by Joel Arnold
“I’ll take these to our room,” he said.
Catherine slowly stood, her joints popping. “I’ll slice up some pie.”
Rudy placed the suitcases in the guest bedroom, then walked as quietly as he could up the stairs and over the creaky wooden floor to the room he’d occupied as a child. There was a single bed in the corner covered with a blue quilt Catherine made for him when he was five. The top of his old dresser served as a runway for numerous model airplanes. Maps of different countries hung on the walls, and an open closet door revealed a heap of dirty old sneakers, above which hung the stiff wool suit he wore at age eleven to his father’s funeral. Rudy remembered the way the collar had scratched unbearably at his neck.
Above the suit was a plain wooden shelf. He reached up and felt to the back of it. At first he thought perhaps his mother had moved it, feeling only clumps of dust and distressed wood, but then his fingers felt the small wooden box he was after. He pulled it out and blew dust off the top, revealing his name he’d carved long ago with a Swiss Army knife.
He lifted the lid; reached in and pulled out what looked like a thin delicate rope. He handled it gingerly, making sure not to break it, then gently placed it back in the box before closing the lid.
“What’s that?”
Rudy swirled around, his mouth gone dry. Elaine stood in the doorway, watching him.
“It’s nothing. Just something I made when I was a kid.”
“Can I see it?”
Rudy held the box out to Elaine but kept his fingers tight on the lid.
“I’m impressed.”
Rudy pulled it gently away from her. “We better go have some of Mom’s apple pie if we don’t want to upset her.”
“I wouldn’t want to upset her.”
Rudy didn’t catch the sarcasm in Elaine’s voice as his heart pounded in his ears. He set the box down carefully on the dresser among the bombers and fighter jets and let Elaine lead the way downstairs.
Shortly after they finished their pie, Catherine excused herself for bed and slowly climbed the stairs, the steps barely whispering with her slight weight. It was only nine o’clock. Elaine turned to Rudy and asked in a whisper, “How long has she been like this?”
“Like what?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. She looks so much older.”
“She does?”
“Oh, come on. Surely you see a difference since the last time we saw her.”
“Well, she is getting up there in age.”
“But it’s been less than a year.” Elaine shook her head. “Remember at our wedding reception how she danced until midnight? Now she looks like she needs a walker just to get around.”
Rudy almost lied, almost said, ‘It’s her arthritis acting up.’ But as the truth drew near, was in fact only hours away, he figured lying was a waste of breath. So instead, he just shrugged.
Elaine stared at the remains of her apple pie, the dried crust, the bits of filling coating the edges like baby spit. She pushed it away from her.
“Oh,” she said, putting her hand to her belly. “What a strong little kicker.”
Rudy slid his hand beneath her blouse, feeling the curve of her smooth, taut skin, the protrusion of her belly button. He had to tell her. He had to. He opened his mouth to speak, but found that he couldn’t. The words evaporated from his lips like water spilled on hot asphalt.
Elaine yawned. “I’m tired,” she said. “I guess I’m getting old, too.”
After Elaine fell asleep on the queen-sized bed in the guest room, her snores delicate and benign, Rudy crept to his childhood room. He picked the wooden box up and carried it to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He turned on the tap water, adjusted the temperature until it felt lukewarm, and let the sink fill. Last year, only a month before they had married, he’d come alone to visit his mother. Although Elaine had wanted to celebrate his birthday with him, she’d been too busy preparing for the wedding. And this year, when he’d said he had to go, Elaine had asked if perhaps they couldn’t wait until after the baby was born.
“Besides, we just saw your mother at Christmas.”
“I know, but it’s important,” was the only excuse Rudy had come up with.
Elaine had finally agreed to go.
