Rust and Bone (13 page)

Heidi slides off the seat. “Sit a minute?”

She leads me to a wicker swing on the porch. A motion-sensor halogen snaps on and I note, in that stark sudden light, just how beautiful—and how young—she is. My prosthetic leg collides with a porch rail and she says, “Shshsh. You'll wake my folks.”

We sit on the swing. Heidi's body presses close to mine. I know nothing about this girl: her age, her hat size, if she is an honorable person, whether she's ever been happy and in love. It's been this way many times before, anonymous and meaningless, but what once seemed ideal now fills me with a profound melancholy.

“How did it happen—your arms?”

“Tragic cheerleading accident. Do you really want to know?”

“I guess not, no.”

“Of course not.”

Then Heidi's kissing me. She is very adept, very
knowledgeable
—a surprise. She draws my tongue into her mouth as though her intention is to consume it. Her arm stubs dig into my breastbone.

And as we sit in that queer half-embrace on the porch I experience a vision of such clear unflinching intensity it takes my breath away: the two of us sitting on this same porch years from now, surrounded by children. Armless, legless, unfinished children wobbling around on artificial legs and crawling on stumps and swinging from the porch on shiny hook-hands, grinning and babbling and lurching about. I'm dandling a toddler on my knee and realize that—horrifically, insupportably—the fucking thing has a prosthetic
head:
milky white latex draped over curved steel slats, hair shining with the false luster of a doll's, roaming marble eyeballs socked in its fake face, whining servo motors teasing the corners of its mouth into a wide smile and in that darkness gears meshing, pinions spinning and winding. And while I recognize the scenario is an impossibility I push her away.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing. I have to go.”

“Do you have a girl? It's okay, I don't mind. Don't go, it's fine.”

I'm shivering now, I'm trying to stand.

“What's wrong, Ben? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Yes. You have … no fucking arms.”

“You …
asshole!
” She flinches away from me as though I'm the bearer of some deadly equatorial disease. “You're not better than me!”

“I know.” Clomping down the steps sickened with myself, with her, the whole pathetic scene. “I
know
.”

Key the bike, open the throttle. Heidi's yelling now, her face pink with strain. Although I cannot hear her over the engine's roar, I can guess what she's saying.

You rotten-ass bastard.

Blast out of the valley like a house on fire. Bury the needle, tach redlined, 170K in the passing lane. The sky a smooth black dome, cold and starless. Cut onto the QEW, accelerate up the Niagara overpass. Catch a whiff of burning rubber and figure it's a tramp steamer or garbage scow plying the Welland Canal until I see flames and realize my leg's on fire. I set the prosthesis too close to the tailpipe and now latex is burning merrily, a greasy skirt of fire robing my hips. I gear down and slap at the flames, picturing my broken-necked body propped against a concrete bridge support, clothes burned away and flesh melted from the heat.

The image isn't entirely unpleasant. Sort of funny, actually, in a semi-tragic way.

Jam my hand down my pants, pop the coupler. Leg tearing free, bouncing across the street-lit tarmac over the retaining wall.

Plummeting three hundred feet, extinguished like a burning matchstick in the darkly flowing water.

I'VE TAKEN TO SCREWING
with people in online support chatrooms.

Sign in under a phony name to retain your anonymity. Online, you're nothing more than a screen moniker, a disease, an addiction, a sickening frailty, a set of reduced values. It's amazing, what's out there. More amazing is how maddeningly supportive everyone is. I've joined groups for Albinism (CASPER82: Know what I miss most, guys? The sun. The warm, bright sun); Narcolepsy
(MR.ZZZZ: So I says to Jim, I says to him, I says akcifaacvggggggggggggggggg); Breastfeeding (CHAPPEDNIPS: My nipples get so dang sore.
It would feel really nice if another woman rubbed them, preferably in slow, concentric circles.
); Compulsive Gambling (CARDSHARK: Bet I can beat my addiction faster than any a you chumps. I'll book you 5-to-1 odds); Retirement (MOTORHOMER: Don't you sometimes feel, lying in bed late at night, that life is basically empty and devoid of all meaning without a job?); Dementia (NAPOLEON55: Which one of you slippery motherfuckers stole my slippers?), Gulf War Syndrome (VOICESIN-MYHEAD: Look down at your best friend's face and all you see's a pile of GOO); Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (DOZY: Let's just forget about this wacky syndrome and take a nap); Cold and Flu (MA'SCHICKENSOUP:You are the wimpiest bunch of candy-asses I've ever met. It's a fucking
cold,
for Christ's sake!)
. Pepper my posts with emoticons, smiley faces and frowny faces and winking smileys. Smiley faces acting as a shorthand for grief, commiseration, love, hope, redemption.

