“We are here to help”
He folded the paper, gently, sliding it into his pocket.
And Muscles turned to Junior and smiled and back to me and they echoed:
“We are here to help”
I couldn’t contain it. My body convulsed. Silent laughter rippled through my torso and strangled my heart.
And Dad was looking at Junior, nodding - his mouth twisted upward; his eyes were glazed and happy.
He held his hands together in front of his chest like he was praying.
And somehow… that was the limit…
“Justice!”
I cleared my throat.
“Here to help me?”
The words were punctuated by my laughter. Manic, angry laughter.
Muscles stared at me; hurt and confused.
“Justice!”
I spat a mouthful of blood in his face - he recoiled and an automatic hand pulled back to clear his eyes.
The laughter overtook me. My whole body shook. My face was wet.
“And who do you think is going to help you?”
I twisted my shoulders and threw my foot out - catching Muscles in the crotch - and as he pitched forward I jammed my fist into his face.
My knuckles split over his teeth, and I jerked my knee up but it connected with nothing but hollow skin.
Junior pulled the feral back with wide-eyed shock.
I searched around for something to break over his face but Muscles pulled himself upright - quickly - eyes wide and so close to my face that all I could see was his pink skin and all I could smell was the sweet, cloying smell of metabolizing fat… and I tried to catch my breath but all I could see was the top of his head - immaculate blonde hair pulled back tight, and my lips were splitting over my bottom teeth and I could taste his forehead - salty and warm - and I was gone.
The tar hadn't got to me. The raw weeping of my tar-burnt skin hadn't got to me. The car lurching over the black-cloaked body in the parking lot; the faint echo of the groaning suspension in my spine…
It hadn't gotten to me.
But the animal panic in the police officer’s eyes shook my spine, dropped acid into my churning stomach.
His voice wavered, uncontrollable, sputtering fear in wet droplets that clung to his bare teeth and glowed in the headlights.
“Back! Stay back! Get behind the line!”
So many anonymous corpses. Unclaimed limbs. The tar had taken the faces, the clothes, worked its way through the stomachs and spread webs over the ribs. Pink foam, lumps of fat, greying strands of muscle uncoiled and laid out over the road.
“Turn around, go home!”
The car had ground to a stop just outside of town. A slow roll, soft metal dropping to the asphalt with no fire or ceremony. The engine block was exposed and smoking, headlights boiling wide swathes in the black tar.
The tyres had disintegrated and the glass had crumbled into lackluster shards.
The intersection was choked with meat and rust. Skin, metal, oily yellow chunks spread slowly over the asphalt.
The bodies, the cars, the tar had merged into a sepia mass that seethed and glistened.
Fingers of tar pushed into pink legs, prying into muscles, stripping to bones that glowed briefly in red light.
A wave of tar fell heavy, racing into pores. The air tasted like sugar and smoke.
Meat, rust and hair.
A door slid from its hinges and dropped slowly to the black road, crumpling wet against the asphalt.
Wordless, choking pleas for help. Static. Air and blood pushed through tar burned vocal cords. A choir of panic.
And the cloying taste of blood in the heavy air.
The barrel of the pistol swept a wide arc against the crowd. Creeping silhouettes avoided the light, cowering away from the boiling tar.
“Get back! Go home!”
Fear, confusion. He tore the tar from his face. He looked young. His skin was smooth and his eyes were clear; pin-prick pupils.
I spread my hands out wide.
“I am going home”
The words were smothered in a heavy wave of tar, my gesture black against the black road, the black sky. The taste of meat flooded my mouth. I swallowed and my stomach felt warm.
I took a step sideways, edging around him. The barrel snapped to my chest.
“Stop!”
Animal pleading, the silver gleam of the pistol strobed with the shaking of his hands.
I raised my arms, spread my fingers, eyeing the darkness behind him.
The city was dead. Intermittent flashing of red lights.
“I'm going home”
He cut me off, taking a few jarring steps forward, pistol tracking my sternum.
“Stop!”
Breathless. The word was all teeth and dry lips.
“Stop!”
I kept my hands up.
Calmly, carefully shaping every word:
“I am going home.”
A wasted gesture toward the dark city. I couldn't extract my fingers from the sky.
A slow step to the side. A slow step toward home.
Behind us; low murmuring of anonymous tar figures. Wet footfall as they broke formation, abandoning the road and escaping into tar-heavy mud.
He twisted his hips, face contorted, pistol tracking the dying footfall.
I turned and moved slowly toward the city, hands still raised. Quietly. Put some distance between my spine and the pistol.
Ignore the soup of tar and fat accumulating at my ankles.
I held my breath, put my feet down quietly. My chest was shaking, sucking hot air in thick clumps.
“Stop!”
Heavy footsteps. My shoulders hugged my ears.
A wet boot in the small of my back; I fell forward onto the road. Asphalt tore my palms. My teeth cracked together. Bone on bone echoed in my skull.
