Prodigal Blues (11 page)

So I did not make a sound; that act, and that act alone, may be the only moment of genuine grace I offered the world in my entire life.

But I did weep; the tears formed instantaneously in my eyes and just as quickly streamed down my face and I did nothing to stop them.

I wouldn't allow myself to.

Because even though all their confusing words were still swimming around in my drug-addled brain, even though I still didn't know for certain what was happening because no one had yet said it outright, even though I was still scared shitless and wishing now I'd never agreed to make the drive down to Kansas, some dimly-lighted corner of my mind was whispering the truth of what I was witnessing but did not want to accept.

"Can we
please
take it off now?" asked Rebecca.

False-Face looked at me, picked up his gun, then nodded his head.
 
"I do not know how you are going to take this"—he rose to his feet and stepped to the bed, pressing the business-end of the silencer against my jaw—"but if you try anything, I will harm you."

I was still looking at Thomas as he wept into Arnold's chest; Arnold stroked the back of the boy's scar-clumped head, whispering, "It is all right, Thomas, it is, I promise, there, there, it will be all right, you will see…."

Rebecca exhaled with relief as she pulled off her wig to expose a moist, jagged, discolored scalp, speckled with a few tufts of stringy hair, that covered only two-thirds of her head; the rest was a slightly dented metal plate.
 
She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders in a girlish, oh-well way, then reached up and slowly, carefully, with precise and clearly practiced movements, began removing the sculpted prosthesis that was her nose; underneath was a set of exposed sinus slits that bubbled with thick, colorless mucus every time she breathed.
 
Setting the nose into a clean handkerchief beside her, she reached into her mouth and took out the partial plate; almost every one of her upper teeth had been removed—and none too gently, judging from the blackened appearance of her mangled, deeply-rutted gums.
 
She then peeled away her left cheek from earlobe to
jawline
and, after that, the layer of latex that had been underneath the false cheek; there was nothing below that but gleaming bone.
 
She sighed, a three-year-old (
Are we
done
yet?
), looked at me, popped out her left, glass eye, then put the partial plate back into her mouth.

"I am sorry," she said.
 
"But I had to take that out for just a minute.
 
It is so uncomfortable sometimes.
 
I put it back because it is not easy to understand me when I do not have it in."

"Okay…?" I said, almost nodding but then—as False-Face pressed the gun closer—deciding against it.

"You seem very nice," Rebecca said, then unbuttoned the top three buttons of her off-white blouse.
 
The flesh across her chest was badly scarred, but as ugly and painful-looking as it was, it seemed like a scab on a knee compared to the coarse mass of
 
misshapen tissue that clung where her left breast had once been; she seemed to blush—it was impossible to be sure—as she reached down into the sports bra and removed the expertly-shaped foam-rubber replacement.
 
She laid it next to the prosthetic nose, then picked up a jar of cold cream from the floor.
 
"I have to go into the bathroom and scrub the rest of the base off.
 
Will you excuse me?"

"Of course."

She looked at False-Face.
 
"I think you should be nice to him."

"I think you need to let me worry about him."

"Okay, then."
 
She gave me a little wave—her wrists, like Denise's, were encircled with bruises and scrapes—then turned away; that's when I saw the thumbnail-sized and shaped scar at the base of her neck.
 
Had Grendel scorched her with a lighted cigar, laughing while she squirmed and whimpered and smelled her own flesh burning?

Rebecca went into the bathroom—I could see my pants and underwear draped over the shower rod—and closed the door.

In the corner, Thomas had stopped crying and was singing to himself again.
 
I recognized the tune, I
knew
I did.
 
But from where?

"Can I take mine off now?" asked Arnold.

"You
may
," replied False-Face.
 
Then, to me:
 
"A grammatical mistake like that would leave us bleeding from the rear for three days."
 
The prosthesis of his upper lip was coming farther loose.
 
He blinked, then used the index and middle finger of his free hand to press it back into place; it held for the moment, but it wasn't going to last:
 
he was perspiring too heavily underneath the makeup.
 
His wrists were bruised, as well; I didn't have to look at Arnold's or Thomas's to know theirs would be just the same; at some point all of them had been handcuffed too tightly for a very long while.

"What do you want from me?" I asked False-Face.

"Your help."

"I might be willing to discuss it if you'd get that gun out of my face."

"I have heard that before.
 
The last man who said that to me then tried to take this gun away.
 
I killed him.
 
I shot him three times in the face and twice in the throat.
 
And to my everlasting regret, Denise saw him die."

So he'd killed Grendel in order to rescue her.
 
I couldn't blame him for that.
 
I might even have admired him for it if I hadn't been so fucking scared.

"I forgot my towel," said Arnold, then called out:
 
"Rebecca?
 
Could you throw out a towel for my face?"

"Must I remember
everything
?"
 
The bathroom door opened and a folded white towel sailed out, landing on the bed.
 
Arnold mumbled something under his breath, then said:
 
"Could someone please fix it for me?"

False-Face sighed, then shoved the gun into the back of his pants and crossed over to the bed, where he unfolded the towel, lay it flat, whispered something to Arnold, then stepped away.

