Miscreations

by Michael Bailey

  DeadBoy’s skin was wet and slippery from water damage and much of the fat was putrefied. His pectoral and abdominal musculature was dark and soft. I scraped the congealed blood away and removed the fascia, and as I worked muscles and tendons slowly emerged and glistened in the yellow light, displaying neurovascular bundles weaving between their edges. It took me three hours but finally I was done. I stood, surrounded by DeadBoy’s odor, trembling with excitement, peering at my handiwork.

  Baba nodded. “Not bad. Now show me where the resurrection points are.” When I hesitated, he raised his eyebrows. “Don’t be scared. You know what to do.”

  I took a glove off and placed it on DeadBoy’s thigh. I tentatively touched the right pec major, groping around its edges. The sternal head was firm and spongy. When I felt a small cord in the medial corner with my fingers, I tapped it lightly. The pec didn’t twitch.

  I looked at Baba. He smiled but his eyes were black and serious. I licked my lips, took the nerve cord between my fingers, closed my eyes, and discharged.

  The jolt thrummed up my fingers into my shoulder. Instantly the pec contracted and DeadBoy’s right arm jerked. I shot the biocurrent again, feeling the recoil tear through my flesh, and this time DeadBoy’s arm jumped and flopped onto his chest.

  “Something, isn’t it,” Baba said. “Well done.”

  I didn’t reply. My heart raced, my skin was feverish and crawling. My nostrils were filled with the smell of electricity.

  “First time’s hard, no denying it. But it’s gotta be done. Only way you’ll learn to control it.”

  I was on fire. We had talked about it before, but this wasn’t anything like I had expected. When Baba did it, he could smile and make conversation as the deadboys spasmed and danced on his fingertips. Their flesh turned into calligraphy in his hands.

  “It felt like something exploded inside me, Baba,” I said, hearing the tremble in my voice. “What happens if I can’t control it?”

  He shrugged. “You will. It just takes time and practice, that’s all. Our elders have done it for generations.” He leaned forward, lifted DeadBoy’s hand, and returned it to supine position. “Want to try the smaller muscles? They need finer control and the nerves are thinner. Would be wise to use your fingertips.”

  And thus we practiced my first danse macabre. Sought out the nerve bundles, made them pop and sizzle, watched the cadaver spider its way across the table. With each discharge, the pain lessened, but soon my fingers began to go numb and Baba made me halt. Carefully he draped DeadBoy.

  “Baba, are there others?” I asked as we walked back to the house.

  “Like us?” He nodded. “The Prophet Isa is said to have returned men to life. When Martha of Bethany asked how he would bring her brother Lazarus back to life, Hazrat Isa said, ‘I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.’”

  We were in the backyard; the light of our home shone out bright and comforting. Baba turned and smiled at me. “But he was a healer first. Like our beloved Prophet Muhammad Peace-Be-Upon-Him. Do you understand?”

  “I guess,” I said. DeadBoy’s face swam in front of my eyes. “Baba, who do you think killed him?”

  His smile disappeared. “Animals.” He didn’t look at me when he said, “How’s your friend Sadiq these days? I haven’t seen him in a while.” His tone was casual, and he tilted his jaw and stared into the distance as if looking for something.

  “Fine,” I said. “He’s just been busy, I think.”

  Baba rubbed his cheek with a hairy knuckle and we began walking again. “Decent start,” he said. “Tomorrow will be harder, though.” I looked at him; he spread his arms and smiled, and I realized what he meant.

  “So soon?” I said, horrified. “But I need more practice.”

  “Sure, you do, but it’s not that different. You did well back there.”

  “But—”

  “You will do fine, Daoud,” he said, and would say no more.

  Ma watched us approach the front door, her face silvered by moonlight. Baba didn’t meet her eyes as we entered, but his hand rose and rubbed against his khaddar shirt, as if wiping dirt away.

  Ma said nothing, but later, huddled in the charpoy, staring through the skylight window at the expansive darkness, I heard them arguing. At one point, I thought she said, “Worry about the damn house,” and he tried to shush her, but she said something hot and angry and Baba got up and left. There was silence and then there was sobbing, and I lay there, filled with sorrow and excitement, listening to her grief, thinking if only there was a way to reconcile the two.

