Sloughing Off the Rot (14 page)

John studied the old man and discerned nothing from the troubled expression on his face. “Well,” said John, “what are you going to do? Are you going to take me captive and hold me here?”

“Non,” said Chelloveck. “Non, nein, and nyet. You’ve done us no injury. It is not your doing that Lovethorn fouled the land with the abominable bubbling boils. You’ve done nothing but help. You may leave this morn to flee Lovethorn’s men if you wish. We will give you provisions for your flight.”

“Then I will leave,” agreed John. “I will take my friend, Santiago, and my donkey. We will leave immediately so that we do not put the Chellovecks in danger.”

“Only you and your donkey may leave. Your friend has committed a most heinous affront to the Chellovecks. He has done irreparable harm. Thatwise, he is now being held in a cell with that revolting beast, Joad. And they will fight to the death for our entertainment as the sun situates itself directly overhead.”

And panic tickled at the back of John’s neck. He fiddled his fingers and nervously twitched his foot. Without being able to articulate why, John knew that he needed Santiago. And, unexpectedly, he found that he considered the bushy-headed lunatic to be a friend, the closest friend that he ever had, as far as John could tell. A feeling of concern and something that John guessed might be brotherly love swelled in his chest. “What did he do that was so awful?” asked John. “Did he steal? I’ll see to it that you are somehow repaid.”

“He did the unspeakable. I shan’t repeat it here, other than to say that his actions are unforgivable and have caused great detriment to my line. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise, so do not try. You must leave here as soon as possible. Lovethorn’s men will be here before the sun sets.”

“Then let me speak to Santiago,” said John. “Let me see him before I leave. At least allow me that.”

A subterranean dungeon spread out as catacombs beneath the mesa. And the Chelloveck gaoler gushed with joy in receiving John’s company. The gaoler, a stooped, pale, pie-eyed Chelloveck who appeared as if he had not seen the light of day in years, tapped his finger tips together nervously, and said, “Yes. A visitor. We have a visitor. So nice to have a visitor.” The long fingernails clicked as he tapped them together. “Come, come, come.” Grabbing John’s bicep with one hand and gripping a lit torch in the other, he led John along the twisting main hall of the dungeon. Along the track of the main artery, doorways opened to smaller arteries that led to the capillaries of the cells. “‘Tis nice to have a visitor, ‘tis. Chelloveck likes visitors. Yes, yes.”

Shadows flickered in the light of the torch. The dankness of the dungeon triggered shivers in John. At the end of the long, dark hall, a bitch of an oak door blocked their path.

“Yes, yes,” said the gaoler-Chelloveck, leaning in with his face close to John’s. “Yes, sir. Your friends are inside. Yes. Yes.” And he lifted the thick wood beam that hung across and secured the door so that John could enter the cell.

With gaoler-Chelloveck holding the torch in the doorway, John entered the cell. In the low light John made out two forms. The hulking frame of Joad writhed in a corner, a massive mound of muscles and flesh, snoring and gasping in labored breaths. Running sores bespeckled his entire being, the surface of his skin looking like a moldy, cheese-crusted lunar landscape, the stench of skin-rot fuming off of him.

And on the ground beside Joad sat Santiago, upright with his legs crisscrossed and hands resting on his knees. Though he looked as if he had been dragged behind horses on a gravel road, and his sores were weeping no less than Joad’s, Santiago sat, bright-eyed and alert, emanating an inner strength that was not extinguished by the plague of boils and bumpy blisters. In a steady and strong voice, he said, “It’s about time, Johnny. I thought you forgot about me or left me behind.”

“Are you alright?” asked John, surprised at Santiago’s composure. He’d not seen such serenity from the usually frantic little man. “I tried to tell Chelloveck that you don’t belong here, that I’m leaving and I need to take you with me.”

“I tried to tell Chelloveck that you don’t belong here,” mimicked Santiago, laughing. He tugged at his beard and rubbed his mouth. “Shit, son, I belong where I go. It ain’t no big deal.”

“But they’ve had you in the dungeon. And look at you, rotten with the sickness and pocked and boiled. You shouldn’t be in jail.”

Santiago’s face flicked through a range of emotions and settled on contemplative. “I’ve been in jail my whole life, Johnny. So, I’m actually at home here. Prison don’t begin and end at a gate. Prison is in the mind, dig? It’s locked in one world that’s dead and dying, or it’s open to a world that’s free and alive. Dig? It don’t matter what they do to my body. It’s what I’ve got up here,” he said, poking one finger at his forehead, “and here,” slapping a hand against his chest, popping a boil in the process. “But I’m free in the mind and I’m spiritually aligned. So it don’t matter if they hobble me or put walls around me or chains on me. I’m free inside, brother. But you can get me out of here if you want. I think it would be a good idea because you need me. But that’s all your scene, if you see what I mean. Do what you think is right.”

“The first thing I’m going to do is heal you,” said John, and he laid hands on Santiago’s head.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Santiago moaned as the warmth from John’s hands spread across and under his skin. And even as he lay back and relished the healing sensation, Santiago pushed John’s hands away. “Take care of bigg’un first,” he said and nodded toward Joad. “He’s worse off than me.”

