Lost Memory of Skin

by Russell Banks

  Plus he knows—or rather he believes as he has no evidence to the contrary—that it was not normal for him to be jerking off five to ten times a day especially as he grew into his late teens and should have been getting blow jobs from girls like the other guys at school. But masturbating had become as automatic and normal a bodily function as swallowing or clearing his throat of phlegm.

  On the other hand it’s not normal that he hasn’t masturbated once since the night he was arrested. He tried a couple of times to jerk off but he couldn’t make his dick get hard no matter what porn video he played in his mind, even the kinky scenes that used to make him come without his even having to touch himself. Nothing worked. So he gave up trying. He was only doing it because he thought he should be jerking off once a day given his youth or at least a couple times a week. Once he gave up trying to get hard, once he accepted that he really wasn’t sexually normal, he felt better. Calmer. As if by giving up trying to scratch an itch that he couldn’t reach the itch went away.

  As the seven other current residents of the camp beneath the Causeway one by one approach the Kid’s tent more or less at the appointed time to be greeted by the Professor in a to-the-Kid strangely hearty way, the Kid squats next to his dog and his parrot and feeds them. He cuts the cube of Spam into small chunks for Annie and breaks the doughnuts into walnut-size pieces that he hands piece by piece to Einstein. The parrot takes each piece of doughnut gently from the Kid’s fingers with one clawed foot like a prehistoric hand and studies it for a second as if examining it for dirt or contamination and passes it onto his beak and swallows and blinks. He opens his mouth and shows his yellow tongue and seems about to speak. The Kid opens his mouth too. Silence. The Kid hands the parrot another piece of doughnut. The parrot takes it in his claws and stares at the Kid. The Kid hears Einstein say in a creaky but clear voice: Thank you. I like you. You’re a good kid. You may be fucked-up sexually, but you’re normal.

  The Kid looks over at Annie who has finished off the Spam and is now smiling gratefully at the Kid. He says to the dog, Did you hear that, Annie?

  Annie nods and wags her tail slowly.

  The Professor turns and says, Hear what?

  The Parrot. Einstein.

  I’m afraid I missed it. Sounded like a squawk to me.

  Yeah. I guess that’s all it was. A squawk.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT’S A MOTLEY BAND OF BROTHERS THAT HAS gathered around the Professor. The Kid is surprised that they answered his call except maybe for the Rabbit who has a mocking way of looking at life and enjoys finding ways to express it. It’s something he shares with the Kid. Or rather it’s something the Kid learned from the Rabbit and now applies to almost everything and everyone that comes to him. When he first arrived at the Causeway settlement—after living for a month on the streets of Calusa and in the public parks and the occasional abandoned building and being hassled and chased off by cops and private security guards and maintenance people—the Kid didn’t have an attitude other than the one that had got him safely through three months in the minimum security prison in Hastings.

  A “correctional facility” it was called—he was being corrected, he believed, and made every effort to help them succeed. He was passive and obedient and cooperative. Everyone including the guards liked him and thought he was a little simple. Maybe borderline retarded. It was how he had behaved all his life in school and at his job at the light store and in the army. Until the night he took the initiative to hitchhike up to Ottawa to see Willow his favorite porn star and brought back all those DVDs to give to his buddies at Fort Drum. Big mistake. After that one initiative, that one departure from his usual compliant docility, he’d gone quickly back to his old tried-and-true personality like a turtle into its shell. For him for years his computer and its access to the Internet and pornography and sex-talk chat rooms had provided the shell and kept him from loneliness and dismay and the explosive desperation that often follows hard upon. His computer kept him from turning violent and he was self-medicating with an addiction to pornography to the point where he was no longer using it to get high or hard but merely not to be bored or harmful to others.

  Maddie who ran the weekly group therapy sessions at Hastings explained all this to him. She told him that it was as if he had been addicted to heroin during those years and the only real cure was for him to look inside himself and learn what or who was the true cause of his rage. She was a small thin brittle-looking woman in her early thirties with a cloud of curly green-tinted hair. She painted her fingernails black like a 1990s punk queen and said she had a pierced nose and tongue and other piercings on her body that she had to take off and check in a locker every time she came to the prison which she probably thought impressed the inmates in group. But the men serving time at Hastings were mostly upscale white guys convicted of fraud and embezzlement and Type 2 and 3 sex offenders like the Kid none of whom was particularly impressed. Especially not the Kid who saw her as just one more of the kind of girls and women who thought he was weird and pathetic and treated him accordingly.

