Ashes (9 page)

"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 watching.

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.