John turned toward Joad. Studying the giant for the best place to give the healing touch, John decided it had to be the face. And that enormous face, buried in the crook of his burly arm, was inaccessible. So John and Santiago struggled to flip the sweaty, oozing mound of flesh on its back. With much huffing and straining and grasping and pulling, they rolled him over and bared his festering, mucid face. John plunged his left hand into the puffy black afro and grasped a handful of hair. The hair pulled free from the scalp with a
splooshing
sound. John shook the clump of kinked hair from his hand and twisted his fingers into the coarse whiskers of one of Joad’s sideburns. He laid his other hand on Joad’s febrile forehead. The jolt of the initial touch rocked both men. And they convulsed and thrashed for several seconds. Joad screamed. John yelped like a hurt dog, eructating and expelling rancid flatus to relieve the pressure on his system. Then the powerful shock subsided and a steady current of sick transferred from Joad to John, healing Joad and charging John with energy beyond anything he could have imagined.

“He’s delirious with fever,” said John. But as he took on Joad’s affliction, the giant’s eyes cleared. And Joad’s forehead cooled to John’s healing touch. John held on, devouring the sickness and contemporaneously venting a steady
pahhhhhhhhh
of foul wind.

“Much better,” said Joad, his words slurring in a deep bass tone as they tumbled from his mouth. His speech cleared somewhat as he spoke, although his voice still sounded as if he had stuffed cotton balls in his cheeks. “Thank you for untangling the knot and softening the glare, before I merged with the dust. I was almost gone, but now am here. And the ten thousand things still rise and fall without cease, regardless of my plight. I am indebted to you.”

Joad looked at his hands and arms and saw that they were healed. He rubbed his hands on his face and neck and felt that the skin was smooth. He stood, hunched over so as not to knock his head on the ceiling, and offered a hand to John. And John took Joad’s hand and shook it. John laughed at how small his hand looked in comparison.

“Thank you again,” said Joad, his deep voice booming off of the walls of the cell, bouncing past Chelloveck and down the hall. “I am forever indebted. I am grateful for your help. I am grateful to experience such gratitude. I’m grateful for my gratitude.” And he still held John’s hand and continued to pump it with his zealous appreciation, ignoring the sour stench of John’s intestines that tainted the already-stale dungeon air.

“Hey there, fella,” said Santiago to John. “I’m not sure what bigg’un there is saying, but he seems to be better. So how’s about doing some of that voodoo shit on me with your hands?”

And John laid hands on Santiago. After the shock of Joad’s sickness, the illness flowing from Santiago was nothing, a mere trickle of the sweet sickness. In no time Santiago became hale and hearty with nary a speckle or hairy mole to blemish his skin. And John sat back, hands on his belly, and ripped off one loud burp. And then he was done with the healing. The invigorated men sat and they talked about their predicament. Occasionally gaoler-Chelloveck chimed in from the door with a “Yes, yes, sir. ‘Tis good sir. Yes, yes.” And Joad nodded and said, “I shall do as you say, for it is the way and the way is the truth and the truth is the way.” When it came time for him to leave, John promised he would not travel the road without Santiago and Joad. And though he did not have a concrete plan, he knew that Chelloveck would grant Joad and Santiago their freedom. He knew it as he had known that he could scatter the lunkheads and lay healing hands on Chellovecks. He just knew.

The slamming of the cell door fell easily on Joad’s and Santiago’s ears. The tone was not so sinister as one would expect from a dungeon door. The sounds of the retreating footfalls slapped out a soothing rhythm. Gaoler-Chelloveck’s fading “Yes, sir. Yes, yes,” seemed to answer the important question of their freedom from the Chelloveck mesa. The dark returned to the room as a black cloud descending on them, and their eyes adjusted as best they could. Joad bent over and paced the cell, working off the frantic energy of a healthy giant. And he walked to the tempo of Santiago crooning a repetitive off-key song about a big dungeon door going
Clang, Bang, Clang
.

Chelloveck’s humorless laughter filled the Tent of Meeting. John requested the release of Santiago and Joad. And Chelloveck responded with an unyielding brick wall of denial. At the mere mention of the subject, Chelloveck crossed his arms, set his face with a stern resolve, and reverted to aldspeak. “The ogre has tolchocked many Chellovecks and I mean to viddy him suffer a horrorshow demise,” answered Chelloveck. “And your little droog has committed and affront so abominable, I shall not speak it. May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I fail to seek the appropriate retribution this day. Thatwise, those two shall battle to the death and the winner will then have to fight an armed company of Chellovecks. Neither of your detestable droogs will see the sun set on this day.”

“If you will not grant their release, as I have requested,” said John, “then I will stay and be there for their deaths. I will remain to give them comfort in their final moments.”

“But you must leave at once,” argued Chelloveck. “Lovethorn’s men are coming to get you at this very moment and I know not how far away they be.”

“Then get on with the festivities. Get on with the duels. Get on with it now and I will do my best to flee after it is all said and done.”

“It shall be done,” said Chelloveck. He clapped his hands to call in one of his sons. He whispered into the younger Chelloveck’s ear and clapped his hands again. The assistant-Chelloveck scrambled out of the tent. “Let us go to the arena, then, my friend.”