  ~

  The dead foot leaped when I touched the resurrection point. Mr. Kurmully yelped.

  “Sorry,” I said, jerking my fingers away. “Did that hurt?”

  “No.” He massaged the foot with his hand. “I was … surprised. I haven’t had any feeling in this for years. Just a dry burning around the shin. But when you touched it there,” he gestured at the inner part of his left ankle, “I felt it. I felt you touching me.”

  He looked at me with awe, then at Baba, who stood by the door, hands laced behind his back, looking pleased. “He’s good,” Mr. Kurmully said.

  “Yes,” Baba said.

  “So when are you retiring, Jamshed?”

  Baba laughed. “Not for a while, I hope. Anyway, let’s get on with it. Daoud,” he said to me, “can you find the pain point in his ankle?”

  I spent the next thirty minutes probing and prodding Mr. Kurmully’s diabetic foot, feeling between his tendons for nerves. It wasn’t easy. Over the years, Mr. Kurmully had lost two toes and the stumps had shriveled, distorting the anatomy. Eventually I found two points, braced myself, and gently shot them.

  “Feel better?” I said, as Mr. Kurmully withdrew his foot and stepped on it tentatively.

  “He won’t know until tomorrow,” Baba said. “Sometimes instant effect may occur, but our true goal is nocturnal relief when the neuropathy is worst. Am I right, Habib?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Kurmully nodded and flexed his foot this way and that. “The boy’s gifted. I had some burning when I came. It’s gone now. His first time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good God.” Mr. Kurmully shook his head wonderingly. “He will go far.” He came toward me and patted me on the head. “Your father’s been a boon to our community for twenty years, boy. Always be gentle, like him, you hear me? Be humble. It’s the branch laden with fruit that bends the most.” He smiled at me and turned to Baba. “Let me pay you this once, Jamshed.”

  Baba waved a hand. “Just tip the Edhi driver when he takes the cadaver. One of their volunteers has agreed to bury it for free.”

  “They are good to you, aren’t they.”

  Baba beamed. He opened his mouth to speak, but there was sudden commotion at the front of the clinic and a tall, gangly man with a squirrel tail mustache strode in, followed by the sulky-faced Edhi driver looking angry and unhappy.

  Baba’s gaze went from one to another and settled on the gangly stranger. “Salam, brother,” Baba said. “How can I help you?”

  The gangly man pulled out a sheath of papers and handed it to Baba. He had gleaming rat eyes that narrowed like cracks in cement when he spoke. He sounded as if he had a cold. “Doctor Sahib, you know why I’m here.”

  “I’m not sure I do. Why don’t you tell me? Would you like to take a seat?”

  “Just read the papers, sahib,” he said in his soft, nasal voice.

  “Oh?” Baba looked at the Edhi driver. He was a gloomy, chubby boy fond of charas and ganja and often rolled joints one-handed on his fat belly when waiting at red lights. I had ridden with him a couple times and once he showed me his weird jutting navel. Everted since birth, he told me proudly.

  “Zamir, what’s going on?” Baba said.

  “Sahib, they’re giving us tr
ouble with the burial,” Zamir said. “This man is from the local Defend the Sharia council. They have a written fatwa stating that since the dead boy was Christian he cannot be buried in a Muslim cemetery.”

  Baba turned back to the gangly man. “Is that true, brother?”

  Gangly Man thrust the papers into Baba’s hands. “This is from Imam Barani. Take a look.”

  Baba took the roll, but didn’t open it. “This boy,” Baba said, “was tortured by someone.”

  Gangly Man’s shoulders stiffened.

  “He was beaten badly. His teeth knocked out with a hammer. Someone took a razor to his mouth. When he was near dead, they threw him in the river.”

  Gangly Man’s lips pressed into a thin, white line.

