“Come here,” Holly says.
“I don’t know how I got it,” she says again.
“Come here,” she says again.
The Minotaur knows.
“It’s too dark,” she says.
The Minotaur could have told her as much. He knows. He knows where the splinter came from.
“Can I trust you?” Holly asks. It’s a rhetorical question.
“Unngh,” the Minotaur says. “Yes.”
Holly brushes past the Minotaur; their two reflections briefly inhabit the lifeless television screen. Noir. Holly stands at the foot of the bed, looks at the Minotaur, takes a breath, pulls her pants halfway down, lies on her belly. The bed creaks. The Minotaur could have told her as much.
“I think it’s right here,” she says, and with one crooked finger folds the cotton panties in on themselves, tucking the bunched fabric into the deep, arched cleft of her ass, exposing fully one glorious white freckled mound of rump.
“Can you see anything?” she asks.
“Unngh,” the Minotaur says.
He sees the birds. The birds. Delicate and impossibly small against the white of her panties. Birds in flight. Birds at rest. A cardinal, an oriole, a jay. A cardinal, an oriole, a jay. Over and over again.
“Can you see anything?” she asks again.
The Minotaur has to get closer. He has no choice. He tries not to breathe too hard, the tip of his long snout, the deep black wells of his nostrils, so close to her bared thighs. Nevertheless there is his breath, and the sudden goose flesh up and down the backs of her legs.
“I don’t know how it got there,” she says.
The splinter is half an inch—longer, even—and angles deeply smack dab in the middle of her cheek. A quarter-sized patch of inflamed flesh surrounds the point of entry. Its tip is too deep to see. Cedar, the Minotaur thinks. He thinks he smells cedar. He knows for sure he smells the black Pennsylvania mud caked in the soles of his boots. Smells, too, blood and the potent urine of a rutting buck. Smells gunpowder, maybe, and through it all Holly. All of Holly. The splinter is cedar. He’d bet money on it. There are probably thousands of such splinters on the floor of the Pygmalia-Blades trailer.
The Minotaur’s hands are capable of great tenderness. He could, with the tips of his thumbnails, his knuckles resting on her behind, pressing, he could pinch and squeeze the splinter out. But his nails are so dirty, and her flesh is so white, so clean.
“Birds,” the Minotaur says. “Umm . . . I mean tweezers.”
Holly chuckles. The Minotaur bumbles into the bathroom, fumbles the first-aid kit; several small things clatter across the tile floor: scissors, a spool of white tape, a pencil.
“You okay in there?” Holly asks.
“Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says, kneeling to retrieve the tweezers from behind the toilet.
He washes the tweezers, and washes his hands, too. The Minotaur stands at the sink looking into the mirror. He leans just enough around the doorjamb to see, to see if she is still there on her belly, on his bed. The Minotaur does this again two, three, four times, surprised each time by Holly’s present and half-naked backside. A cardinal, an oriole, a jay. Holly lies, her chin resting on her clasped hands, humming. Humming. The red hair that drapes her face burns against the bedspread’s looping gray pattern.
The Minotaur steps bedside. Holly looks up, smiles, picks at something on the blanket, flicks it away.
“Have to touch,” he says.
“Yes,” she says.
“Of course,” she says.
“Go ahead,” she says.
The Minotaur bends closer; he needs to see better. The Minotaur gets down on one knee. It’s too close. Too something else. He pulls up the chair. Sits.
“Okay,” he says.
The Minotaur cups his hands and blows into the well. Warmth. The Minotaur is capable of warmth. Holly is (almost) perfectly still.
“Touch,” he says, but doesn’t. The Minotaur’s quandary is ancient.
Holly waits. Will wait as long as necessary. Scald Mountain turns a blind eye.
The Minotaur gets to work. At the first brush of his fingertip her muscle flexes. The white gluteus tightens involuntarily. Grows taut inside its flesh, though a fine and freckled jiggle remains. The Minotaur appreciates much this looseness, this fullness. Can’t help himself. Can’t stop himself (man or bull) from brushing her flesh one more time, just to watch the reflex.
“What’re you doing back there?” Holly says, laughing.
“Tweezers,” he says, then nudges the delicate tips against the angry red flesh where the splinter went in.
