The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1

by Daniel Kraus

  The price of meat today is high: $2,000 delivered this coming Sunday to a man with a yellow handkerchief outside of Molly’s. Chew on this as would a child—quickly—and digest it rare if you can, for there is no time for the dithering of seasonings and peppers. We shall belch our gratitude.

  Hungrily,

  The Black Hand

  To this day I know the paragraphs cold. Melodramatic? Yes, of course. You must agree, though, that it contains traces of genuine poetry! Proud was I to deliver it; prouder still was I to receive payment in full. Emboldened, I exercised my wrist in service of further flowery directives, for several weeks producing the most imposing collection of extortion letters in American history.

  Lesser drafts were flung to the floor at the invention of more expressive metaphors. It was inevitable that one of my jealous colleagues would collect this dropped evidence and present it to Testa. I can see it as if I had been there: Testa pacing among his despised sofas and durable lamps, clutching a newer gun prototype in one hand as he rifled through my discards, following not so much the meaning of my nimble prose but rather the insubordination that fueled them. A man who could make threats as well as carry them out was a potential rival he did not need.

  Here at last we come full circle. On the morning of May 7, 1896, I received an anonymous letter that, despite its rudimentary penmanship, preyed quite cunningly upon my vanity. The letter expressed admiration for my abilities and the desire to discuss a proposition. Recognition at last, thought I. I dined on pheasant and potatoes and ale. On balance, I believe it was a good final meal. I walked with full belly to the lake, as I had been directed; I checked my Excelsior by the tapering dusk; by and by it was 7:44 and through my heart passed a single bullet, and all because I had ignored the advice of a man I’d stubbornly refused to acknowledge as my cerebral superior:

  You gotta have fear in your heart.

  It is not difficult, you see, to understand why I had to be killed. The more difficult question is why I, of all people, was brought back.

  PART TWO

  1896–1902

  Containing An Account Of Your Hero’s Assimilation Into A Lot Of Unsavory Characters And Affiliation With A Person Of Very Small Stature.

  I.

  MY NEXT MEMORY COMES TWO days after my murder. I was seated inside a tent. A man entered from a corner, parting the frayed yellow fabric with a shark fin hand. He took a single oversized step and then held that bizarre pose, legs scissored, while one hand weaseled into the folds of his frock coat and procured a cigar. His other hand held a chicken leg, undercooked and drizzling pink liquid. Masterfully, he lit the cigar without losing the chicken. Puffing away, he loped closer and sat with enough spirit to flare his low-hanging hem, which flung grit from the dirt floor into my open eyes. Quite oddly, I felt no sting.

  He crossed a leg over a knee and bounced it; the scruff of his boot was slathered in cheap polish. He held his cigar with an actor’s verve and with his other hand brought in the chicken leg, rotated it for best vantage, and took a rapacious bite. I guessed the man to be more than double my age and yet he gave off an impression of rakish good health. Beneath the scraggled beard his flesh was peach-hued; his lips were red, even too; the hair falling from under his top hat flowed across his shoulders in a womanish cascade. His pale green eyes were ringed with red, the kind that told of late nights and budget booze as much as it did the unshirkable responsibilities of morning.

  I would come to know this man as the Barker.

  He smacked his lips when he drew smoke.

  “I’m a busy fellow,” said he. “So out with it. Who are you?”

  Speech was a revolting memory. I burrowed back into my quiet.

  The Barker spat a tendon and hovered the cigar before his lips.

  “Indeed. Very clever. Hold your cards, reveal nothing. Force the interrogator to ask the same question of himself. Who am I? Who are any of us? It becomes existential. Ah, you’re a cleaver, sir. You’re the sharpest object in the drawer. Indulge me a revision. What is your name?”

  Being addressed was a torture. Did this mean I was not, as I’d hoped, a ghost? Dull sensations began to seep in from great distances: coldness, wetness, a discomfort in my neck. Also came the first twinges of curiosity. Where was this tented location? How I had arrived there? What was the reason for my paralysis?

