9 Days of Madness: Things Unsettled Page 2

  "The one I keep in the freezer," she says. "It's time you saw it, seeing as how your parents are out of work."

  Yeah, Mom and Dad fight all the time. It's always about money. They say they don't know how they'll survive "the Recession."

  Which is why I'm happy to spend my summer vacation with Grandma. We take hours playing cribbage, reading the newspaper and talking about life. But she never mentioned a frozen finger before.

  Now that I think about it, I never bother to go in the freezer anyway. That's where she keeps her cigarettes. And her leftovers. Mom says to steer clear from both.

  "You keep a finger in the freezer?" I say.

  "Come over and see," Grandma says.

  She opens the freezer door. The inside belches a frozen fog that paints the hot air beige.

  "I don't see it," I say.

  "Really? It's right there," Grandma says. She points a mangled digit toward the back.

  I squint to spot the finger. Is it there next to the pot roast? No, that's a carrot.

  Could that be it inside that cake? Nope, that's another carrot.

  Grandma takes my hand in hers. She guides it past the pot roast and the cake. My whole arm feels the crisp kiss of the freezer. It stings. I wonder if this is how the freezer-burnt pie from two Christmases ago feels.

  Finally, my hand feels something like a wrinkly hotdog.

  Grandma lets go of my hand. "That's it. Pick it up," she says.

  I look at Grandma. She doesn't have the face like she gets with a good cribbage cut. She's serious.

  I shake my head. "I don't want to. Grandma, this is really weird," I say.

  "It's OK. A frozen finger can't hurt you," she says.

  I don't know why, but I squeeze my eyes shut before I grab the finger. I expect it to start wriggling like a worm.

  I pull my hand out of freezer and open my eyes little by little.

  "See? Not too scary, is it?" Grandma says.

  I examine the frozen tube of human flesh in my hand. It's the first time I've seen any part of a person dead. I roll it back and forth in my palm. Doesn't seem any different than lunch at school.

  "Can I put it back now?" I say. I don't want it melting in my hand.

  Grandma smiles. "Not before I can tell you why I have it," she says.

  I toss it back into the freezer anyway. My eye catches a glimpse of that s’mores ice cream. Wiping my hand on my shirt, I say, "OK, why do you have it?"

  "Back in the Depression, people would come to the house looking for work. They'd say, 'Can I rake your yard for dinner?' Or, 'What can I trade you for shoes?'" she says.

  I've heard this story before, but no mention of a finger.

  Grandma says, "One day, a man came by with nothing to trade. Not even a hat. And he couldn't work, neither. Had an awful limp. Open sores like hungry baby birds. Filth so greasy you couldn’t shake his hand. 

  But my mother, bless her heart, made him a nice chicken soup anyway.

  "Gross. What happened to him?" I say.

  Grandma says, "He got very sick that night and couldn't leave the next day. We built crutches for his limp, washed out his sores and scrubbed off the filth. Still, he died a week later.

  "When we got the body ready for a public cemetery, my mother noticed a ring on his finger. We knew graverobbers raid public cemeteries. So we..."

  I finish her sentence. "You cut off his finger?"

  "That's how things were back then," she says.

  I gnaw on this for a second. "There's one thing I don't get. Why didn't he trade the ring?"

  Grandma's face lights up. "There wasn't a ring on his finger until he died," she says.

  She let's that sink in for a minute. I know she's Catholic and little superstitious, but I never thought she believed in these things.

  "You think he was a ghost?" I say.

  Grandma folds her hands and looks at the ceiling. "No, I think God rewards people who do the right things. Like the good book says, what you do for the poor you do for Christ."

  I reach back into the freezer and pull out the finger. I have to look twice to believe it.

  There's a gold ring on the finger.

  "Grandma, look," I say and hold it out to her.

  She nods. "It's how we got through the Depression. Some of those hobos, they were worse off than corpses. But if you took care of them, the finger gave you a ring."

  I try to pull the ring off. It's stuck. Grandma plucks it away from me.

  "It won't come off yet. We can't just take. We have to give, too. It's a lesson your generation should learn," she says.