Arnold was holding his full-face mask by the corners with both hands.
 
A thin layer of latex coated his actual face.
 
After gently placing his mask onto the towel, he peeled away the latex—which had been applied over sheets of plastic-wrap used to further protect his skin.

I felt the breath catch in my throat.

Arnold's real face was both horrifying and beautiful; Grendel had scarred every inch of his features with tremendous care, even skill; I knew without having to ask what this was meant to convey, because Grendel—whoever he'd been—had studied the art of
Ta Moko
; I'd written a paper on it in college.

Ta Moko
was a method of facial scarring practiced by Maori warriors;
the free-flowing, blue-black geometrical patterns were intended to convey many meanings:
 
they identified chiefs and social groups, symbolized aggression and ferocity, and—not least of all—disguised the wearer's age.
 
However, the most important function of the
moko
was to mark a person's individuality; some chiefs used their
moko
as a signature on land treaties with Europeans.
 

Flowing lines covered Arnold's forehead, each of them melting downward into the others until the configuration formed an arrow point above the bridge of his nose; his cheeks were covered in fractal-like whorl patterns of shapes-within-shapes-within-shapes, some of them circular, others elongated; these ran at downward slants, mirroring the angle of his cheekbones, until branching off onto his upper lip; there they intersected and passed to the opposite side of his face, turning downward via the jaw again, and meeting in the direct center of his chin where they became four perfect circles, overlapping so that a fifth was formed in the middle.

What made the scars even more unique was that Grendel had not used the traditional Maori method of coloring the scars with dark juices taken from indigenous berries; he'd employed some kind of bleach:
 
the scars were a startling shade of deep off-white, giving Arnold's face the look of someone who'd walked into a spider's web that was made from human cartilage.

"Do they hurt?" I heard myself asking.

He shrugged.
 
"Not as much as they used to.
 
The ones on my body still hurt a lot sometimes."
 
He looked at me and tried to smile but didn't quite make it.
 
"I have them everywhere."
 
He pointed to his back, his arms, his legs… and his crotch. "
Everywhere
."

"I'm so sorry."

"What for?
 
You did not do it."

"I only meant—"

"Your sympathy is a little late for any of us," said False-Face.
 
"So if you could just keep it to yourself, we would all feel better."

I glared at him.
 
"I wasn't being condescending."

"Yes, you were.
 
You just did not know it.
 
Which I find is the case with most pretty people."

"I'm not pretty."

"You are in comparison to us."
 
Then he laughed.
 
"
Shar-Peis
and Pit Bulls are pretty in comparison to us, now that I think about it."
 
He caught the expression on my face.
 
"Do not look at me like that.
 
This is not self-pity.
 
It is a simple statement of fact."

I waited a moment, then decided to let the subject drop.
 
"Do you have a name?"

"Yes, I do."

I waited, then waited some more, and finally said:
 
"This is usually the part of the conversation where the other person introduces themselves."

"Is that so?" he said, knocking on the bathroom door.
 
"Rebecca?"

"
What?
"

"Is everything all right?"

"I am
trying
to pee, if you do not mind.
 
What do you want?"

"Are his pants and underwear dry?"

"Since my arms are not five feet long, I cannot tell from here—and, no, I am
not
going to stand up and check."

"Told you she was in one of her moods," said Arnold to False-Face.
 
"But do you listen to me?
 
No, you do not.
 
I am just Arnold, who everyone thinks talks to himself."
 
He looked at me.
 
"I
do
talk to myself, sometimes, but mostly it is just that no one listens to me when I try to tell them something."

"Fine," said False-Face.
 
"From now on you can do all the talking."

"That is not what I meant."

"Mind your tone, Arnold."

"Why do you always sound like that when you speak to me?
 
You talk like you think I am retarded."

"Do not start with me, Arnold.
 
You will not win."

"Would you guys like some privacy for this?" I said.
 
"I'd be happy to step outside and—"

"
Knock it off
!" shouted Rebecca from the bathroom.
 
"Or else when I come out of here, I will start pinching you where it will hurt, I swear it."

"I am sorry," said Arnold.

False-Face exhaled, his shoulders slumping.
 
"Me, too."

Thomas started his song over.

"Okay, then," said Rebecca.
 
"Now would someone turn on a radio or the television or something?
 
I do not want you listening to me do my business."

Arnold rose from the bed and crossed the room to turn on the television.
 
He flipped through the channels until he found a music video station, then turned up the volume.
 
"Better?"

"Thank you," said Rebecca.

Arnold looked at me.
 
"We all lived in the same room.
 
There was only one toilet, so we always had to use the bathroom in front of everyone else.
 
Privacy is still a little new to us."

"Shut
up
," said False-Face.
 
"What did we agree on?"

"I have not said anything about anything, man, not really."

"And you will not.
 
I am still in charge here."

"I heard that."
 
Arnold sounded, for the first time, like a child; apologetic, embarrassed, worried that he'd just gotten into trouble.
 
"I did not mean to do anything wrong."