  “He was sixteen. He had a scar on his stomach from a childhood surgery, probably appendectomy. He wore a tawiz charm on his forearm his mother likely got from a Muslim saint. You know how illiterate these poor Christians are. Can’t tell the difference between one holy man and another, and—”

  “Doctor Sahib.” Gangly Man leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “He and his filthy religion can ride my dick. My orders are simple. He will not be buried in the Muslim cemetery, and if I were you I wouldn’t push it.”

  Baba’s face changed color. He looked around and for the first time I saw how angry and tired he was. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Maybe he hadn’t. It was hard to know. He and Ma were talking less to each other lately.

  “If you make it difficult for us, well, things could go many ways, couldn’t they? Sometimes clinics run by quacks can be shut down by provincial governments until NOCs are obtained. I don’t even see a diploma on your wall. Surely, you went to medical school?” Still smiling, he toed the threadbare couch, the only piece of furniture in the room. “Besides, you might be Muslim but blasphemy is blasphemy, brother, and punishable under the Hadood Ordinance. The boy is Christian. That cemetery is not.”

  The Edhi driver took Baba’s arm and led him aside. They talked. Zamir gestured furiously. Baba’s shoulders rose and sagged. They came back.

  “We will take the body to Aga Khan Medical College and donate it to their anatomy lab,” cried Zamir.

  “But he has already been—” Baba began

  “I’m sure they will find more to do with it,” Zamir said, nodding and smiling.

  Gangly Man took the front of his own shirt with a tarantula-like hand and began to shake it, fanning his chest. “Very wise. How they will appreciate you!”

  Baba remained silent, but a heavy ice block appeared in my belly and settled there. I turned and ran from the clinic, ran all the way to our house three streets down. I burst into the shed and went to DeadBoy and wrenched away the tarp. His insides were tucked in with thin stitches. I yanked the stitches out, peeled back his skin, and pressed my gloveless fingers into his muscles. I discharged the biocurrent again and again until his limbs twirled and snapped, a lifeless dervish whirling around his own axis. I let the electricity flow through my fingertips like a raging torrent, until the room sizzled with charge and my nostrils filled with the odor of burnt flesh.

  After a while I stepped back. My cheeks burned and the corners of my eyes tickled. Even though it was close to noon, the shed was dark from a low-hanging monsoon ceiling. Interstices of sunlight fell on DeadBoy’s half-face, revealing the blackness of his absent teeth and his mutilated lips.

  “Sorry, DeadBoy,” I said.

  He twitched his shoulder.

  The movement was so unexpected that I jerked and fell over the toolbox on the floor. I sat on the sodden ground, gazing at DeadBoy, my heart pounding in my chest. He was still. Had I imagined it? That movement—it was impossible. The deadboys couldn’t move without stimulus.

  I got up and went to him. His disfigured flesh was placid and motionless.

  “Hey,” I whispered, feeling foolish and nervous. “Can you hear me?” The shadows in the room deepened. Somewhere outside a swallow cheeped.

  DeadBoy never said a word.

  ~

  After the Edhi driver hauled DeadBoy away, I walked around for a while. Soon it began to drizzle, the kind of sprinkle that makes you feel hot and damp but never really cool, so I took off my shirt, tucked it into my armpit, and ran bare-chested to Sadiq’s house.

  He lived in the Christian muhallah near Kala Pul, a couple kilometers away. His two-room tin-and-timber house was next to a dirty canal swollen with rainwater, plastic bags, and lifeless rodents, and the rotten smell filled the street.

  His mother opened the door. Khala Apee was a young-old woman. Her cheeks were often bruised. Her right eye was swollen shut today.

  “He’s at the Master sahib’s,” she told me in a hoarse voice. She smoked cigarettes when her husband was not home, Sadiq had told me. “He’ll be back in an hour. Want a soda?”

  They couldn’t afford sodas. It was probably leftover sherbat from last Ramadan. But what was Sadiq doing at Master sahib’s? Summer vacation wouldn’t be over for another month. “Thank you, but no, Khala Apee. I’ll wait under the elm outside.”

  She nodded and tried to smile. “Let me know if you want something. And if you can, do stay for dinner.”