“Oww-oww-oww!” she says.
“Mmmnn, sorry.”
It’s too deep. The skin is too inflamed. The Minotaur knows what to do. His sewing kit is within reach. He slips a needle from its paper sleeve, needs something to sterilize it. The Minotaur remembers an Old Scald Village butane lighter in the medicine chest.
“Back in a m-minute,” he says, and true to his word returns to the squeaky chair quickly, thumbing at the lighter’s flint wheel. He waves the needle in and out of the sputtering flame, then waits a few seconds for it to cool.
“You know,” Holly says in the wait, “I’ve fucked up so much. With Tooky. And I want to get him there safe and sound.”
“Unngh,” the Minotaur says.
What he means is that every past is littered and scarred. What he means is that the present moment is the only moment that pulses, that breathes. What he means is that he himself is capable of great tenderness but has also done great harm. The Minotaur knows that sometimes mercy requires expedience. Haste. Sometimes it can’t be about how much a thing hurts.
The Minotaur lays his palm on Holly’s bare ass cheek, fingers splayed on either side of the splinter, and with his other deft hand drives the needle home. Holly squirms. The Minotaur puts his forearm down on her thigh. Lickety-split, he ferrets out the splinter’s gnarly end with the needle and, forgoing the tweezers, pinches the splinter between his thumbnails and plucks it out.
“It’s a fucking two-by-four,” Holly says, looking at the splinter lying in the Minotaur’s open hand. “Thanks,” she says. “You’re a lifesaver.”
He wants to thank her. He wants to keep that splinter. Wants, really, to push it deep into his own flesh. Anywhere. To make it his. Forever. Silly boy. Holly reaches back to touch the spot.
“Wait,” the Minotaur says. There may be more splinters. He wants to look. To help. Doesn’t. “Band-Aid,” he says.
Holly takes his advice. She waits, and something in the waiting inspires her.
“Hey,” she says, “I just had a great idea.”
“Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says.
He daubs a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol onto the small wound. The redhead winces against the sting. The Minotaur blows gently. A rustle of wings. Sometimes Room #3 is so full that it could not hold even one more breath. Sometimes Room #3 is so empty that whole centuries get lost inside it.
“What is the name of that festival?” she asks.
“Unngh?”
“The pirate dude, at the junkyard,” Holly says. “The guy who was drooling over you. He told us about a festival this coming weekend. That’s where we’ll go.”
The Minotaur puts the needle back, puts the tweezers back, puts the other things back.
“What is it called?” Holly asks. “Fag Day? Ag-Day? No, Ag-Fest. That’s it.”
Everything in its place.
“We’ll solve the mystery,” she says. “We’ll see us a real live sea shanty.”
Everything.
“Come with us!” Holly says. “You! Come with us!”
The Minotaur’s final gesture is to tug the panties back into place. He untucks the rolled fabric, and the flock of printed birds settles over her cheek. A cardinal, an oriole, a jay. Holly gets quiet. Holly is blushing.
“I have to get back,” she says. “To Tookus. I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll go in the morning.”
<
br /> And that’s it. She’s up, zipped, and out the door. The Minotaur watches her go.
The Minotaur goes to the tub and in the dim light washes his filthy solder’s uniform by hand. Rinses, washes, rinses again until there is no more mud, no more blood. The Minotaur wrings out the pants, the coat. Drapes them over the shower rod. Goes to bed. All night long the water drips into the tub. All night long, against the porcelain. The Minotaur dreams of anvils ringing. All night long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“HORNY HORN HORN!” Tookus says, then tugs on the yellow shoestring he’s lassoed the Minotaur’s horn with.
The Minotaur feels the tug. He’s glad the boy came out of the maze. Alive. The boy sits behind him, in the Odyssey’s middle seat. Holly drives. The Minotaur rides shotgun. So much movement of late. The Minotaur is discombobulated but doing fine. Rejuvenated, even. He’s staved off the labyrinth one more time.
Tookus removes the loop of string, twirls it, and tosses again. Catches the Minotaur again.
“Horny horn horn!”
In the night the Minotaur heard Danny Tanneyhill return, heard the chainsaw huffing and puffing, hard at work, heard the thumping and cursing of the woodcarver as he loaded something in his truck, heard the truck drive away. No matter.