  I hear three quick knocks at the door. The stench of sick, unwashed body bites at my nose. This has to be a joke, right?

  Grandma’s expression doesn’t change. She motions to the bathroom. "Get a sponge. You can have ice cream when we’re done."

  Day 4: Love Makes You Real – Marissa Giambelluca

  The body wasn’t as bloody as Charlotte pictured a dead body to be. It was bloody, just not as bloody. There were two irregularly shaped holes in the flesh, dark openings that could only result from a gunshot. The body’s pale skin would have been more shocking if the winter weather hadn’t caused everyone else to look the same.

  Charlotte was leaving the drugstore when it happened. She usually went to pick up the morning after pill, or the “fix-it” pill as her now ex-boyfriend, Steven, deemed it. He refused to use a condom because they made him “feel nothing” and she never got birth control because it gave her headaches and made her breasts tender. So she walked to the drug store each time and bought Plan B. The pharmacist knew her well. His slight smile was meant to comfort her but she knew it was concealing great judgments.  This time he said “Good luck” as he handed her the pharmacy bag and Charlotte wondered what good luck consisted of in her situation.

  She stepped out into the harsh early morning sun, and gasped as she nearly crushed the body’s fingers under her foot. She had seen a dead body once before this at her aunt’s funeral when she was a teenager. She and her father were the only family members who went: her aunt’s alcoholism and gambling burned all of her bridges.

  Her father warned,“Don’t you ever end up like her” with the faint smell of whisky on his breath and she was afraid.

  She had never seen a body in the middle of the sidewalk before, though. Charlotte turned to leave but her eyes stayed fixed on the body. The girl seemed to be around the same age as Charlotte, which sent a rapid shiver down her spine. The front pocket was vibrating as a cell phone fought for freedom, hitting the cement with a lightthud.

  Without thinking, Charlotte reached down. She watched the phone jerk in her cradled palms, like the worms she used to dig up when she was little. She would watch them writhe in pain as she cut them in half with a stick. Her curiosity got the best of her.

  “Hello?”

  “Tracy honey, I got anxious waiting, I’m down the block so don’t leave.” She sounded like every word was using her last breath.

  A shrieking “Oh my God” exploded behind Charlotte and she knew instantly that someone was finally having a normal reaction to a corpse on the sidewalk. She didn’t turn; she kept walking.

  After Charlotte was far enough away to take deeper breaths, an elderly woman shuffled past with an expressionless face. The woman walked to the forming crowd and Charlotte could see her staring down at the body for a few moments. The lady turned quickly and shuffled back towards Charlotte and her mouth seemed to be moving as if she were talking to herself.

  When the old lady got close enough to Charlotte she eyed the pharmacy bag and laughed to herself.

  “Tracy I almost walked right past you. Did you find the vitamins you were looking for?” Charlotte felt the woman grab onto her arm. At a loss for words, she just smiled and contemplated ways to let this woman know she had the wrong girl.

  The lady began walking and describing the dinner she was going to make for New Years in a couple of days. Meanwhile Charlotte only half listened, overcome
by feelings of responsibility for this woman’s future heartache. Once they neared a small home Charlotte stopped short of the front porch.

  Charlotte tried to think of a way to say things as delicately as possible, like when she tried to explain to her mother that she had no choice but to go back to the institution. Even at that young age Charlotte could see her real mother, the compassionate and thoughtful mother she knew, slipping away. The manic symptoms of her mother’s disorders grew more and more unbearable. Charlotte remembered crying as she hugged her mother goodbye and watched her father drive her back for the last time. That was over a decade ago though.

  “I’m sorry, but don’t you see that I am not Tracy?” The old lady stopped and studied Charlottes eyes as if she thought the answers to her questions would be behind them.

  “Could you help me up these stairs?  You know they always give me some trouble.” The old lady began to lift her foot sluggishly as though it weighed a ton.

  “You know you’re very silly. Not my Tracy? Well, I don’t get the joke. It’s not very funny.”

  “I’m sorry ma’am. I just wanted to make sure you-“

  “THIS ISN’T FUNNY TRACY SO STOP IT!” The old woman began to cough, as Charlotte stood frozen in place. After a moment Charlotte helped the lady into her home.