  “No name.” He oozed smoke. “This, of course, opens up a host of possibilities. You’re a thief, mayhap a feminine defiler, and what you seek is sanctuary. You realize that this changes our dynamic. If I lower myself—forgive me, sir, for the blunt words. But if I lower myself to deal with—ahem—Criminal Element, the only Christian method of proceeding is that I become the benefactor and you the benefacted. An awfully one-sided relationship, that one. No, it’s better to be out with it. Tell me what it is you have done.”

  At this point our twosome became three. Slinking through the same corner opening was a tabby in the most destitute of states: down an eye, patchily furred, and pregnant. Her legs were mud-crusted, her tail crooked. She threaded herself about her master’s ankles, opening her scabbed muzzle to mewl for chicken.

  The Barker’s eyes grew redder as he squinted.

  “My, my. It was a child, wasn’t it? Who you . . . well, I don’t care to voice such perversities. And since you see no need to disavow me of this assumption, I am forced to presume it correct. That’s a foul business, sir. Why, I could be jailed if I was found to be giving you asylum. Oh, no, sir. Heavens, no.”

  He flung aside the chicken bone and inserted his thumb into his mouth all the way to the root, withdrawing it with a slurp as he sucked it clean. He held aloft the glistening digit as if imagining one of the aforementioned perversities. The cat, meanwhile, eyed the grass for sign of the bone but displayed none of the gumption necessary for scavenging.

  “Apologies for wasting your time, sir,” said the Barker. “And I believe I shall stop referring to you as ‘sir.’ It is a gesture I make to honor the poor abused child, you understand. Children—defenseless angels! We adults are obligated to protect them.”

  He expelled a tragic sigh and brought himself to his feet. Despite the unfair scoldings, I longed for him to remain. I was a little boy—lost, confused, willing to cling to anyone possessed of orientation. The discomfort in my neck magnified.

  The Barker had gone but two steps before he turned on a heel and jabbed the cigar in my direction.

  “On the other hand, it is my belief that, as Jesus of Nazareth taught, we all deserve a bit of forgiveness. For who among us hasn’t a sin tucked away in his darkest heart? Yes, by George. I believe an understanding can be reached between the two of us. Look! Even Silly Sally likes you. Don’t you, Sally? Don’t you, Silly Sally Kitty Catty?”

  My lowermost vision caught the cat’s matted tail as it swayed in the vicinity of my feet. Something about this creature’s proximity upset me.

  “You’re a crackerjack listener, anyhow,” the Barker continued, “and if you are to work for me, that is an asset. For I, as benefactor, will tell you to do things. And you, I’m afraid, will be required to do them. Discussion poisons the rehabilitation process.”

  I felt the cat’s fangs tugging at my ankle. Through benumbed senses, I catalogued the quick, violent actions necessary to rid myself of this animal. But I could no more act upon them than I could form words or lift my chin from my chest. Oh, but this frightened me! Was this waking slumber the penance of the damned? Was this man Mephistopheles, this tent an antechamber of Hell?

  “They tell me,” said he with a simper, “that they fished you from the lake.”

  The man had called me a gambler but it was he who knew when to turn his best card. The bottom of the lake—yes, that’s right, I had witnessed it! I had lain upon pebbles, blinked stupidly at the remains of a sunken boat, been kissed by a passing school of fish. Sand had shifted in such volume that the lower half of my bod
y had been covered, then uncovered, then covered again. How long had I lain down there bereft of air? It had to have been hours. It was then that I remembered my murder.

  Remembering it was worse than the act itself, I assure you.

  The truth was, to say the least, difficult to accept. I was a corpse. I could feel the stagnant weight of internal organs no longer quickened by lifeforce. A bullet had pierced my heart—warm spring air now passed through the wound!—and I had suffered a hundred drownings. I believe I would have lost my marbles right there in that tent had I not heard the Excelsior ticking away inside my pocket, unfaltering despite its recent dunking, my steadfast beating heart.

  The Barker observed my reactions with a biologist’s dispassion. The cigar rolled from one end of his mouth to the other, a pendulum.

  “My initial interest in you stemmed from a report we received from a satisfied customer of ours residing south of Chicago. It would seem that this gentleman, a Mr. Avery, hoping to catch breakfast, borrowed a hook and rod and obtained himself a rowboat. On this particular morning he hooked a big one. He hooked you.”