Lately I've haunted Friends of Bill W, a group for recovering alcoholics. Tonight I'm CONSTANTCRAVINGS.

STONESOBER: Welcome aboard, Constant!

BETH54: Welcome, Constant. How long have you been a friend of Bill?

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Thanks, Stone and Beth.
Me and Bill have been acquainted three weeks now.

STONESOBER: Bill's a good man. He changed my life.

BETH54: Mine, too. He'll change yours, Constant.

CONTANTCRAVINGS: I hope so. Pretty rough going at the moment.

STONESOBER: Gotta be strong. Gotta
live
strong.

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Sometimes, alone here in the dark, I get to thinking about how good a beer would taste. A cool frosty one sliding down my throat, all bubbly and golden. Man, that would hit the spot.

BETH54: Put those thoughts out of your mind. Stay strong in your beliefs.

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Wobbly pops. That's what my buddy Franky calls them. “Hey, man,” he'll say, “let's head down to the Hitching Post, blow the foam off a few wobbly pops.” I wonder what Frank's doing, right now.

STONESOBER: Better off without him. He's an enabler.

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: We used to have canoe races. Remember those? Line up five glasses of draft beer, those little 8-ouncers, drop a peanut in the last one. First guy to chug all five and swallow the peanut was the winner. I loved winning. Gave me a real sense of accomplishment.

BETH54: We remember canoe races, Constant. Change the subject, huh?

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Scotch, too. God, I do love my scotch.That smooth brown goodness rolling over my tongue, into all the nooks and crannies of my mouth. That delicious, nutty, cask-mellowed taste.

STONESOBER: What are you, Constant, an ad writer for Bushmills? lol!

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Man, I know they call it Demon Alcohol, but it's always seemed somehow angelic to me. Makes things more … bearable, I guess is the right word. The world's just a little bit brighter, a little softer. You know?

BETH54: Sigh. Good luck, Constant. [BETH54 has exited chatroom]

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Oh, sweet baby Jesus. My wife, the ridiculous old prune, she collects airplane booze. Those little bottles, right? And I see now she's lined her collection on a shelf above the computer. Christ, they're all here: Johnny Walker Red, Absolut, Crown Royal, more. Dozens of little soldiers lined in a row. Lord, I'm all shaky and sweaty. Maybe just one …

STONESOBER: Don't do it, man! It's not worth it!

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: I just cracked the seal on a bottle of Captain Morgan's. My word, that smell. I'm in heaven. It tastes so damn GOOD. It's even better after not drinking for so long. Like being a virgin again! Hey, Stone, won't you join me?
Must be some booze lying around your house—in the toilet tank, maybe? Under the sink?

STONESOBER: Good luck, Constant. I'll say a prayer for you.

CONSTANTCRAVINGS: Say a prayer for yourself, killjoy! Have a drink and lighten up!

[CONSTANTCRAVINGS, you have been banned from this forum]

I'M SITTING IN A CORNER BOOTH
at the Concorde, a strip club near Clifton Hill. I used to come here with my high-school buddies, all of us toting fake IDs. We'd sit along pervert's row, laughing and hooting, superior in our youth and wide-open future and potential to do great things.

On the raised parquet stage, a topless chick spins disinterestedly round a polished brass pole. A woman in her mid-forties stands in the red glare of a
HOT NUTS
vending machine, naked save a pair of pink heels. She's eating barbecued peanuts from a plastic cup, pinching them between fingernails that must be two inches long. It's the most oddly revolting sight I've ever laid eyes on.

I'm drinking Sauza tequila: empty shot glasses on the table, ashtray filled with wrung lemon wedges. The darkness and smoke favor the strippers, whose faces are made for mood lighting. In their younger years, many of them worked the pole at Mints or Private Eyes but, bumped by the influx of new meat, they've carted their sagging anatomies and failing looks here, a final stand before the street corner.