Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  “You couldn’t eat rice when you first came here. Do you remember that?”

  “No,” Dom said, through a full mouth.

  “Well, you could, but you’d regurgitate it quickly. You would rub the center of your chest, right here.” Denpa demonstrated.

  Dom shook his head.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d survive. You were already so skinny and then once you started vomiting up rice, I thought you had some fatal disease. You don’t remember any of this?”

  “No,” Dom said.

  “I thought my memory was bad. Perhaps I’m making it up.”

  “I’m sure you’re not,” Dom said. “I just don’t remember it.”

  “How is your occupation?”

  “Well,” Dom said. “I finished the house on the hill today.”

  “So quickly?”

  “Yes. It’s so much easier to do a new house than to try to fit pipes in a house where people already live. You have to make holes in everything, and there’s always somebody standing there telling you where you can’t put a hole. They never have thoughts about where you can put one.”

  “Perhaps you can ask that everyone start afresh with a new house?”

  “I simply don’t understand why people aren’t more interested in plumbing. Some of their friends have running water, or their neighbors. After seeing how much easier it is when you don’t have to haul everything in buckets, why wouldn’t you beg for that same convenience?”

  “You can’t ask the snow to melt. One day, it just begins to melt. Once it begins, it all eventually melts,” Denpa said.

  “Your poems don’t actually solve anything,” Dom said. “You understand that, right?”

  “I’m not trying to solve anything,” Denpa said.

  “You’re trying to force me to have patience that I neither want, nor need. I believe that a great man creates his own future. If I work hard enough, I can make all that snow melt.”

  “And if you do nothing, it will melt on its own,” Denpa said. “It’s not a solution. It’s just an observation.”

  “Then thank you for your rice and your observations,” Dom said. He handed the empty bowl back to Denpa, who nodded his bald head and retreated back to the house.

  Dom hated how mad Denpa could make him. He wished that he could remain forever calm and civil, like Denpa, but his anger always forced him to say something that he didn’t intend. He ran through the conversation in his head, trying to identify the trigger that had so quickly summoned his impatience.

  It wasn’t, Dom decided, the talk about the snow melting. The old man always had a metaphor or parable on hand to explain any situation. Dom appreciated straightforward wisdom. If Denpa had something to say, why couldn’t he just say it directly?

  But that wasn’t the thing which had irritated Dom. He hated when people made him remember his early years, when he’d just arrived at their little village. Recounting his story with Tara was bad enough, now Denpa felt the need to talk to him about how he’d had a hard time digesting rice? What did the old man hope to accomplish by bringing up this ancient digestive failure? Was Dom supposed to feel shame from those early years?

  Dom thought about moving on, going someplace fresh where nobody had any memories of him wandering the streets, a skinny near-dead waif who had to be rescued and fed rice until the burning lump in his esophagus made him vomit while rice stuck in his nostrils. But whenever anyone arrived in the village, they always came with a story. They had references and relatives and everyone knew something of their backstory. Who would vouch for him at the next village? And could he find a new place where his looks wouldn’t automatically mark him as a foreigner? Denpa didn’t seem to think so. When asked, Denpa said Dom was unique, and that everywhere he went, he would be Dom.

  That night he dreamed of Tara. He saw her floating upright over the lake, with only the hem of her long dress touching the surface of the water and wicking the moisture up into the fabric. He saw the moonlight racing through the curves of her black hair, looping and diving through it. She raised her arms to him, inviting him in. He moved towards her, his own feet somehow sliding across the slippery surface of lake as he reached forward to join her in an embrace. Just before their fingers touched, his feet lost the secret of levitation and he crashed down into the icy waters. He could still see her through the distorted lens of the turbulent surface, but she didn’t seem to see him. She still looked straight ahead. No matter how hard he kicked, he couldn’t reach the surface of the lake.

  In the morning, Dom waited for Denpa to come outside for firewood so he could make a request. That was the day that Dom murdered Denpa.

  ♣ ♢ ♡ ♠

  Malcolm: Stop. Stop talking.

  Dom: Why.

  Malcolm: I told you when we started: if you confess to murder, I won’t document it until you’ve turned yourself in. I won’t be a party to that.

  Dom: This incident happened thousands of years ago.

  Malcolm: First, you’ve been very cagey about names, and places, and dates, so there’s no need to exaggerate like that. And, second, there is no statute of limitations on murder. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed.

  Dom: But surely there’s no need to document this exchange?

  Malcolm: I think I’ve given you plenty of latitude so far. We didn’t go on the record about how you knew certain events that happened when you were unconscious or not present during your childhood.

  Dom: I told you...

  Malcolm: Stop! I don’t want to get into that right this second. But again, I have to draw the line at murder.

  Dom: You should let me continue. Perhaps murder is too strong a word.