  Plain roti with sliced onions. No gravy. “I’ll try, Khala Apee. May I borrow a plastic bag?”

  She brought me one. I went to the charpoy under the elm where we sometimes sat and made fun of our families. Rain pattered on the elm leaves and hissed on the ground, and as I sat there with my plastic-draped head on the steeple of my fingers I thought about Baba and Ma and how they had been arguing for months. Ma was worried about the house. She wanted Baba to start charging patients. Baba refused. His father and grandfather had never charged a fee, he said. They lived on food and gifts people gave them.

  Ma laughed bitterly. Those were different times, you fool. So different. And the house, what about the house, Jamshed? We are in debt. So much debt. What will you do when they come to take our home? If you cared as much about your family as you do about your goddamn corpse-learning, we could live like normal people, like normal human beings.

  But we’re not normal, Baba protested. This is a good way to blend in, to be part of this world. Be part of the community—

  Blend in? Mama said. We will never blend in if you keep antagonizing them. What was the point of arguing with that mullah? You know they are dangerous people. You keep going like this, we will never be part of the community. How could we be? We are …

  Sadiq was shaking me awake. “Hey, Daoud, hey. Wake up.”

  I opened my eyes. “Hey, how was … what?” I said when I saw his face. Sadiq was a small boy with mousy features and at the moment they were chiseled with worry.

  “You’ve got to leave, Daoud,” said Sadiq, glancing around. “Now.”

  “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Master sahib had heard some rumors and he wanted to warn us. He …” Sadiq gnawed at his lip, his fingers still tugging at my arm. “Go home. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Why?” But he was already leading me away from the elm and toward the canal. The drizzle had stopped and the canal water eddied gently. I put on my shirt and watched as Sadiq took a tin box from his pocket and tied a brick around it with jute twine and twice-doubled rubber band. He waded into the shallow canal and deposited the box at a spot two feet from the bank.

  “What are you doing?” I said when he climbed back up the embankment.

  “Nothing,” he said, but his voice was strange. “Run back home now. I’ll come by in a couple days if I can.”

  I went up the canal road, occasionally looking back, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Sadiq stood there, hands in the pockets of his shorts, a skinny, brown boy with a sad face and a fake-silver cross gleaming around his neck. Sometimes even now I see that cross in my dreams, throwing silver shadows across my path as I trudge d
own alleys filled with heartache and rotting bodies.

  As I glanced back one last time, Sadiq took off the cross and slipped it into his pocket.

  ~

  Baba was waiting for me.

  “Where were you?” he said, his eyes hard and red. “I was worried sick.”

  “At Sadiq’s. I wanted to—”

  “Foolish boy,” he said. “Don’t you know how dangerous that was? Don’t you realize?” I stared at him, feeling my head throb. He saw my incomprehension and his voice softened. “Someone vandalized a church in Lahore yesterday. Someone else found feces strewn in a mosque in Quetta. As a result, two people are dead and tens more injured in riots around the country. These tensions have been building for a while. You saw what that Defend the Sharia asshole did this morning. This will only get worse. You cannot visit Sadiq until things settle down.”

  “But what does Sadiq have to do with that?”

  Baba gazed at me with pity. “Everything.”

  I met his eyes and whatever was in them frightened me so much that my hands began to shake. I couldn’t stand facing him anymore. Quickly I walked past him and went to my room, where I sat on my rickety charpoy and watched the dusk through the skylight. In the other room, Ma prayed loudly on the musallah. She might have been crying, I couldn’t tell. I tried to read a medical textbook Baba gave me for my last birthday, but my mind was too restless, so I gave up and went to the kitchen where Ma had arranged unwashed raw chicken breasts on a chopping board.

  I lay my hands on the meat. I thought about Sadiq and his tinbox, and softly let the current flow. The chicken breast jumped and thudded on the wood. I discharged again, this time with more force, removed my hands, stepped back, and watched as for a whole minute the meat slapped up and down, squirting blood that puddled on the wooden board, making curious dark shapes.

  That should have been impossible but clearly wasn’t.