The other boys stirred. The hyena sat up slowly and grabbed his head. The giraffe boy was next. The fat lard snored in front of the television.
"We wanted you to play with us," Steve said. He stood up, his frame no longer soft and supple, but riddled with tension. He took a step toward me as I took a step back. The door was still open, but in my slippers I knew I couldn't run very far before he'd catch me.
The hyena stopped rubbing his head and stood up. He was larger than I thought originally. The two of them stood side by side, one the man I'd foolishly given my heart to, the other a sick bastard without morals.
"I . . . I was out," I said. The words caught up in my throat and I could hear the fear in them. "I needed fresh air."
Steve took another step forward, followed by the hyena. The giraffe boy stood as well, although I couldn't see any hate in his face. He looked more like he was about to throw up on my carpet.
"I don't remember telling you that you could leave," Steve said. It was strange to hear him talk this way, but as I sit here now and write it all down, I can see he was no better than Alfie, no better than Mr. Pulman, no better than the lowest piece of shit in the lowest level of Hell. He was manipulative, angry, vile, mean and abusive. I don't know why I loved him so much.
The slam of the door behind me was the first time I noticed the fat boy had moved. He pushed me from behind toward the approach of Steve and the hyena. It was the hyena who caught my fall in an odd embrace, and I felt his hands shift from my back to my breasts. He squeezed tightly.
Steve turned away and returned to the couch. "Have your fun," he said. "She deserves it."
As I was pushed to the floor, Grandma's nightgown torn from my body in a painful rip, I heard Steve laugh and I imagined his tongue in my clenched fist.
5
Steve had the nerve to beat me up later that night and accuse me of sleeping with his friends. He threatened me with each slap to my face or each kick to my ribs as I bled on the living room carpet. The other boys had left in a rush and I was alone with Steve.
I don't remember any of the words he said to me that night. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there are moments in my life that stick to my memory. There are snippets of life that get pasted in a scrapbook for you to look over every once in a while. You relive an event, a smell or a sight. You catalog these things in your head. But no matter how hard you try, you will never remember everything. There will be gaps, there will be distortions, there will be things that interfere with your vision of what was until that vision becomes so clouded you don't know if it really happened. I long ago accepted that I wouldn't remember everything. If I tried, my vision would cloud as my mind tried to fill in the pieces. So what I relate to you, what I tell you, is what I decided to keep.
It was while I was on the floor, battered and torn and naked that I saw my castle for the first time. Steve had retired to the couch to drink a bottle of whiskey and smoke a joint. He watched me and played with himself like he was witness to an erotic snuff film. I'm pretty sure he was turned on by the blood that covered my face, by the now rotten semen that stuck to my hair and my breasts, by the blue bruises across my abdomen where each of his friends had kicked me when they were finished.
The castle appeared in my clouded vision like one of those holographic images of science fiction. It floated above the coffee table, small and incomplete. There was a turret, as yet unfinished, sticking up in the middle. A single flag of deep red fluttered in an ethereal wind. Around the castle, a moat had been constructed. No draw bridge fell from the castle wall, however. There was no way to get across. That's how the castles in the sky are; they are built for little girls by girls and they are not meant to be invaded by anyone else. The more you do what God says, the cleaner you keep your life, the stronger the barricades, the bigger the bricks, the more secure the foundation.
By seeing the castle, I was vindicated. I knew God had not abandoned me. I knew Grandma and Mama were waiting for me to finish it, and I knew which bricks had yet to be laid. I saw them on the ground next to the moat.
It was time to transform myself. I would not be weak like Mama. I would not be as strong as Grandma.
But I would build my castle.
My vision faded in pricks and flashes of light that danced in front of my bloodied eyes. The castle disappeared and left only a faded image of Steve still on the couch, his hand in his pants. His head was back, his mouth slightly open. A deep, guttural snore escaped with each breath.