  Malcolm: Did you have malice aforethought?

  Dom: Did I want him dead?

  Malcolm: Yes. Did you want him dead and premeditate how you would kill him?

  Dom: Somewhat... No, no! Let’s just say no, I didn’t.

  Malcolm: You’re not convincing me.

  Dom: Please just hear me out and then if you deem it necessary, we’ll take this to the authorities.

  Malcolm: I will, you know. If I feel I have to, I will.

  Dom: I know.

  21 FIRST NIGHT

  WHEN CONSTANTINE ARRIVED BACK at Sasha’s house, the two old horses stood at the corner of their paddock, and raised their heads to greet him. He wished he had something to give them. The two old gents had barely any grass in their lonely paddock. Even the low-hanging cedar branches had been stripped of anything green. Constantine walked past the horses and followed the path to the barn. Sasha was gone, and his father was probably still out on his horse. Constantine found his way back to the farrier’s room and the wealth of skins and hides there.

  The father’s words rang in his ears. “Five suits.” He imagined slicing off those fingers with his new flint knife and then shook the image out of his head. He would make one suit, one perfect suit, with the best parts of the glistening black hide. Only then would he think about what would come next. First, he had to puzzle out how to manipulate the snakeskin.

  He dragged the scaly hide to the window and perched on top of a cedar chest. An inch away from the shiny skin, Constantine studied the way the scales interconnected and the tissue at the edges. His normal approach of fraying and re-integrating the edges wouldn’t work. The skin was too fragile. With the sharp needle Sasha’s father had bequeathed, Constantine worked a tiny hole to see how it would hold up to lateral stress. It was no good. The skin tore easily when punctured. In his bag, Constantine had packed a small sack of resin he used like a varnish. Mixed with a solvent he found on the farrier’s shelf, this liquid penetrated a small patch of snakeskin and then dried to leave it tough. He couldn’t pierce the toughened hide, but he could create the holes first and then treat the surface with his concoction.

  The sun descended across the window’s rippled glass as Constantine worked. He glanced over his shoulder at one point to see a woman standing in the doorway, rubbing her hands with a cloth that hung
around her waist. Later, Sasha brought him rough wooden tray with bread, meat, and fruit. Constantine shoved bites into his mouth and quickly returned his fingers to working the skin. Sasha sat nearby and talked until he realized that Constantine wasn’t listening, and then he talked some more. Eventually, Sasha left, but he left behind three candles burning on the windowsill.

  When the candles burned low and sputtered out, one by one, Constantine set his work aside and found his way out into the night to relieve himself. The starlight cast fuzzy shadows of the cedar branches. The two old horses angled up on either side of Constantine and cleared their throats as if they were about to speak. The boy pet their velvet noses before returning to the barn. The stone floor of the farrier’s room was cold and the moon wouldn’t be up for a while, so Constantine found his way to the stall where Sasha’s father kept his horse. This horse, lying with his legs bunched underneath him, was nothing but a black spot in the low light of the barn’s interior. The horse mumbled a greeting as Constantine ducked under the rope across the stall door. Constantine curled up next to the horse’s warm belly and tried to make himself comfortable amidst the hard hooves and boney forelegs. He slept until the dawn light streaming through the doorway hit his face.

  The horse rolled on its side, and Constantine rose from the tangle of heavy legs and brushed the straw from his fur suit. He scratched the back of the horse’s mane as he thought about the snakeskin and what he would do next. He would make some bold cuts today. Hopefully, the skin would survive his demands.

  In the farrier’s room, Sasha’s father stood near the window and held the snakeskin close to his face. Constantine’s eye went to his good flint knife on the bench and his hand went to his utility blade stashed in the secret pocket of his suit. He debated rushing the man who held his precious work.

  “You can’t run away again, little Connie,” Sasha’s father said. “If I have to chase you again, I’ll bring you back here in a bag and drop you in the dry well. And you must be careful with that horse. He’s likely to kill you for no reason.”

  Constantine’s eyes were fixed on the snakeskin, waiting for the man to mistreat it with his hands.

  “I’m sure the cobbler and many more people would love to know how you made this skin so rigid and tough around the edges, and yet kept the bulk of the scales so flexible. The man who tanned this skin said that this type of snake was too big and delicate to be of any use. He’s a man who knows his trade. We’ll see if your work holds up over time, but your results so far are quite convincing.”

  Constantine exhaled as Sasha’s father gently laid the skin back on top of the cedar chest. The boy took a step closer.

  “You can return to your work here when all the chores are done and you’ve had a proper breakfast.” He crossed the room and spun Constantine by his shoulders. When he’d pushed the boy out the door, he turned and locked it behind them. “Don’t worry, you’ll be able to get back to it soon. I promise. Sasha will show you the chores when he manages to pull himself from his plush covers. Oh, there’s my stout son now.”