And now Rudy opened the box’s lid, his fingers responding to the familiarity of his name carved carefully into the top. He lifted the dried cord from it and placed it carefully in the water. It reacted to its new environment, expanding and uncoiling in the water’s warm comfort. He took a small penknife from his pant’s pocket and jabbed his middle finger. Small droplets of blood welled from the wound and he let them fall into the warm tap water. A few drops were all it needed.
The thing in the sink squirmed and writhed. He took off his shirt. Took a deep breath. Looked at himself in the mirror. Funny, the little surprises life tosses you, he thought.
He picked the thing up from the sink and carried it to his mother’s room. He felt it warm and fleshy in his hands, felt it pulsing urgently against his fingertips. His belly tingled.
He pushed open the door. Catherine sat up in bed, waiting for him. She wore a blue terry-cloth robe. Green towels were spread out beneath her on the mattress and thin white sheets were pulled up to her waist. Fat pillows supported her frail back.
“Where’s Elaine?” she asked.
“She’s sleeping.”
“But Rudy, she has to see. She has to know.”
“I can’t.”
“My God, Rudy, you have to. For the sake of your baby.”
“How do we know this one won’t be different?”
“Has it ever been?” Catherine smiled tenderly. “This is the way it’s always been. It’s the way our lineage works. You know that.”
Rudy stood mutely in the doorway, the snake-like coil squirming in his hands for attention.
“Go get her,” Catherine said. “Bring her up here. We’ll make it as easy for her as we possibly can.”
Rudy refilled the bathroom sink and set the fleshy cord in the fresh warm water where it slowly writhed and coiled in upon itself. Rudy stared at it a moment. When he reached down and stroked it, it responded eagerly to his touch. His belly button itched. He scratched at it lightly with his other hand. It was time to wake Elaine. Things would be different for her from now on.
Downstairs in the guest room, he gently shook her awake.
“What is it?”
Rudy tried to keep his voice from quaking. “Get up, dear.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. There’s something I have to show you.”
Elaine’s voice was groggy, and her eyes squinted at Rudy in the dim light. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
“No,” Rudy said, tugging at her arm, the itch in his belly growing. “You have to get up now.”
He led her upstairs to Catherine’s room, where a blue nightlight illuminated the walls with a soft, gentle glow.
Catherine smiled weakly. “Elaine. I think you better sit down.”
Elaine shook her head. “What’s going on?”
“Please. Sit.”
Elaine backed up to a small love seat perched in the corner and slowly sat down.
Rudy touched her shoulder. “Trust us — this is going to seem weird, but you’ll appreciate it in time. You’ll come to realize how special and amazing it is.”
Elaine reached out for his hand. Now her voice shook. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s best to show you,” Catherine said. “Don’t be afraid, dear.”
Rudy tugged his hand out from Elaine’s grip and went back to the bathroom, where he lifted the dripping cord from the sink. The itch in his belly instantly grew, a burning sensation spreading slowly out from his navel as he walked quickly back to his mother’s room.
When Catherine saw the thing he held, she smiled and held her hand out for it. “I know it’s not going to be easy for you to watch,” she said to Elaine. “But it�
��s the most beautiful thing. It’s pure love.”
The burning in his belly was intense. Rudy grabbed his pocketknife from the top of the dresser and, without any inhibition, jabbed it into his navel. Before too much blood spilled, he placed one end of the cord against the wound. It attached itself eagerly with a squishy, suction sound.
As he handed the other end to his mother, he grew light-headed.
Elaine screamed.
But it was too late to allay her fears, too late to hold her hand and convince her of the beauty she was about to witness.
Catherine spread her knees slightly apart and let go of her end of the cord. It burrowed between her legs. Her eyes fluttered.
Rudy crawled into the bed with her. Felt the old familiar feeling of the umbilical cord tug at his belly. He relaxed. It was best not to resist.
It didn’t hurt as much that way.
He no longer heard Elaine’s screams as he re-entered his mother’s waiting womb.