In the morning the Minotaur found on his doorstep a Tupperware container full of gulab jamun, so sticky and dripping they held the early sun captive. A gift from Ramneek. An offering. A note as well: “Our Becky will be coming home in a few days. We will have you over as dinner guest, Mr. M. You will like her.” The Minotaur knows better. But the Minotaur is moved by the undying hope.
In the morning, in the van, Tookus unlaced his sneakers and began the game. The Minotaur is patient. The boy means no harm. The Minotaur knows well the lure of a yellow thread. Knows the impossibility of not following it.
The Minotaur thinks about the previous day, the previous night, the hours just past. Change is afoot. Always afoot. Even the Minotaur has to dance sometimes. Rope-a-dope. The tub of gulab jamun sits open on the van’s center console. Everybody’s fingers are sticky. Holly checks on her brother in the rearview mirror. Then checks again. And again. The boy is in constant motion. His arms and hands will not cease. His eyes will not settle. The boy is handsome. Or near enough. His deep scar blazes. Tookus chews on something. It’s the tail of the stuffed mermaid.
“Tooky,” she says, “cut it out.”
He doesn’t. “Nnnnothing! I see nothing!” Tookus says.
“We’re almost there, Took,” Holly says.
He lassos the Minotaur again.
“Tooky,” Holly says, “cut it out.”
He doesn’t.
“Mmmnn, it’s okay,” the Minotaur says.
Tookus pulls the string taut and traces its length with his fingertip. Back and forth. Back and forth. The Minotaur follows, each back-and-forth a different path, a different life. What if the condom machine hadn’t fallen off the wall onto the boy’s head? What if the blow had been just an inch to one side or the other? What if Daedalus’s plank heifer had collapsed under the burden of desire? What then?
“Titty dick pussy hole,” Tookus says when the Odyssey slows at Adult World and turns into the parking lot of a defunct Kmart. The lot is bustling, the vacated department store repurposed. A banner sags, tied loosely to the K and the t over the doors. It advertises the Joy Ag-Fest.
“What a weird place for a farmy thing,” Holly says.
It’s true. Joy proper is visible in the distance: its church spires, the courthouse clock tower with its canting weathervane pointing relentlessly groundward. The Joy Ag-Fest, however, is on the fringe, on the periphery, at the edge of Joy. This fact clearly hasn’t deterred festival goers. The strip mall pushes up against a line of wooded hills; the hemlocks and maples seem to be rallying for a takeover. What was the Kmart (and is now, for the moment, the main location of the Ag-Fest) sits in the middle of the long building. Anchor. Crux.
“Move!” Holly says to the couple strolling in front of the Odyssey. But she says it quietly.
Anybody looking down from above—anybody, say, about to hurl themselves from the Joy courthouse clock tower or, say, anybody lashed to the whipping blades of the windmills lining the far ridge—anybody can see that the Ag-Fest is laid out like a cross. Adult World is at the foot of the cross. Adult World, there beyond the pale of its slapdash fencing—desire’s cleave, the purdah, the mechitza, the Zion curtain—Adult World is the footrest, a sub rosa suppedaneum. And on up the cross, the stipes, the nave, a narrow path lined with vendors all the way to the transepts, the patibulum (it depends on perspective, hollow or solid), lined with still more vendors. The strip mall itself—Kmart in the middle, a Goodwill store at one end, Uncle Bubbles Pet & Hunting Supplies at the other—makes up the apse, the altar. Anybody observing from on high could see this, but down in the throng form is not so clear.
“Move!” Holly says again, and taps at the minivan’s horn. She just wants to park the Odyssey.
The couple, middle aged, more or less, lollygags. They wear matching sweatshirts the color of corn. Matching sweatpants, potato brown, work hard to contain their (matching) amorphous bodies. One of them carries a greasy paper plate, balances there a mountain of gravy-soaked French fries. The other carries—clutched under an arm, and awfully stiff—a child. Boy or girl? Hard to say, but stiff as a board for sure. The Minotaur wonders if the child is okay.
“I hate those things,” Holly says.
“Mmmnn?”
Before Holly can answer the couple veers right, stops by a bean-shaped sedan, and props the child against the bumper, his face hidden in folded arms.