  The house gave off an instant feeling of comfort for Charlotte. The pink fuzzy carpeting found its way between Charlotte’s toes and the off-white walls held framed pictures of John F. Kennedy, Elvis, and Pope John Paul II.

  “Hunny why don’t you put your stuff in your room and get washed for lunch.”

  Charlotte felt like she had already gone too far by entering this lady’s house. “Oh, I don’t think I can stay that long-“

  “Where could you possibly be going?”

  Charlotte ran her fingers along the walls while glancing down at her toes. She knew she couldn’t stay but she didn’t want to leave this woman alone.

  “Maybe I could call a relative or a friend you haven’t seen in a while to come have dinner with you?” The old lady lowered her head and stared at her fingers for a few moments. Charlotte realized that there were no relatives and she had just made the old woman feel worse. The old woman turned and walked into the kitchen.

  It took Charlotte a long time to step into the bedroom. She felt uneasy invading this girl’s space. She saw in the closet that layers of colorful clothes sat in a pile on the floor, leaving the rack of hangers empty. She wondered what kind of person would leave their room in such a mess until a pang of shame made her stop, her father told her to never disrespect the deceased. She turned toward the dresser and opened a cigar box that held jewelry. She took out a ring that caught her eye and put it on. She had no idea what kind of person Tracy was, besides her lack of cleanliness, but Charlotte still envied her. Charlotte imagined the old lady bringing home these pieces of jewelry, each time with a different story behind how it made her think of Tracy.

  “Tracy, I know sometimes I can be a handful,” The old lady was standing in the doorway, “but we’re family. All we’ve got is each other. I love you.”

  Charlotte tried to think of one good reason why she couldn’t stay. Why couldn’t she stay exactly? Nothing came to mind. Charlotte had never known the kind of love that the woman was describing, but she was convinced now that she was worthy of it.

  They spent the rest of the day watching television and when her grandmother fell asleep Tracy crept into the bedroom. The first thing that caught her eye was the pile of clothes that was still plaguing her closet floor. Her grandmother had been nagging her to hang them up for days now but she hadn’t found enough time to dedicate to the task yet. She glanced at a picture taped on the wall of her and her grandma sitting on a bench holding ice cream cones. Tracy recalled how the ice cream felt as it dripped off the cone and slid down her fingers. She laughed when she remembered that grandma’s entire scoop had fallen off moments after the picture was taken. She was always the clumsy one.

  Early that morning Tracy was awoken with a wave of nausea. She ran to the bathroom and as she was throwing up her grandma brought in a cool rag and held it to her head. “There, there. Let it all come out” she said soothingly. Tracy appreciated how her grandma always helped her when she was sick.

  As Tracy rinsed her mouth she heard her grandma call from the hallway, “I was thinking . . .would you like to do something different for New Years? I mean we could go out to eat or order in or-“

  “Don’t be silly Grammy,” she called back “you know your cooking is my favorite part of the New Year.” Tracy loved the idea of the New Year and how it promised an opportunity to start over. She grabbed for her purse and pulled out the pharmacy bag. She started to take out the pregnancy test though she already knew. She couldn't wait for the child to meet her family.

  Day 5: RECORDING – R.S. Bohn

  In the first dream, a belt with a padlock. The back of a man's skull, crushed. 21L-3R-34L.

  He forgot the numbers, sketched a belt, the padlock tied at one end like a hipster's belt buckle.

  Another dream: a tire iron smashing a window, clearing the glass so a man can climb through and use the iron to beat the little dog inside to death. White fur. White fur. White teeth.

  He draws a barking dog. Like a cartoon.

  The fifth dream, he goes to the police. The station isn't far: two bus stops, no changeovers. The cameras on every corner of the building coolly catch a man in a red hoodie, notebook in his front pocket. It takes him an hour before someone sees him, and he's aware instantly that the cop is just there to placate him.

  "You dreamed it? So you didn't actually witness these events?"

  He can't explain. He's not psychic, doesn't believe in such things. The cop is nice, but his patience wears thin quickly. If the cop thought he was homeless, he'd have given him some coffee, but as it is, he gets a polite, rushed goodbye: "Thanks for coming by."

