent sure...
(Red alert! Red alert!)
...that I won't be far behind.
When the light flares up within me, I think I'm one of the last pieces of Judd in this world. Maybe the absolute last.
I feel a surge of warmth as I change from a no-watt pinky to a hundred-watt bulb. The girl who's been waving me around finally lowers me to eye level, and I see there's a tear in her eye.
"Take me with you," she says softly. I don't think she's a day over sixteen. "Take me anywhere but here."
I watch as the tear wobbles down her green-scaled cheek. I feel bad for her, I really do. If only I could somehow spirit her away from this hellhole, take her with me to a better place...
Truth is, I still wouldn't do it. Wherever I'm going next, whatever it brings, me and this place are quits in every way imaginable.
Or maybe I'm being hasty. Instead of clenching her fist around me, the girl opens her hand wide, letting me lie exposed on her palm. She doesn't try to torture me to the last possible second. Good for her.
The last thing I see as I flicker and disappear is her face as she waves goodbye. The last thing I hear is her voice as she tells me she loves me.
*****
You're not gonna believe me...but just go with me on this. Humor me, okay? Because I swear, it's all true.
After I disappear from the girl's hand, I leave the world of neurotic loons behind. (Bye bye, Hell!) The next thing I know, I'm floating. All by myself. Not attached to a hand or anything.
I'm floating in a vast blue sky, drifting through the golden light of a sun like the one back home.
And it is
glorious
.
The sunlight's warm on my little pinky body. So are the updrafts of air from the heated ground far below. They push me up, roll me around, carry me in lazy, spinning circles.
I never knew it could
be
like this. I have never felt so
free
in my life.
I've spent my entire existence hooked to someone else, forced to go where they go, forced to do what they want me to do. Judd says to ball up in a fist with the other four fingers, I ball up in a fist whether I like it or not. Judd says to pick his nose or scratch his butt, I do it. (Yuck!) Judd decides he's gonna stuff me in a pocket, I can't fight the power.
For the longest time, I couldn't even talk back. Even when I finally could, it didn't give me any real control over my destiny. Judd gets what Judd wants; I'm just along for the ride.
I was so used to this state of affairs, I just accepted it. I had no
choice
. I complained, but I couldn't imagine a different way of life. Not
this
different.
I didn't know I could be
separate
.
And it only gets
better
. When a bird, a hawk, zooms toward me from above, I panic. Instinctively, I want to get away, to escape that razor-sharp beak. But what can a poor solo pinky do on his own, adrift in the vast blue expanse?
He can
fly
, that's what!
(I
told
you you weren’t gonna believe me!)
My panic peaks just as the hawk is on top of me. But then, a miracle happens. Just as its beak is about to grab me, I dart out of the way. Without thinking, I zip away, leaving the hawk to plunge onward without me.
(Holy spit! Did I just
do
that??)
At first, after my getaway, I just bob around on the air currents in a state of shock, wondering if it really happened. Severed fingers can't
fly
, can they?
(Who
says
so?? After everything I've been through, who
says
what a pinky can or can't do?)
As I think it over, I can't deny it. I really
did
move, and it was different from the way the air currents and wind have been moving me. Somehow, against all logic,
I
made it happen. I
know
it; I
felt
it.
And I know I can do it again. I
want
to do it again, more than anything I've ever wanted in my life.
(Wouldn't
you
??)
So I straighten my body and focus my mind, envisioning myself flying forward. I reach out with all my faith and hope, believing I can do it. I strain and struggle with all my willpower, striving to make it happen again. I push so hard, I'd be covered with sweat if I had any sweat glands. Everything I've got, I pour into this one supreme effort.
And in the end, it doesn't matter. The stress and strain don't matter at all. The supreme effort is a waste.
Because flying isn't anywhere
near
as hard as I
thought
it would be! I kid you not!
I'm in this kind of intense trance, fighting to repeat the flying finger trick...and then the reality of my situation pokes through and finally makes an impression on me. I was concentrating so hard, trawling the depths of my inner strength, that I didn't notice until now. It doesn't help that the cloudless sky's so vast and without landmarks.
If you don't look down, you can't always tell when you're moving.
But now I glance at the distant ground, and I see I'm moving over it. I'm passing a gleaming silver city sprawling over a russet desert plain. And I'm passing it
fast
, racing toward a wall of ashen peaks thrust up like teeth on the horizon.
I'm flying
!
Streamlined and sunlit, my body cruises like a jet through the sky, soaring under its own mysterious power. It seems natural to me now, as if I've always been airborne; it requires little thought or effort, and I quickly get the hang of it.
I lean my tip to one side, and my body swings in that direction. I flex myself upward, and my body gains altitude; I bend downward, and my body descends.