  The Barker pointed.

  “The webbing between your finger and thumb. Right hand. Take a look.”

  It was my first willed movement. My eyeballs, devoid of moisture, skipped across tacky sockets, and my elbow scuttered like machinery desperate for lubricant. A hand that looked very much like my own rose shakily from its dangled position. Carefully I rotated it.

  There was an ugly hole ripped clean through the flesh exactly where the Barker had said. I brought the hand closer. The visible meat was a dull gray-pink. Blood failed to pump, even when I clenched and unclenched the fist. For a moment there were no sounds but the popping of my finger bones.

  “Twenty years now I’ve fielded cockeyed stories from desperate milksops,” said the Barker. “So when Mr. Avery returned to our grounds demanding an audience in regards to a man who breathed underwater, I motioned to have the sot escorted away. But then he mentioned the other thing and I knew I had to see it.”

  My expression was fixed, yet must have conveyed puzzlement.

  Up went the Barker’s eyebrows. “You don’t know? Oh, my. My, my. I don’t know how to say this.” He winced and pointed with the cigar. “There—right there. On your—yes, right there.”

  I spider-walked my fingertips across the shirt slicked to my deadlocked chest, in and out of the collarbone hollows that no longer throbbed with pulse, and onto my cold neck, where I discovered something that was not flesh. Panic reared and I counted along to the Excelsior to calm myself. So this was the cause of my neck discomfort.

  An iron fisherman’s hook the size of my forearm was implanted deep into my jugular. I swallowed and there was a metallic clink. I probed with my tongue and tasted rust. With great effort I fiddled around and found two inches of iron pushing from inside my neck like a goiter. I took the hook’s handle with fantasies of extraction but I was far too weak. Silly Sally, who continued to work my ankles, cocked her head in an inquisitive way. The weight of the hook pulled my head to the right, giving me, I imagined, a similar expression.

  “I would be cross with Mr. Avery for gross mishandling had he not sold you to me for nothing more than what he’d lost at our Boardwalk the previous night. For this business, as you shall learn, is all about acquiring the New.”

  The Barker tossed his cigar and approached, frowning at my impalement like a doctor, which might have been comforting if not for his playful, mincing steps. He wiggled his fingers as if to limber them and spoke in the barest of whispers.

  “When a man of my talents meets a man of yours, there are few limits. Of course, this grappling hook will have to be removed. We can’t tip off the audience prematurely. Ah, that reminds me, I’ve already chosen for you a name, as you do not appear to own one yourself.” He made a theatrical gesture. “‘The Astonishing Mr. Stick.’ What do you think? Handbills are being printed as we speak.”

  I felt him take hold of the hook’s handle. The pressure inside my neck thickened and I braced for decapitation. His touch, though, was gentle. He of all people did not wish to see me further mangled.

  His right foot kicked. Silly Sally moaned and waddled away from my ankles.

  “Filthy cat. Adores dead things,” said he. “But that does not stop me from loving her.”

  II.

  FUN FACTS FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT, Dearest Reader!

  I do not eat.

  I do not excrete.

  I do not sleep.

  I do not bleed.

  While I lived, these obligatory functions could be frustrations for how they delayed lustier pursuits. What shocked me in those first days following my slaying was how much I missed these signals of life. Without them, did I exist? My body had been sold to the Barker with no more ceremony than one might sell a goat or pig. Livestock, however, were luckier, for they could relax upon the promise of slaughter. What was in store for me was anyone’s guess.

  Before I achieved the scantest bit of bearings, the Barker’s cryptic caravan hit the road. The comforts customarily extended to the Black Hand were lacking; I bounced about within a cage filled with straw. Each time the carriage stopped I was bombarded with insects eager to sup upon putrefied flesh. Within seconds they sensed the unholy coldness about me and never was I pestered again.

  Gød above, pleaded I, watching the flies keep their fearful distance, how can any of this be real? I closed my eyes and composed epic odes to my squandered life, which now dangled just beyond arm’s reach—age eighteen, age nineteen, age twenty, and onward; the varieties of women to be bedded; the varieties of lagers to be drank; all of it gone, gone, gone, slurped from my stein before I’d enjoyed one full swallow. And in return I got this? This coarse maltreatment? This migratory bazaar on the road to who knew where?