I won't say it didn't hurt to move, because it did. I cringed and held my stomach as I sat up. I wiped blood from my face and pushed my hair back. It took a good minute and the help of the coffee table to stand. It took another minute to regain any balance and fight back the nausea that threatened to ruin me.
I slowly walked to the kitchen, navigated around the bottles that lay strewn about and found the counter. With effort, I picked up an iron skillet that was still in the drying rack next to the sink. It was heavy in my hands, and I didn't know if the pain I felt in my wrist was from my weakness or from a broken bone. I really didn't care, though. It was the pain that gave me the energy I needed.
I turned back to the living room with the skillet at my side. Steve's snoring had grown louder.
"God give me strength," I whispered as I took the final step to stand next to Steve.
I lifted the skillet, my arms protesting with each inch. I had one shot at knocking him out, one shot at getting it right. I mustered all the love of Grandma, all the hate of Mama, all the emotion I carried with me for my twenty years. I bundled it up, wrapped it tight into my left arm and willed it to explode in one frantic, vengeful burst.
The skillet arced down from above my head and cracked into Steve's face between his nose and his right ear. I heard bone crunch as it gave way. Blood spurted from an eye socket as the cheek collapsed.
Steve sank into the couch without a sound.
STEVE'S TONGUE
1
By the time I had dragged Steve's limp body to the kitchen floor, bound his hands above his head with twine and secured him to the linoleum with a whole roll of duct tape, I was tired. I leaned back against a table leg and watched his chest rise and fall. He was still quite alive.
I suppose at that point, my anger had waned. I still felt the fire inside me, Mama's flame she wasn't strong enough to feed. But I was so tired. I looked out the window toward the distance and saw the billow of clouds. It would be a few hours, I thought. Just enough time.
I took a shower, cleaned myself up as well as could be expected, bandaged a few cuts on my face and chest, and when I was satisfied with my appearance, I slept.
I dreamed of the carousel of singing men.
The man I had assumed was my father back when I was twelve stood next to me as I stared at the Bus. All the other men—there was Michael, there was the first body I'd discovered, there was a sick visage that looked like it might have been Alfie—walked around and around the Bus, singing tunes to themselves like the self-conscious might do in a shower. They bobbed up and down, each to their own rhythm and each oblivious to one another.
The first time I'd watched the carousel of singing men, they held hands. This time, however, they were forlorn as if chastised for some wrong doing but trying to keep their spirits high. I noted with some striking sadness that should have been present before but wasn't that Dusty wasn't there. Why wasn't I sad to see Michael? Why wasn't I afraid at the image of Alfie? Why did I not care they were here?
The man I assumed was my father leaned close to me. "You have to put them in the Bus," he said. His voice was low, almost secretive. It was also filled with something I can only describe as comforting and acknowledging.
"Why?" I asked, even though I knew why. I could see the boil of thunderstorms in the distance. I may have just wanted to hear my father say it.
"You have to clean up the mess," he said. "You can't do it yourself. That's what God's broom is for—you."
My father st
ood straight and walked into the carousel of singing men. He looked back at me one time, smiled then joined the others in their dirge of defeat.
I thought at that moment I would wake up, startled and ready for action. As I stood off to the side, however, I realized that wasn't to be. The storms continued their roil in the distance; the men continued their circle of the Bus. I needed to return to the Bus myself, to see inside. I don't know why I felt that need—after all, the Bus was an empty tomb, and there are no secrets inside empty tombs. Are there?
The inside of the Bus was warm and humid with a bitter, acrid smell that cut into my nostrils. I climbed up on the passenger seat and noted the safety glass that littered the driver's seat and the torn vinyl which dangled from the ceiling. It was the same as the first time I ventured in, eleven years ago. Back then, I was looking for adventure. This time, however, I didn't know what I was looking for.
In the back of the Bus, laid out on the rusted floorboard, was a woman. I jumped back in the passenger seat and stared, wide-eyed with fear and amazement.
A woman?