"Woo-hooooo!" Crying out with pure joy, I flash through the heavens, tracing graceful loops across the atmosphere. Rolling and spinning, I navigate the maze of thermal updrafts, letting them carry me higher, then diving into cooler eddies that drop me down lower until I catch the next uplifting thermal.
(Now I know what
birds
feel like!)
As I shoot past the silver city and the ashen peaks beyond, I experience a transcendent happiness that I never imagined was possible. There's a profound sense of connectedness, but it's nothing like being attached to a human body, to Judd. Instead, I feel as one with the sky and the sun, as if I'm part of something vast and beautiful, a divine masterpiece of nature and harmonious balance. It's as if I'm as important to the miraculous whole as the thermals or the sun or the desert or the mountain peaks...as if this has been my purpose from the start, to unite with a greater grandeur, and my life as Judd's pinky, as one piece of a bigger body, was preparing me for it all along.
I never thought it was possible, never even dreamed or fantasized about it for an instant, yet here I am. And that, in itself, is amazing to me. For now it seems the greatest secret of my life was that it was always leading me here, to this perfect joy, and I never knew it.
Ecstatic in my newfound state, I leap upward, climbing higher, ever higher. The air grows thinner, the sky's blueness fades, yet still I ascend. I just feel so gloriously weightless and empowered, I rush upward without thinking, running on a thrust of pure jubilation.
It is then that I make a new discovery, the greatest one yet. As I continue to climb, the thinning air doesn't effect me. The Earth's gravity doesn't hold me back.
I cross the border between sky and space and keep going, sailing out into the starry darkness. There's no reason to stay Earthbound any more; the universe is my playground now.
The cold, airless vacuum of space does not harm me. Cosmic radiation washes over me but leaves no mark. Somehow, I'm as protected here as I was in the world's blue sky, impervious to the dangers of the void.
I sail out past the Moon and set my sights on a distant star. Maybe it has planets teeming with life or at least barren beauty. I'll make it my first stop, and from there, who knows? The galaxy is spread out before me like glittering diamonds on a jeweler's black velvet bench, beckoning me to explore its wonders in all their extremity.
This is what I've always wanted, even if I never knew it till now.
To soar alone between the stars. To weave my way through infinite cosmic slipstreams, gazing upon majestic and primordial marvels that no other creature has ever experienced.
I skim the red bubble of Mars and slingshot off into the unfathomable distance, rocketing toward that star I've had my eye on. Even from this far away, I notice a slight wobble in its radiance--a sign of a planet in orbit.
I think I'll name it Oogachucka.
Skimming off Jupiter, then Saturn, I build even more speed, blasting toward the fringe of the solar system. I leave the Earth far behind, gone for good, as I begin the voyage of a lifetime into the endless gulf of deep space. Nothing can stop me now, nothing can hold me back.
That's exactly what I'm thinking as I make way for my distant star and the planet Oogachucka, my body piercing the velvet darkness like an arrow from the quiver of an angel.
An arrow that suddenly flickers in mid-flight and disappears.
*****
Suddenly, I stop moving. The universe vanishes around me, replaced by something I thought I'd never see again.
Judd Ramsey's bedroom.
Something else has changed, too. I'd come to love being separated from Judd, having the total freedom I'd never imagined was possible.
Now, that freedom is at an end. It's all over.
I try to launch myself through the air, and I can't. I'd settle for crawling away like an inchworm, but I can't even do that.
Because I'm back to being attached to Judd's hand again.
Adding insult to injury, it's not even the right hand. I mean, it's not the
left
hand, where I used to be stuck, it's the
right
one, the
wrong
one.
So not only am I back to being a prisoner, but I'm trapped on the wrong hand.
(And you
know
how much I
hate
that hand!)
"Pinkerton?" Judd's voice is weak and hoarse.
(And
grating
on my
nerves
because I don't wanna
hear
it. I've had a taste of freedom, and I don't wanna go back to the way things
were
.)
"Yeah?" I try to keep the irritation out of my voice, but I doubt I pull it off.
"Thank God you're here," croaks Judd. "I dreamed that I was torn to pieces, and the pieces all went different places."
Judd is lying naked on his bed with his hands on his chest. I stand up straight and take a look around. That's when I notice that the room isn't right. The posters on the walls have changed from babes, jocks, and cars to drawings of geometric shapes--squares, circles, triangles, octagons. There is only one trophy instead of many on the dresser, and the cast iron statuette on top is of a cube tilted on one corner. Instead of brightly labeled energy drink cans, the desk is covered with gray cylindrical containers with no brand name marking.
Turning back to Judd, I notice something else. What I see confirms a simple fact. "It wasn't a dream, dude."
(
Holy crap.
)
"It
wasn't
?" Judd's voice rises with disbelief.
"Take a look," I tell him. "Take a look at yourself."