  They got no argument from the Kid. He was weird and pathetic. Had always been that way. Even his mother thought he was weird and pathetic. Many times when she didn’t think the Kid was listening he heard her say it to her women friends or to the guy she happened to be sleeping with and sometimes she even said it to the Kid himself right to his face. Although she always said it with a warm affectionate smile as if she actually preferred weird and pathetic to normal and praiseworthy. So that on one level it made the Kid feel good when she said it: You’re such a loner, such a loser, your only friend is that goddam iguana you’re obsessed with, you’re scared of girls, you don’t play sports like the other boys but at least I don’t have to worry about you getting into a gang or doing drugs, you never seem to have any friends at all, you’re not interested in cars like other boys your age, you’re not turned on by video games, your clothes are like an old retired janitor’s clothes, you spend all your hard-earned money maxing out first my credit card and now your own debit card on Internet porn sites that you have to be eighteen or older to watch anyhow, mister. Don’t forget that. She tousles his hair and smiles and her eyes fill. You’re so short for your age and so skinny. It’s my fault you’re the way you are, honey. I tried. Lord knows, I tried, and I might have found a father for you if I believed that any father is better than no father at all. But I didn’t believe that when you were little, and I sure as hell don’t believe it now.

  The Kid would like to take a hard-ass attitude toward the Professor and his plan to organize the men living under the Causeway into some kind of gated community for homeless sex offenders. But he’s having trouble generating the necessary cynicism. He’s starting to trust the man’s intentions—a little, only a little so far. There doesn’t seem to be anything in it for the Professor except maybe bragging rights if it actually works out and nothing lost if it doesn’t except some wasted time spent down here with people who to a guy like the Professor must seem like aliens from another planet. People who to a professor of sociology (or at least that’s what he claims) ought to be worth studying and writing up in a book: a small tribe of men forced to live together in a cave in the middle of the city.

  He runs a good tight meeting, the Professor. The Kid admires the ease with which the big man masters the names of the residents—Rabbit, Shyster, Paco, Plato the Greek, Ginger, Froot Loop, and P.C.—and applies them liberally so they feel special and singled out whenever he asks for their opinions which he does often: their opinions on how a security committee should operate, its rules and responsibilities and who should serve on it; their thoughts on the proper number of members of an executive committee (three) and its powers and restraints; the length of term of membership for the three-man sanitation committee (three months—no one is willing to serve longer than that). They agree that the security committee only needs two members. Paco is an obvious choice and is eager to serve but no one else wants the job so it’s left to the
executive committee to appoint the second member as soon as they have agreed on the three for that committee and the three on the sanitation committee.

  The Kid notices that the Professor is smoothly maneuvering the group into doing exactly what he wants without their realizing it. He defines and narrows their choices his way because they don’t really have any alternatives in mind. Having never imagined taking control of their environment down here under the Causeway, the residents regard the Professor’s options as the only available options. He proposes and they dispose. Or so they think.

  How many members of the Executive Committee, Paco? Two or three? Of course we ought to have an odd number, in case of a tie, right, Shyster? And do we want the three to be equal or should we have a rotating chairman so we can have a single spokesman to represent all of us to the police and other authorities? Shall we nominate candidates for the Executive Committee then? One by one, please state your nominees, starting with you, Rabbit, going in reverse alphabetical order.

  Predictably Rabbit shrugs and nominates the Kid, and Shyster interrupts the process to note that he should have made the first nomination because in reverse alphabetical order Shyster comes before Rabbit.

  The Professor acknowledges his mistake and invites Shyster to nominate a candidate and Shyster adds the Greek to the list. Rabbit sticks with his candidate the Kid. Plato and Paco argue over who goes next and the Professor refers the question to Shyster who invokes reverse alphabetical order again and finds for Paco as they’re more inclined to call Plato “the Greek” instead of just Plato except when addressing him face-to-face. Paco declines to serve, says he’s happy taking care of security and doesn’t need or want no more responsibilities in life. He smiles and nominates the Shyster for membership in the Executive Committee. No sense giving the Greek more power and authority than he already possesses as the owner-operator of their power source, the diesel-fueled generator that the Greek has managed to drag out of the Bay and after a day of drying once again has it charging their cell phones and anklets. Then it’s the Greek’s turn to nominate a candidate and he says, The Rabbit would be good, since he’s been living down here longer than anyone else, and all seven men nod approvingly. The Professor calls for additional candidates but no one volunteers which makes it unanimous that the Executive Committee will be made up of the Kid, Shyster, and Rabbit. The Committee for Safety and Security is made up of Paco and Ginger with Paco officiating as chief of Safety and Security. Ginger is his deputy. They will each be issued a baseball bat to be purchased by the Professor at Rick’s Sporting Goods. The Sanitation Committee is Froot Loop and the Greek and P.C., which displeases Froot Loop and the Greek who take small comfort in the brevity of their term of office but pleases P.C. who had previously and unofficially functioned as a one-man sanitation committee taking it upon himself to provide trash barrels stolen from the park at Twenty-third and Herrington at the western end of the Causeway and regularly emptying the latrine bucket into the Bay, a practice the Professor says will no longer be tolerated.

  So what’re we supposed to do with our shit? P.C. wants to know. Yeah, the Kid thinks. Answer that one, Haystack.