Facedown in meat and tar.
“You deserved that; I hope you realize.”
On my back; again. The same dull ache in my side. I looked around. The tyre iron was against the foot of the bar. I’d come down over a table. Broken wood and glass underneath me. My back felt damp and warm.
I probed the skin gently - pulled back blood.
I sat up; mental images of organs spilling out through openings in the skin.
Hernia.
Critical hernia.
“You deserved that; I hope you realize”
Dad, standing at the bar; the same endless circles.
I stood and looked at where I'd been. Immaculate floor but for a perfect silhouette of my body - broken glass, blood and wood.
I twisted and pulled a chunk of glass from the small of my back.
It was a long shard - about the length of my thumb - a fragment from the side of a jar.
A small black lump clung to the very tip.
It had gone deep.
Not “goodnight” deep, but deep.
“I’m sorry”
I didn’t mean it.
And Dad looked at me. And he knew. But he was too polite to say it.
Endless polishing of the bar.
“I’m… not sorry”
“I know”
I bent down, dragging the tyre iron from the floor and slipping it behind my belt.
“I…”
I didn’t know.
I leaned against the bar and tried to focus my thoughts.
Some sort of plan, I suppose.
I looked at Dad.
He came out from the bar with a broom and started to clear away the broken glass.
He refused to emote.
It was my fault. In a sense.
Not just today. Not just this situation. It was something bigger. And…
It was all my fault.
And Dad knew it. And I knew it.
And on the bar they had left a flyer…
Cold grey paper with streaks of red-brown…
Reconstituted from ancient newspaper or bark or hair…
In black ta
r - that same primitive man from the billboard.
“Be Human”
And I had seen it before… many times before… but I’d dismissed the pattern as just a momentary act of nostalgia.
A brief and shallow resurgence of the old world.
But it was unavoidable now.
Dad picked up the flier, tilted it, looked at it from all angles, and walked to the front of the bar - propping it in the window.
I watched him and felt the bile rise into my throat.
My stomach churned.
All I could hear was my heartbeat.
My eyes were burning hot.
We looked at each other, and looked at the flyer in the window. The passive ultimatum.
I dragged myself to the booth, pulled the jar closer to my chest - blues scattering in unsatisfactory patterns, and took a long sip of shine.
Dad, running his wide hands through his hair.
Dad, who had looked to Junior with such warmth and…
Was that admiration?
Justice had come to town.
And it was here to help us.
It really was…
Once I thought about it…
My fault.
And by christ I would make all of this right.
To this point the day had been a waste.
I had a ragged gash on my forearm, my bottom lip was split, my knuckles torn and an unseen wound pulsated in the small of my back.
It was barely midday.
I’d lost too much blood, too much face.
I could stand to lose the blood.
The day was a net loss.
I still had the feral’s ear in my pocket - but it felt hollow now. Some idle feral child’s play.
Blood and Pride. The Old World metric for success.
I would have to drop that subscription soon. It was getting…
Kitsch.
The bar was empty. Dad put the crate on the counter and cleared his throat.
I scooped the blues from the table and drained the last few mouthfuls of shine.
Pain shot through my lip and to my brain.
Wake up, wake up.
I limped to the bar and put my hands on the crate. Dad waited for my eyes to meet his.
“Take this to the Doctor. Use the extra jar of shine to get yourself cleaned up”.
He narrowed his eyes and my face flushed red.
I looked down at the crate.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
My face was still burning.
I looked up and ran my tongue over my lip.
“Don't worry.” I said.
“I’m here to help.”
I lifted the crate and pushed the door open with my foot.
I jerked the flyer from the window and looked back at Dad.
I couldn’t see his expression, but I could feel it crawling over my skin.
The door slammed shut behind me.
The day was bright and humid.
The tar had long since evaporated.
And as I walked the jars of shine rattled; the tyre iron kept the beat and my head was feeling clear and cold.
The front door was ajar - I called out:
“Hello?”
And eased it open.
Slowly, loudly rattling the jars of shine.
“Hello?”
Avoiding a gutful of gravelshot.
The Doctor’s living room was empty. The air inside was hot and damp.
The windows were boarded up but a few tar lamps kept the room reasonably well-lit.
Bookshelves lined the wall beside me. Their shelves sagged. The books looked moldy and heavy with damp.
The remaining walls were covered with diagrams, illegible blueprints, news articles of questionable relevance.
A sad, wet shrine to the Old World.
I wondered how long the books would last before they too were boiled in blood and shine and decimated between brown molars.
I pictured Muscles, stuffing his inflated body with dead culture while the Doctor watched on, teeth clenched and eyes wet.
I shook my head.
“Hello?”
I gently put the crate on the floor and slipped my shoes off - pulling the tyre iron from my belt.
I closed the front door behind me and bolted it shut.
A stack of misshapen flyers was piled beside the door. Shifting renditions of that same black human figure.