Judd sits up with his back against the wall and does what I said. As exhausted as he is, he still manages a wide-eyed stare of amazement.
Because even though he doesn't say it in so many words, he knows I was right.
("Right" as in "correct," not as in being on the right side of him, as opposed to...wow, this could get annoying.)
"Whoa." He holds up his left arm and turns it slowly as he gapes. "When did I get the
tan
?"
Judd's left arm is indeed colored rich bronze now, with hairs bleached bright blond by the sun. If all you saw was that arm, you might think he'd just gotten back from a week's vacation at a tropical beach.
"Look at the other one," I tell him.
Judd lowers his left arm and raises his right. This one is covered from shoulder to wrist with tattoos. As he turns it over, we see it's the same all around, on all sides. There are more tattoos than I can count, painted on his skin in a rainbow of wild colors and a riot of designs: a dragon, a flaming skull, a howling wolf, a stack of cash, a rocket, an electric guitar, a lightning bolt, an angel, a devil, a heart with the name "Kaela" across it, another heart with the name "Eva" across it.
"That's some serious ink there, dude." I nod up and down. "A real work of art."
"So, what? This one went to the
beach
?" He holds up his left arm. "And this one went to a
tattoo parlor
?"
"Something like that." I lean against the next finger over, but it doesn't feel right.
("Right" as in "good," not...aw, forget it!)
Nothing
feels right anymore. I don't
belong
on this hand, with this person, in this world. I know where I want to be right now, and it ain't here.
"So where did
you
end up?" says Judd.
"Don't go there, man." His question makes me think of my solo flight in the vast blue sky...my leap away from Earth and out past the Moon...my voyage into the universe, which was only just beginning...
(...when I was somehow sucked here, deprived of an ideal life I'd never known could be mine until then...a life of glorious freedom and exploration.)
(I wish I'd never known that life could be possible, not even for an instant.)
"Hey, wait." Judd holds me up. "You
changed hands
. You used to be on the
left
."
"Don't rub it in."
"So I didn't come back together exactly the same as I was before." Judd scowls. "I wonder if anything else changed."
"There are plenty of changes, all right." I point at his left hand. "Check out the fingers over there."
Judd holds up his left hand and fans out the fingers. Every one of them is different from the rest in one way or the other.
His left thumb is covered with black dirt; it's pressed into every crease and in a crescent under the nail. His index finger is wrapped in silver duct tape. His middle finger is coated with golden glitter. The next finger over is pale and pruny, as if it's been soaking in water for too long. And then there's the pinky.
Judd says it all. "The little finger looks a lot like you, doesn't he?"
"Not really," I say, but the truth is, the dude's right. The left pinky, like me, is pinstriped. The pinstripes are dark red over a pale green background, as opposed to deep blue over a pale blue base...but still.
The resemblance is there. And I can't deny it's unnerving.
"How'd it get that way?" Judd wiggles his left pinky. "It didn't look like that before, did it?"
"Nope." That pinky gives me a bad feeling. Call it a gut instinct.
(Though I don't have a gut.)
"I wonder where it went when I came apart," says Judd. "Same place as you, maybe?"
I'm sick of talking about Mr. Red-and-Green...Mr. Christmas Colors. "I wonder where
you
went. Your
head
, that is."
Judd frowns. "Why do you ask?"
"Your new
haircut
." I gotta admit, I'm enjoying this. I guess it's not his fault I'm stuck with him again, but I am
not
in his fan club at this point. "Really
stylin'
, dude."
Judd's eyes pop wide open, and his hands fly up to his hair...at least, where his hair
should
be. "I'm
bald
?" He pats all over his bare scalp, feeling around for follicles, finding nothing but skin. "Holy crap!"
As he lowers his hands, I ask a question. "So you don't remember how you got that way?"
He has to think about it a minute. "I was really zoned out. I just shut down." He shakes his head slowly. "I thought it was a dream."
"What happened in this dream?"
He reaches up and runs his left hand over the smooth surface of his skull. "I was attached to this giant...
thing
. This
creature
, like a
blob
or something. It was like a hundred feet tall, and it had human
heads
stuck all over its body. It was just
covered
in these
heads
, and mine was
one
of them." He shudders at the memory. "The creature was constantly oozing this rank
slime
, and the heads were constantly
moaning
and
screaming
and
throwing up
."
I tap the palm of his hand. "What about the haircut?"
"There were these spider things that crawled around and chewed the hair off every head. They wove it into silk for their webs." Judd shudders again. "I think I liked it better when I thought it was all a dream."
There's pain in his hoarse and broken voice, and I feel sorry for him. I hate being back, I hate being reattached to him, but I can't help feeling pity.
At the same time, there's a part of me that wants to say, "Good for you! Now you know how it feels being stuck to someone else. Now you know how it feels to have no control over your own life!"