  I was kept hidden from all eyes for days. The Barker’s show, whatever it was, began a brief residency in Dale City, Illinois, and between lectures I could not quite hear, he sneaked into the supply tent, pulled back the blanket that covered my cage, and peered at my woebegone visage for ten, twenty, thirty minutes at a time, searching, I expect, for sign of breath or pulse that he had earlier missed. He, a man of great skepticism, still suspected that he was being duped.

  Perhaps this is what led to his drastic change of approach. Early one morn, he employed two tattooed workers to remove me from the cage. (I lacked the power to resist or object.) They stripped me of my moldy clothes, took me by the ankles, and gave me a vigorous shaking. Lake water gushed from my throat, sinuses, and wounds. The smell was sour and the men recoiled. I was relieved, though, to be rid of the slop. The men dressed me in a suit ill-fit enough to make me miss Abigail’s uncomfortable vestments and returned to me the Excelsior—thank heavens for that!

  Scrubbed and suited, I was given work. I could not believe it at first. I was a vile demon fit to be expurgated, not some transient hireling! Yet I was propped into a sitting position inside my cage and handed through the bars a pile of soft cotton pads, a jar of red pepper, and a bottle of glue. I saw no connection between these curious peripherals until Little Johnny Grandpa, a tiny old man in filthy overalls, hobbled over, rapped his cane on the bars of my cage, announced in a graveled voice that he was to teach me the construction of “liver pads,” and bade me to listen close so that he did not have to repeat himself.

  But he was forced to repeat himself seven or eight times, so stunned was I by his irregular comportment. Little Johnny Grandpa, I discovered, was so dubbed because of a rare affliction, an outrageous disease that aged his physique at an accelerated rate. He had the sparse white hair, bowed back, bad gums, lax skin, and milky eyes of an ancient. Yet he was no older than ten years! Like any youngster, his conversational instinct was to fill silence, and as it so happened, silence was precisely what I had to offer.

  “Lookie here,” said he. “What y’do is y’put y’cloth on y’lap a
nd then y’find the dead center with y’fingers, right?” He jabbed with his cane one of the cotton rectangles wadded upon my thighs. “Now y’take y’pepper and y’dab y’pepper on y’cloth—look, like so.”

  He reached between the bars as only a child would dare, and took my wrist. Before he’d moved my hand an inch toward the jar of peppers, he was aroused to the truth of my condition. His thousand wrinkles coiled.

  “S’true,” whispered he. “Y’cold. Y’cold as ice.”

  It was amazement, not horror, with which his cataracts gleamed. For the first time since my death I wished to speak, but my lips were capable of only a dismaying hiss. Little Johnny Grandpa sniffed at my odor; the long gray hairs of his nostrils fluttered. Right away he dropped my hand. It landed upon the cotton spread across my lap and that is where I fixed my eyes. I saw the lad’s stumpy shadow rise on two legs and a cane and leave at full-speed totter. I could lay no blame at his fleeing feet.

  Then came a miracle rivaling the one that resurrected me: the elderly little boy came back.

  “I got what y’need!” A green bottle was uncorked and he commenced blessing me with an oily liquid. A drop hit my eye and welled like a tear. “Just a little perfume, see, and y’have ladies tearing off their knickers in no time. Y’see if Little Johnny Grandpa’s not right.”

  The cologne did not mix well with dead flesh and stirred up a sickly sweet funk. Regardless, I nodded my appreciation and the boy became sheepish. He corked the bottle and jammed it into his pocket.

  “Aw, don’t y’get thankful on me. It’s not even real cologne. Colonel Moseley’s Halitosis Garg-o-lax is all it is. Comes ten cents a bottle.”

  He kneeled next to my cage, wincing at his weak knees, and snatched up my wrist. With arthritic fingers he brought my hand to the cotton upon my lap and showed me how to approximate its center. Next came the jar of peppers: he operated my fingers like chopsticks until we landed a pepper and then he showed me how to snap it in half and rub it against the cotton to create a splotch of red. Finally, a different finger was dipped into the glue and used to apply a dollop.