Castles in the sky are built for girls and there are some things men aren't allowed to see. They are, after all, planters of seed, workers in the soil. They are not meant to be anything more. Even Michael, as much as I loved him, was a planter, and had he lived, he would have been a worker in the soil. Men didn't deserve to see the castles in the sky, and if they did, they were to be relegated to the fields below the ramparts, outside the gates, away from the treasures hidden inside.
In the world of the living, the Bus was their tomb. It was a dinner table for the eels, a dust pan for God's broom. It collected them and, at the right moment, it spread wide its maw and let holiness in to dissolve their bodies.
The Bus was not, I thought, a place for a woman.
The body of the woman didn't move. She wore little, save a shredded robe loosely tied around her waist. Her hair was as amber as mine, but apart from that, her battered face was indiscernible. Had a man put her here? Was she laid out at the table of the eels to be consumed with as much ferocity as any of the men who came to this fate?
I don't know why, but I wanted to see more. I climbed around the passenger seat and settled myself beside the woman, cradling her head in my arms. She didn't look much older or younger than me. Her features were almost as recognizable as the naked body I saw in the mirror. Her eyes, closed shut with bulbous bruises, had been shadowed in the same red-orange hue I used for my eyes.
I suddenly understood. I dropped the woman's head—my head—on the floor of the Bus and I turned away.
2
I woke with a sense of serenity, as if some ailment that afflicted me had been cured. I smiled as I stared up at the ceiling, so peaceful and so alive. The woman in the Bus—the part of my life that had succumbed to far too many men—was dead. I was free to learn, to live, to laugh out loud at all of the tribulations that had brought so many other women to slit their wrists or swallow their pills or hang themselves with the sheets they bought for their wedding nights.
I stood up next to my bed and removed any shred of clothes I had on. I heard Steve murmuring in the kitchen, still taped to the floor. I felt his fear waft through the trailer and fill any leftover empty crevasses in my body.
It was time to cut loose the rest of my bonds.
The anatomy book was on the coffee table, and I picked it up as I walked into the kitchen. I grabbed scissors and a pair of pliers from a drawer, a knife from the block on the counter and a towel. Frowning at the size of the towel, I dropped everything next to Steve's head, walked to the bathroom and pulled out five more. I figured I would need them, and after cleaning up the mess of Steve, I didn't want to spend any more time cleaning up the trailer.
I felt . . . different. I wasn't angry or sad or hateful. I wasn't happy or content or even joyous at the prospect of vengeance and freedom. I just felt different, like an electric spark arced through my stomach—no pain, just presence. I think, in a way, I may have been possessed, led by God's hand as I knelt over Steve's body and watched him struggle through the tape and twine. His eyes followed me as I straddled him like a horse—or rather like the ass he'd become.
I ripped the tape off his mouth in one quick jerk. He licked his lips with that hideously forked tongue and spat at me.
"Bitch," he mumbled. There was pain in his voice, pain from the wound I'd inflicted with the skillet, pain from somewhere deeper. "I'm going to kill you."
I didn't say anything. I picked up the pliers and dug into his mouth. I was so tired of his words. They were laced with hate, dripped with acid. They needed to stop. With a deft move, I was finally able to grab his tongue with the tool and pull it up as far as I could without ripping it.
Steve's muffled scream was pathetic. I imagined what Dusty's scream would have sounded like as the bastard cut him up. Did it sound like Steve's, like a whimper, the cry of a dog, the pathetic bleating of a sheep whose life was about to be snuffed out with a spike and a hammer?
The tongue in the teeth of the pliers, I reached for the scissors then stopped. It couldn't be this easy. Instead of the scissors, I flipped open the anatomy book until I found the diagram of the tongue, the hideous nasty tongue that acted kind then split in two to strike you down when you were your most vulnerable. There it was: the frenulum linguae, the flap underneath. I needed to cut that first, slice it back close to the root.
I picked up the scissors again and lifted his tongue. He cried more, and I tried to block it out. With a single snip, though, the cry turned into a strange scream. Blood pooled at the back of Steve's throat and he had to stop and swallow. Then he screamed more. He screamed and swallowed, screamed and swallowed.