  The cameras watch him leave. There are no dreams for six weeks. And then:

  The mirrored door to a bathroom cabinet, removed with a screwdriver. Taken off its hinges. It comes down on her face when she comes home. Again. She's shorter by almost a foot, but doesn't fall until the third blow. The mirror shatters.

  When he draws the broken mirror, there is a face. It's not hers. He doesn't know who the man is, but he carefully draws it again, without the shards of mirror. A puzzle. He brings both drawings to the police station. While he's on the bus, a young woman stands and pees herself. Others look away, embarrassed. He looks at her dreamy face, imagines it crushed under a brick.

  He doesn't tell this to the officer – young, this time, and pissed off because he's on desk duty instead of out on the street – but simply repeats his dreams, shows the drawings, including the new one.

  The young cop doesn't hide his suspicion. Asks how long he's had these dreams. And does he like having them.

  He replies that someone, or maybe many someones, are out there, doing these things. Can't they stop them?

  They hold him for a while, in a room. There is a camera he tries to ignore on the ceiling. But at last he looks up at it. Its curved lens shows him in miniature: red hoodie, clean-shaven, bald.

  When he leaves, at last, he feels oddly empty.

  No dreams for almost three months. He enjoys his job, reading the mail, and cooking bacon. His apartment is tidy, blandly furnished. The requisite milk crates standing in for: ottoman, t.v. stand, bedside table, and cd holder. Eau de divorce clings to everything. He'd bring a woman here if he had the energy. Women take a lot of energy.

  He's getting tired again. When the dreams return, they're of  two-by-fours, cracking across the side of a man's face. There is a rifle, turned around, its butt crushing the larynx of a young man. Two ballpoint pens are emptied, sharpened, taped together. They are perfect for puncturing a woman's neck. She has a tattoo of a name. Brandy. The twin pens obliterate the name.

  He draws. He's a terrible artist.

  When it gets too much
, when the notebook starts to fill, he rides the bus again. But he doesn't go inside. The cameras swivel, and he basks in their blankness. At last, he turns around and goes home.

  He sets his shoddy digital camera to record. Buys a Flip. It's cheap, and it stands on its own. He keeps them plugged in to charge. Sometimes takes them with him at work, until a supervisor gets uncomfortable. Through a process of trial and error, he finds that just twenty minutes a day of recording is enough to keep the dreams at bay.

  Here is what he records himself doing: watching rented movies, waiting for coffee to brew, putting up a new smoke detector. Other things. He doesn't play them back; doesn't need to.

  In the time of no-dreams, he finds a woman whose energy is so minimal, it's a hum. Almost background noise. She's wary of the Flip in the living room when she enters, but he shows her that it's off, and tells her he won't take it into the bedroom. They end up fucking on his futon. Halfway through, he notices the light. The Flip is on. It's recording. He looks down at her, her face drowsy, dreamy, like the girl on the bus.

  He reaches for a milk crate. She opens her eyes too late; the milk crate is on her head, he's pressing it down with all his strength. It crushes her throat, reduces her screams to a burble. He presses and presses and finally comes.

  He doesn't need to draw anymore. The Flip is there.

  The Flip is there. It's always on.

  When he looks at the notebook later, he recognizes the face in the mirror shards.

  He starts at the beginning. 21L-3R-34L.

  He puts the Flip in the front pocket of his hoodie, stroking it as he walks. While he rides the bus. Four stops later, he gets off.

  A man passes him on the sidewalk, hunched over, the back of his head bristly and slick with sweat.

  He follows him.

  Day 6: The Book Worm – S.K. Adams

                                                                                        

  An empty bottle dropping on to the carpet drew Cuthbert’s attention away from Kimball O'Hara on the Great Trunk road and firmly back to the wheel of things. While retaining his grip on the paperback he glanced furtively at his wristwatch then peered over his glasses to where Elspeth was stirring.

  Cuthbert pretended to read as his wife rose unsteadily to her feet. He bit into his lip as he recalled a line from Melville’s classic’ That night, in the mid-watch, ... "there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!"