It was amazing the peace inside. Amazing the warmth and love he felt despite the contortions his body made, despite the incredible stretching Catherine’s body endured to accommodate him in her belly. But like every year on the anniversary of his birth, he was able to curl into a fetal position. He felt himself flowing back into his mother through the ancient umbilical cord, nourishing her, giving her back the much-needed vitality she had lost since the last time he was inside of her. Part of him knew Elaine was having a hard time of this out in the cold, harsh world, but this was a reality she had to accept if she wanted to live much longer after she gave birth to their new child.
He listened to his mother’s voice warbling through the red fluids and layers of tissue.
“Come here and hold my hand,” she said. “Please, Elaine. Don’t be afraid.” Her voice was a soothing coo. “Touch.”
And Rudy felt Elaine’s touch on the side of his face through the layers of his mother’s flesh.
“He recognizes you,” his mother said.
“Rudy?” It was Elaine’s voice.
“Yes, dear,” Catherine said. “Isn’t it wonderful? He keeps me young.”
And then Elaine’s hand no longer caressed him. He felt the vibrations in the floorboards as she took a step back. Barely heard her now, as she said, “My God.”
Rudy stuck his thumb in his mouth. Rocked himself slightly back and forth in total bliss for the next twenty minutes until he felt a familiar set of rumblings.
Rebirth.
Both his shoulders dislocated as he emerged to the sounds of both Catherine and Elaine screaming, Catherine in pain, Elaine in terror. He felt a warm slosh of blood all around him as he grabbed at air, feeling as if he tore his mother in two. But this was the way it always was. The way it always would be.
He emerged covered in blood, gasping for air. As he popped his shoulders back in place and wiped the fluid from his eyes, he saw Elaine sitting on the floor, her eyes wide, breathing quick and pained. He spat blood from his mouth. Looked at Catherine. Her eyes were closed to slits, but she still breathed, and as he watched her, a smile enlivened her features. She already looked years younger. She nodded.
Rudy found the scissors somewhere among the blood soaked towels and cut the umbilical cord from his belly, then reached between Catherine’s legs and cut it from her, also. He wadded up a clean towel and placed it at the entry to her womb to stop the still flowing blood.
He turned once again to Elaine.
He expected her to be in shock, expected her to accept this after much contemplation and solitude. But he didn’t expect her to stand up. Didn’t expect the word ‘Monster’ to issue from her lips in a banal scream, and certainly didn’t expect her to grab the scissors from the edge of the bed and plunge them into Catherine’s belly, slicing upwards to the sternum as the fickle vitality quickly left Catherine’s eyes.
All Rudy could do was run screaming and naked and covered with blood out into the cold night air, the blood steaming as it froze into a brittle shell around his body. And when the police finally found him, he told them it was his fault. He’d been the one to carve up his mother. He’d been the one to plunge the scissors into her and open her up like a bag of writhing snakes.
He didn’t want his new son to be without a mother. He didn’t want his new son to miss the total love and closeness he’d experienced.
“So that is why,” Rudy hissed one year later, his belly itching like a son of a bitch as he lay on his back, constrained to the asylum bed.
“That is why,” he grunted between tightly clenched teeth, the doctor with no nametag staring at him, no more sunflower seeds in his hand to chew up and swallow.
“That is why,” he gasped as his navel opened up and gushed forth the nutrients meant for a mother he no longer had.
The sheets covering him turned a dark, sticky crimson with his love.
Shift
1st Gear
He clawed at his neck, unable to get his tie off fast enough, threw it on the passenger seat and struggled with the top two buttons of his shirt. He turned the key, cranked up the air conditioner and pressed on the gas. The rusting brown Corolla responded like a lion prodded out of sleep with a spear.
Come on, Steve-o. Keep it together. Keep it together.
The sky was overcast, dirty gray clouds pregnant with the threat of snow. The passing traffic wouldn’t let up, wouldn’t give him an inch to squeeze into. His breath escaped in quick white bursts. He rolled open the window; let the freezing air spill in. He turned the air conditioner up another notch and sat facing the stream of traffic. No one would let him in. He honked the horn. Pounded the steering wheel. Screamed. Finally there was a break. A small break, but it was enough.