I put the scissors down and picked up the knife. It had a serrated edge and I briefly wondered if that would matter. I reached into his mouth and made a quick cut from left to right to free up the rest of the tongue from the frenulum.
The serrated edge did matter. It left the cut ragged and uneven. I frowned at my lack of precision, the spray of blood Steve coughed up with each swallow and scream, each scream and swallow. Still, I had most of the tongue free. The damned thing wiggled in the grip of the pliers and I needed to hurry, afraid it would wiggle out.
It took six cuts with the scissors and a steady pull to dig Steve's tongue out of his mouth. I lifted it up and showed him as he screamed with a mouth full of blood. It was pooling fast, too fast almost for him to swallow. If he drowned in his own blood, I figured that would be okay, too.
I wouldn't have to hear him anymore.
Much like the dream when I was fourteen, I wondered what his tongue would feel like in the palm of my hand, rubbing against my naked self. Slowly I guided it—across my breasts, my stomach, my inner thighs and finally back and forth between my legs. I reached a climax at the same time Steve stopped struggling with the blood in his mouth. He whimpered in that sick dog-like way and swallowed more blood. His eyes were wide with wonder, with fear, with anger, with sadness, with pain. I smiled down at him, then leaned over and kissed his wet lips. The warmth of his blood flooded my mouth.
I slid next to Steve and rested my head on his chest. It rose and fell in a shallow way, occasionally stuttering with a quick whimper. I heard the blood he swallowed flow down his throat, heard his hiatus open and close, heard his stomach bubble and gurgle.
I hadn't felt so calm since Grandma died.
3
I don't know why I put Steve's tongue in a mason jar, or why I looked around the trailer for a place to keep it. Did I really want a trophy of my failure, or did I think it might be a trophy of my first success? Whatever the reason, within a few minutes of Steve's final whimper and the collapse of his chest into permanent stillness, I had put the tongue and the jar in the freezer, like Michael had done with the dust eel he found in the Bus so many years ago.
Using Steve's cell phone, I sent messages to the other boys—the giraffe, the hyena and the blob. I invited them to play poker one more time. With
a calm that comes before a storm, I placed the scissors, the pliers, the knife and the tape on the coffee table and arranged them like a surgeon's tray.
For the giraffe boy, I brought out a knitting needle and laid it alongside everything else.
The dust eels were coming again. I could see their outline in the storm in the distance. I felt them swim in the wind, gnash their teeth, their bodies slamming against each other as they rode the storm.
I had done as they asked and if they asked for more, I would obey. It took years, but I finally understood how those castles in the sky get built and what price you have to pay the construction team.
Steve was in the Bus, waiting for the others. Together, they would all wait for the eels to come. Only then could I place those bricks in my castle in the sky.
THE LAST BRICK
It was in the summer of the following year that men came to clear out the land beyond the trailer park. They came with fences, with cranes and with tractors. They came in droves, like ants with little yellow hats, marching to the tune of progress, oblivious to the life they were obliterating. Smoke billowed from the exhaust pipes of bulldozers. Giant iron claws scratched the desert floor. The sounds of hammers and drills and metal pounding on metal filled the air for months.
On a stormy day, a flatbed trailer with a warped plywood surface and rusted chains came. It hauled away the 1967 Volkswagen Bus, the sacrificial altar, the birthplace of the bricks in my castle, the tomb of Michael, of Steve and of his friends. It sputtered in its task and finally left with as much impersonal aplomb as it had when it arrived.
Now I sit and now I wait. I wait for the eels to return, for the voices in the wind to let me know what to do next. I sit on the chair Grandma sat on with her afghan wrapped around me. I sit with my back to the trailer, my eyes on the desert beyond. It doesn't matter to me that the Bus is gone or that the men of progress are changing my view of things. In fact, the men are building homes, places of other men, of other messes to be made.
Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors Page 14