But I don't say it. Because damn it, when you get right down to it, I guess I still...
(I don't
want
to! I want to be
free
again! I
loved
it!)
I guess I still care.
So I change the subject. "What about your right leg? It looks like it went through the
wringer
."
Judd bends his leg at the knee, raising it for a better look. The upper leg is covered in cuts and bruises, almost a solid mass of black-and-blue and caked blood. "It hurts like hell." He touches his thigh with his left hand, then yanks the hand away and sucks in air through his clenched teeth. "I hope it isn't broken."
When he lays the leg out flat again, the lower half becomes visible. Instead of cuts and bruises, it's covered in red welts from knee to ankle.
"What's with all the bumps?" I ask him.
"Bug bites, maybe?" Judd slides the leg back and forth on the bed-sheet. "You wouldn't
believe
how
itchy
they are."
"Must'a been pretty big
bugs
." I point at his left leg and crack up. "Hey! Get a load of your left foot!"
Judd looks and can't help laughing. "How did
that
happen?" He wiggles his toes and laughs harder. "Somebody
painted
my
toenails
."
It's a hilarious sight, especially since Judd's always been a Grade-A swaggering jock...and because his left leg otherwise looks like it belongs on a world-champion power lifter. That leg's packing some serious muscle; from hip to heel, it's been pumped up with well-defined slabs and bulging cords and veins. Its girth is almost twice the size of his right leg...and then, at the bottom, he's got those painted toenails done up in hot pink nail polish. How incongruous can you get?
"Maybe your foot went to a world of
cross-dressers
," I tell him. "Or a planet of mad
manicurists
."
"What about the
leg
?" Judd flexes it up and runs his left hand over the bulging muscles. "It looks like it did about a million
squats
and
leg presses
in a row."
"So your left
leg
goes to
body-building
land, and your left
foot
ends up in
mani-pedi
land." I laugh some more. "That's just so
wrong
."
"Wait, what's this?" Judd leans down to stare at his stomach. "Ink stamps of some kind?"
When he touches his stomach with his right hand, I get a closer look. Sure enough, there are blocks of black ink all over his belly, each filled with text. "It's like you were marked over and over again with rubber stamps. They're all different, too."
Judd scowls and reads one of the stamps out loud. "'Property of Philadelphia Steelers.' What the heck?" He shakes his head. "One, that should be
Pittsburgh
, and two, how'd it
get
there?"
It's my turn to read one of the stamps. "This one says, 'Vietnam Immigration,' and then there's a box with yesterday's date. What's that all about?" I think for a moment, and then it hits me. "Wait, I know. It's a passport stamp."
"This one must be a passport stamp, too." Judd points to a block of ink above his navel. "It says, 'Entry Visa - India.'" He shakes his head. "So my stomach went to India?"
"Looks like it's been to Russia, China, New Zealand, and Lichtenstein, too. And that's not all." I point to a stamp just under his lowermost left rib. "This looks like the kind of stamp they put on your hand at a
concert
, doesn't it?"
"But it says 'The Beatles, Los Angeles, California.' And it's dated
yesterday
." He runs his right index finger over the hand stamp, gaping in disbelief. "But that's
impossible
."
(Dude ain't just whistlin' Dixie!!!)
"Apparently, your stomach went to a pretty cool
place
." I tap his palm twice for emphasis.
"While my
head
ended up attached to a giant
blob
." Judd sighs. "I hope my stupid stomach
enjoyed
itself."
"I don't think it's the only part that had more fun than you." (How true it is!) "You really got a raw deal, dude."
"It was beginner's bad luck." Judd shrugs. "It was my first time being torn apart and having my body parts go to different realities."
What he said gives me food for thought. Something's been staring me in the fingertip, but I've been so cheesed about getting re-stuck with Judd, I didn't see it until now. "It
was
your first time, wasn't it? The first time
you
changed."
Judd frowns. "Yeah, so?"
"So until now, everything
except
you has been changing. Now
you're
changing, too." I give his palm a quick jab. "So what the fudge is up with
that
, dude?"
Before he can answer, the door slams open, and all bets are off. So much for having a few minutes to get used to being stuck together again.
"
Freeze! Police
!
" A broad-shouldered young guy bursts into the room with a
gun
pointed right at
us
.
(Have I mentioned he's almost totally
naked
?)
"Stay right where you
are
!" Weirdly, the cop has the words JUST LIKE YOU arranged in blinking white lights across his chest.
(More craziness, right?? It's
déjà
freakin'
vu
all over again!)
Two more armed individuals rush in after him, both women--one blonde, one brunette--and both
naked
.
(Except for the words JUST LIKE YOU in blinking lights across their bellies.)
Apparently, they're cops, too, because they're also packing heat.