“Mmmnn?” the Minotaur says again.
“Booger booger boooooooger,” Tookus says, and wipes his fingers on the Minotaur’s shoulder.
“Those stupid things,” Holly says, pointing at the leaning child. “I mean, what’s the point?”
Then the kid topples, stiff legged, lies still beneath the car. The couple seems unconcerned. Then the Minotaur realizes that it’s not real, the child. It’s a floppy hat, a little sweatshirt sewn to a little pair of jeans, sewn to a little pair of sneakers, and all stuffed just enough to look childlike.
“I mean, really,” Holly says. “What’s the fucking point?”
Holly parks the Odyssey.
“Are you ready to have some fun, Took?” she asks, all the while loading her shoulder bag with rolled coins.
“You stay close, Took,” she says, all the while weaving the yellow shoelace back into the boy’s shoe.
“I’m glad you came,” she says, looking briefly at the Minotaur.
That’s the point, he thinks.
The crowd, the ever-present potential for herd mentality, nibbles at his peace of mind, but Holly wears jeans, tight jeans, and a white shirt with lots of buttons. The Minotaur tries not to stare. It’s a look that he likes. His train of thought is derailed by a splinter.
“Which way?” Holly asks.
From somewhere deep in the festival’s belly comes a wailing. Ecstatic or woeful, animal or other. Hard to tell. Everything smells like cotton candy and things deep fried. The Minotaur is at home in these scents.
“Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says, tipping his horns toward the fray.
But before they can move the trio has to wait for the bean-shaped sedan to pass. “Look,” Holly says, pointing at the forgotten plate of French fries on the roof of the car, the tiny trickle of gravy creeping down the window.
It’s crowded, and the crowd seems hardly agrarian. It’s not so unlike the masses that flock to Old Scald Village to watch the battles. Few of them come to learn anything about the history of the events, the places. They come, it seems, to be entertained, expectant and entitled. And what passes for entertainment is terrifying.
“I think I hear a tuba,” Holly says, grinning. “Or a sousaphone. Let’s go find your boyfriend.”
The Minotaur, Tookus, and Holly merge into the funneling herd.
> Tookus yips or cackles (something happy) and rushes over to the very first vendor’s table, crowded with things made of feathers (painted, glittered, or not) and glued to other things.
“Wait up, Tooky,” Holly says, but she’s already fishing in her purse for money.
The Minotaur cranes his veiny neck, looking up the double row of tables as far as he can see. There must be thirty, forty vendors at least on this stretch alone—Ambrosial Emporium, The Nut Lady, Wee People, and Novelty Marshmallow Shooters among them. Tookus makes the noise again. The Minotaur will follow this addle-brained boy and his redheaded sister to every single table if necessary. That’s the point.
Led by Tookus, they stop next at Lovers-Not-Fighters Pitbull Rescue. The front edge of the table is lined with bulldog bobbleheads. A mug of free pencils nudges against a huge water dish ringed with baby-blue paw prints, the dish serving as the collection plate for donations. There’s a wire crate under the table where half a dozen pups sleep, belly up. The rescue organization volunteer sits in a folding chair. She wears a pink smock. She looks tired. Behind her a poster stands on an easel. The pictures are horrific. She’s flanked by two battle-scarred dogs on leashes. They look even more tired. Tookus bumps the table, and the bobbleheads go wild. The leashed dogs pay no attention. One pants and scratches himself. Snorts, bends to lick at his outsized balls. The Minotaur notices the missing eye, the stitched line that begins on the dog’s forehead and ends somewhere under its jaw.
“Unngh,” the Minotaur says.
Holly has already pulled a roll of dimes from her bag. She gives it to Tookus and points at the water dish. He points at the bobbleheads.
“Damn,” Holly says.
It’s the bobbleheads. They’ve all synchronized, tongues lolling, eyes wide, each and every one nodding at the same time ever so slightly to the left, as if looking at the Minotaur. He shrugs his big shoulders, like it happens all the time. He’s about to say something when Tookus bolts across the crowded midway. He doesn’t go far; the pull of Novelty Marshmallow Shooters is too great.
“Tookus,” Holly says.
The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time Page 20