Be human.
I stacked them on top of the crate with the others.
The air tasted like a perfect mix of heavy chemicals and meat.
My mouth was dry. I chewed on my tongue - trying to stimulate some saliva.
It hurt to breathe.
The surgery door was open - the slab was empty.
I took a few cautious steps and stopped at the threshold, looking around the room.
“Hello?”
I waited.
“Hello?”
The walls were bare and off-white - stripped of wallpaper and lined with plastic sheets.
Streaks of brown liquid ran down the plastic and dripped into thin drains hacked into the cement floor.
Four massive iron pots boiled away atop the makeshift stoves that lined the far wall.
Their lids rattled and an occasional enthusiastic stream of yellow liquid ran down their sides and hissed against the hotplates.
A groaning exhaust fan pulled the vapor and tar smoke and dumped it out in the alley.
Neat stacks of dried meat were labeled and piled on a bench to the right.
Red Meat. Black Meat. Blue Meat.
A crate of rough sat on the cement, covered by a plastic sheet - thick with condensation.
A door to the left led out into the alleyway.
The heavy chemical smell was diluted by the moisture in the air and the blood and paper boiling away in the pots.
I took a deep breath - it tasted earthy and comforting, only vaguely bitter.
I wasn’t hungry but I started to salivate.
Thank christ.
I licked my lips and fished a blue from my pocket, slipping it between my bottom teeth and cheek.
I walked to the slab and tapped it with the tyre iron.
“Hello?”
I tapped the slab again. Hollow metallic vibrations.
“Hello?”
“Out here”
The alley.
His thin voice cut through the dense air and I slipped the tyre iron back into my belt.
“I’m coming out”
I went back to the living room - pulled my boots on and slipped the extra glass of shine from the crate and into my jacket pocket.
I took the flyers from the crate and tore them into into pieces - dividing them evenly among the pots on the stove. The homespun paper was pulpy and left a skin of dust on my hands.
The door to the alleyway was heavy - I braced my hips and pulled it open with both hands.
It scraped angrily against the cement floor.
Fresh air rushed into the room. It was cold and smelled clean by contrast.
The Doctor was standing up to his armpits in the meatbin.
He was wearing a black plastic sheet. He’d doubled it over like a poncho; cut a hole for his head and taped the sides together.
His head was clumsily shaven. I don’t think he had an ounce of fat on his entire body, just an ever-present layer of sweat and wiry grey hair spread out across his arms and chest and neck.
His face was all eyes. Wide, bloodshot eyes set into purple sockets.
He looked like a demented butcher owl.
I kept that observation to myself.
Seven or eight bodies were organized into three piles on the ground.
“Get over here. Help me with all this”
He waved his hand and disappeared below the rim of the dumpster.
I didn’t move.
“Where’s the slave?”
He stood up and narrowed his eyes at me.
“You mean… Where’s the assistant?�
��
I shrugged.
“Sure, why not”
Still staring at me. Silent.
I put my hands up.
“Yes. Of course. I’ll help, I’ll help”
He crouched and disappeared again.
I sidestepped the bodies and looked down into the meatbin.
Two bodies left. Somehow they had gotten tangled together.
The Doctor grunted; frustrated - attempting to untie their limbs.
“You’ve been busy” he said, without turning around. His voice reverberated against the metal walls.
I coughed, cleared my throat, puffed out my chest.
“Justice”
He paused, his neck tense.
I spoke to the back of his head.
“I’m here to help”
He relaxed, his chest deflating.
“I was wondering when they’d get to you”
He sighed and unthreaded an arm from between a pair of twisted legs.
He held the arm up.
“Hold this.”
I took it by the wrist.
He half turned toward me.
“I had a dream that you’d become some sort of lawman”
I pulled hard, the body was heavy. The Doctor put his arms around the waist and lifted it to the rim.
I hooked my arms around its chest, levering the torso against the metal.
The Doctor’s breath was coming fast - shallow and rasping.
I dumped the body on the ground and looked at him.
He had turned away from me again, standing still, breathing heavily.
I stepped beside the bin and leaned against the wall.
The ground was muddy - wet with blood and rot.
“Was that an insult or a compliment?”
He smiled and turned to me.
“I guess it’s an insult.”
I laughed. A real laugh, without a trace of mania or anger.
“Moral relativity, right?”
He didn’t reply, and I dropped my hands onto the rim of the meatbin.
A bell was awkwardly bolted to the wall, a heavy, faded brass number that had been saved from the tar by the cement overhang that stretched over the meatbin. I flicked the clapper with my thumb and it rang out, deep and resonant.
"Don't do that"
I flicked it again and shrugged. He narrowed his eyes at me and wiped his brow with the back of his hand, rubbing a trail of old blood into his eyes.
He blinked and let out an angry groan, blindly searching his clothes for something to clean his eyes.
Blue Meat Blues Page 3