He stepped on the gas, threw the Corolla into first gear, and squealed out into the line of cars. They inched along, all segments of the same worm. His hands squeezed the steering wheel until his fingers turned white.
Keep it together.
He loved his wife. His son. There was nothing more he wanted than for his family to be together again. He knew that now. He knew it.
He felt like a volcano trapped in a piece of Tupperware.
2nd Gear
The videotape had appeared on Steve’s desk sometime between 4:30 and 4:45 PM. That was all the time it took for him to enter the bathroom, sit on the john, look over a stock portfolio and wash his hands. When he came back to his office, there was the video tape, no box, no labels, resting on top of his desk.
He looked at it a moment and smiled. Locked the office door. Turned on the television and stuck the tape in the VCR. He knew what it would be. A nice little peep show from Linda. He’d been thinking about her all day. He walked over to the window shades and pulled them tight. What would it look like to his wife, to his business colleagues for Christ sake, if someone were to snap a picture of him jacking off to a video of Linda Janson doing an erotic strip tease meant only for him?
He sat back in his leather chair. Loosened his tie. Unbuckled his pants. It was good to be the boss. He lifted the remote and pressed play. There was static, and then a fuzzy image.
His affair with Linda Janson started less than a year ago. God, was she wild. The way she’d come to his office on a whim and attack him in his chair, at times not even bothering to lock the door. She’d parade around his desk and coyly lift her skirt displaying the absence of undergarments, then yank his chair out from under his desk and straddle him. Sometimes she’d grind and jerk so hard the chair would jump back on its wheels six inches at a time until it thudded against the large windows overlooking the city streets below. And she’d keep bouncing on him, the chair’s leather knocking firmly against the office window. Steve often imagined a crack forming at the top of the window slowly splintering its way down until it touched the floor. Then more cracks appearing as she continued to bang him into the window, and the sound of the glass giving way and the rush of air pouring in and the feel of nothingness below as they fell twenty-five stories locked together, still humping like ma
d until they came at the moment of impact.
That was what he liked most about Linda. The danger she brought when she entered the room. The fantasies of youth finally coming true in this tornado of black hair and smooth, taut skin. It was something he couldn’t get anywhere else. Something he couldn’t get at home.
And she’d do things like this. Videotape herself and leave the tape for him at odd places, dangerous places, where a colleague might see the video cassette laying there and ask him what it was.
Passion. Danger. Something he couldn’t get with an eight year old child at home, with a wife who invited women over for gin rummy on Saturday nights.
He watched the static disappear into darkness as the tape played. He heard the breathing of the person operating the camera. A flashlight was turned on, spotlighting a woman sitting in the corner of a dark room, the dull brick walls spotted with black mold. She was tied to a simple wooden chair, the rope tight around her torso, her arms pinned to her sides. A cloth gag circled her head, pulling her lips back to reveal her teeth.
Steve sat up. That wasn’t Linda.
It wasn’t Linda’s hair for one thing. Linda’s hair was wild and black, the kind that a strong wind made sexier with each haphazard pass. But this woman’s hair was short and brown. Her head was turned away, but that profile…
Her head lolled drearily on her shoulders in slow-motion until she faced the camera. There was blood on her cheek.
Steve couldn’t breath. The room started a slow nauseating spin. He stood up shakily and walked around the desk not feeling his feet touch the floor, his limbs numb, his eyes unable to focus on anything at all except her face. He reached up and touched the screen as the camera zoomed in.
“My God,” Steve said, the words like thumbtacks in his throat. “Elaine.”
Funny how the simple press of a button could change one’s frame of mind in such a quick, violent way. From the anticipation of the illicit and erotic, to a reality of pure horror.
