Outside the Wire

by Richard Farnsworth

  #

  I was having a serious heart to heart with Dougie's hand when Sylvia knocked. My roommate had vacated so that we could be alone. As alone as we could be with Dougie's hand, anyway.

  "Brian? Are you there?” She wasn't over-the-top-hot, but she was available, interested, and lived the next floor up.

  "I'm serious," I said one last time. I shook the mitt at it and said, "You mess this up and you're going in here for good."

  I snicked the lock and pulled the door back.

  "Everything okay?" she asked.

  "Yeah, cool," I said.

  "Were you talking to someone?"

  I made like it was a sock puppet and said, "Just my hand."

  She smiled and said something about giving my hand a rest tonight and I knew I was in.

  "I’m glad you came. You know, I learned in Anthro that a warrior of the Yanamomo tribe would prepare a wicked feast for his woman?” I gestured to the bucket of Kentucky-fried chicken, original recipe, and a six-pack of Pabst, bottles, not cans.

  Sylvia laughed at my bounty but ate the cold chicken and drank the warm beer anyway, sitting there in the middle of my bed and looking hotter than when she'd arrived.

  She sucked a thighbone provocatively. I gave Dougie's hand one more pointed stare and reached out to Sylvia. I brushed her long dark hair back and leaned in for the fried-chicken-wet kiss.

  She was accommodating until Dougie's hand reached out and snatched a hand-full of her hair.

  "Damn it!” I yelled.

  Sylvia cried out in confusion and pain.

  "Let go!" I yelled as I grabbed at Dougie's hand.

  "Brian, stop it," she screamed. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  I pried Dougie's fingers apart but the hand was on a mission. It didn't stop until it had a finger full of hair pulled out at the roots.

  "Brian!" she screamed again.

  She rolled back on the mattress, planted a vicious kick, and as the air whooshed out of me, I knew then that there was no way I was getting laid. She was crying, I was gasping, and the party was so over. I tried to explain about how the hand wasn't mine, but it made like a sock puppet and mimicked talking motions in time with each of my words.

  "You stay away from me, you freak!” She slammed the door as Dougie's hand gave her the bird.

  "That's it! I am done being your life support system!"

  I hit an empty PBR bottle against the desk. I had to hit it three times before it smashed.

  "Ungrateful piece of meat!"

  It flopped around like a fish, intuiting—it couldn't know because we already discussed the whole no brain thing—that I was really pissed. I stomped on the fingers holding it down.

  "I am done being held hostage to an appendage that isn't even mine!"

  I touched the ragged broken glass to the invisible line at the wrist where my body stopped and Dougie's started. As the flesh parted and a little trickle of blood flowed, the hand went rigid.

  "That's right; I am in charge of this partnership!"

  Blood dribbled over the sharp edge of the glass, deep red and shiny. My blood, not Dougie's and I was done sharing.

  I moved my foot from the hand, but kept the broken glass pressed hard.

  "Behave, or are we parting ways?"

  It twitched.

  "You think I won't do it? 'Cause I will, I've had it."

  The fingers rolled a gentle wave. It shot me the bird and made a lunge for freedom. Where was going? It was still attached.

  I stomped down, screamed at the hand and stabbed deep.

  I sawed. I sliced tendons, and ligaments. I cut muscle and sinew. The glass was heavy but broke off so I switched to a letter opener. Pressing hard, prying between the bones of the wrist joint Dougie's hand finally came loose.

  It didn't hurt much, but God, there was a lot of blood. That's when I thought I should have started with a tourniquet before the bottle.

  Some campus security punk smashed in the door. Sylvia with blood on her face and some other people behind him.

  "What the—" the rent-a-cop said.

  I showed Sylvia my wrist stump and said, "Look, I got rid of Dougie's hand. Now we can be together.” A small arteriole gave a little comic spurt and she went pale. I didn't mean get together right then, just sometime. She just turned and vomited.

  "Somebody call emergency," the security guy said.

  "It's okay," I said. "You see this isn't my hand." I gestured toward the hand under my foot. "It was my brother's."

  I gestured with the bloody letter opener and the security guy pulled a gun.

  I dropped the bloody tool and said, "We're cool."

  I took my foot off of Dougie's hand, but it just lay there, playing dead. I knew better and gave it a little kick.

  I was feeling really light-headed, so I sat flat on my ass. Man there was a lot of blood. The security guy holstered his weapon and tried to figure out what to do about my stump.

  I wasn't paying attention to him. I watched Dougie's hand. It made a slow finger wave and twisted over palm down. I tried to tell people to watch, but I was so dizzy and it was hard to speak. No one but me saw Dougie's hand tarantula its way across the floor and under the bed. It stopped before it disappeared into the dark and raised its middle finger. First I thought it was the bird, and then I realized it was a wave.

  I didn't know where it was going to go, and it was already starting to get that bluish hypoxic cast, but I didn't want to part on bad terms so I said, "Good luck, Dougie's hand," and then everything started to fade out.

  Virtual Huntress