  The Professor explains that he will arrange for a private contractor to install a portable toilet for their use and until he locates a private donor to pay for the regular removal of their wastes he himself will pay for the service. We have to show the public and their elected officials that we’re at least as capable of meeting local sanitation ordinances on our site as a construction company. The Kid notices his use of we and our and wonders where this is all leading. Or is it just another way for the Professor to get them to do what he wants them to do? For his own mysterious purposes.

  The Kid is starting to feel vaguely like a laboratory rat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE the Kid is essentially in charge of the settlement and that first night back his first executive action is to allow five sex offenders to return to the Causeway and reestablish their homes there. The next morning three more returnees arrive and are told by Paco, who is taking his policing responsibilities seriously, that they must petition the Kid for the right to settle under the Causeway. It’s become routine now. The homeless sex offender either gets the word on the street or simply drifts back to the Causeway because he’s got no other place in Calusa to sleep and is told by Paco on arrival that there is a whole new set of rules of governance operating now, a whole new structure. The applicant is quickly interviewed by the Kid whose main interest is to verify that the man is a genuine convicted sex offender whereupon he is assigned a spot under the Causeway where he is allowed to set up a tent or lean-to or stretch a tarp over a frame. He is instructed on the new sanitation and security rules—all trash and garbage that’s not recyclable has to be carried out by the individual resident and daily deposited off-island in a Dumpster; no urinating or defecating except in the rented Porta Potti that the Professor has arranged to be placed up alongside the Causeway on the shoulder of the highway several hundred feet beyond the bridge; no drugs bought, sold, or consumed anyplace within a thousand feet of the settlement; no drug paraphernalia or needles; no possession of stolen goods allowed; no acts of violence or pilferage permitted. Pets are allowed as long as the resident leashes or otherwise restrains them and cleans up after them. But no aggressive dogs. No cockfighting. No keeping live animals for food or religious sacrifices, not even chickens.

  As long as we obey Calusa city and county rules and regulations and don’t commit no crimes down here the cops’ll leave us alone. The Kid has bought the Professor’s party line. To which in his wisdom he adds one further prohibition: No sex offending down here. No weenie-wagging. No knob-jobbing. He makes it clear in a way the Professor never could or would that in spite of the presence among them of predatory wolves and ex-prison punks, come-freaks and chubby-chasers, Charlies and chomos—all kind of sexual weirdos who’ve been arrested, tried, and convicted for their acts—none of them, no matter how much or what kind of therapy and rehab they’ve done, none of them is not a sexual weirdo. They are all sexually offensive. Some in fact may have been made even more obsessed with committing illegal and strange sexual acts by their conviction and time in prison than they were before being arrested. But not here beneath the Causeway. What they do with their dicks and hands and mouths and assholes anywhere else is their business. What they do here is his business, the Kid’s.

  The Kid likes his new authority. He might in some oddly undefined way be working for the Professor but he’s never before held any power over anyone else. Except for Iggy. And now Einstein and Annie. A parrot who won’t talk and a watchdog too sick to bark. Now however he has the power to admit or exclude at his discretion any of the growing number of applicants for a spot under the Causeway.

  By midafternoon of the second day of his return from Anaconda Key there is a total of nineteen residents, twelve more than the seven who are now running the place. And more will come. The word is spreading that it’s safe beneath the Causeway now and relatively clean. Police cruisers pass overhead without even slowing so word must have reached them too. Just as the Professor predicted the cops are practically relieved to know where all the convicted sex offenders are located at least at night and except for those who have jobs to go to most days as well. They’re fishing in the Bay, scavenging food from the Dumpsters and trash bins behind restaurants and supermarkets, repairing and cleaning their tents and huts, and have even started picking up the trash tossed from cars passing over the Causeway between the mainland and the Great Barrier Isles, bagging beer cans, food wrappers, plastic bottles, as if they’ve adopted that section of the highway like any other civic organization. This place is theirs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY OF THE Kid’s return to the Causeway the Professor shows up early and checks the place out and is pleased by what he sees. He’s red-faced and sweating from the effort of descending from his van on the roadway above. The Kid remembers
reading in Shyster’s Bible the story of Genesis. The Professor is like God stopping by to visit the Garden of Eden and approving the way his human beings are running the place.

  Nice work, Kid. The number of residents is multiplying. But that means it’s going to be harder to keep order, the Professor notes and suggests adding two or more members to the security committee.

  The Kid says he’ll take that under consideration. He doesn’t want the Professor to think he’s God and in charge down here even though in a sense he is. I’ll talk it over with Paco. He informs the Professor that he’s thinking of forming a construction and maintenance committee. They need to build a shower stall and some of the shanties have to be rebuilt. Most of these guys can’t buckle their belts or tie their fuckin’ shoes right let alone pitch a tent or build a hut outa old boards and plastic.

  The Professor nods as if approving and tells the Kid to follow him and leads the Kid away from the others out of earshot. He sits his enormous body down on a grassy slope near the path down from the roadway and pats the ground next to him. Take a seat. I have something to show you.