  Sasha shuffled through the barn door, rubbing his eyes with one hand and scratching his butt with the other. He smiled at Constantine and smoothed his tangle of blond hair back from his forehead. Instead of the stolen suit, he wore a supple linen shirt, and baggy woolen pants which were rolled up away from his dirty feet.

  “You’re not to muck with bare feet, Sasha. How many times must I tell you that? Your feet stink of horse urine for the rest of the day.”

  “Sorry,” Sasha said. He turned and walked to the door and then threw himself to the ground before reaching for boots that hung on wall pegs. Constantine’s eyes returned to the locked door.

  “You show Connie all the chores and then bring him inside for breakfast.”

  “Why doesn’t he have to wear boots?” Sasha asked.

  “Perhaps you’d like to wrap that impertinent tongue around the horse’s oats for breakfast?”

  “No, sir,” Sasha said, as he turned his eyes to the barn floor.

  “Good,” his father said. He pulled a long, three-tined pitchfork from the wall and slung it over his shoulder before striding out into the field.

  After his father left the barn, Sasha ran to the end of the aisle and used both hands to drag a big wooden cart down to the horse’s stall. The horse came to the rope and laid his ears flat back as the boy approached.

  “This is Baron,” Sasha said. “I call him ‘Biter Baron’ because he bites everything. You have to be really careful of stallions; that’s what my dad says. They can bite your finger off before you even know what’s happening. Except those old horses out in the paddock, Grandfather’s horses. They’re too old to hurt anyone. If you throw a pinecone at them, they’ll go away, but they come right back for an apple core.”

  Sasha angled the cart so that it rolled beneath the rope and forced Baron to sidestep out of the way. The boy fetched a fine rake from the wall and handed it to Constantine.

  “You just go in there and clean up everything. He poops in that corner over there and he pees in that big spot there. That’s all you really need to do. Just get any wet straw up and put it in the cart. Don’t get the pee on you, either. Dad will smell it and get mad.”

  Constantine looked at the rake and then stepped under the rope. The horse came around the cart and sniffed at the rake and then at Constantine’s head.

  “Be careful!” Sasha yelled. Baron raised his head in alarm and Constantine backed up against the horse, placing his hand protectively on Baron’s chest. “He might bite you. I’ve seen him do it. Look at what he did to my arm.”

  Sasha raised the sleeve of his shirt and spun his arm around, looking for a scar. When he couldn’t find it, he raised the other sleeve and pointed to a tiny mark.

  “See?” Sasha asked.

  Constantine and Baron had already moved on to mucking out the stall. The boy had never done the chore before, but the concept seemed simple enough. He cleaned the area, putting the soiled straw into the big cart while Baron hooked his head over Constantine’s shoulder and watched him shovel. The horse was fastidious, keeping his mess to discrete areas, as stallions will do. As Constantine finished the chore, Baron pressed his big nose to Constantine’s ear and whickered.

  “Hungry,” Constantine said to Sasha.

  “Who is, you or Baron?”

  “Horse,” Constantine said.

  “Yeah, of course,” Sasha said. “He gets three flakes of hay and a scoop of oats in the morning. I’ll get it.”

  Sasha rolled up his sleeves carefully before handling the hay, and then tossed it over the short wall of the stall into the horse’s trough. He followed the hay with a scoop of oats which he dumped on top. Baron tossed his head and set about the careful business of nibbling the oats out of the tangled hay. Constantine wheeled the cart out of the stall and parked it near door while Sasha jacked himself up on the wall to watch the horse eat.

  “He needs a bucket of water, too. You can get that. You have to prime the pump first with that little cup of water.”

  Constantine studied the device, looking at it from several angles, before he made a move towards the pump handle. Sasha beat him too it. He dumped the cup of water into the hole and then jacked the handle until well water poured from the mouth. After refilling the primer, he showed Constantine how to hook the bucket on the pump and fill it up.

  “Now we have to take the straw over to the mushroom patch, feed Grandfather’s horses, and do a bunch of other little things before we go inside for breakfast.”

  Constantine wondered how long he would have to wait before he could get his hands back to work. He felt the pads of his fingers itching for the feel of the snakeskin, and regretted that he hadn’t woken with the moon so he could have worked through the night. If he’d known all the morning demands, he would have gladly given up sleep to work on the skin.

  22 SWIMMING LESSONS

  “I WANT TO LEARN how to swim,” Dom said.

  “Are
you certain?” Denpa asked.

  “Yes, right away,” Dom said. Dom waited for Denpa at the side of the lake and admired the way the blue sky reflected off the water. The old man took forever to climb the steps to the lake, but he wouldn’t accept any help from Dom. He wouldn’t even allow Dom to walk with him as he lifted his old feet for step after ponderous step. So, Dom went up without him and waited at the edge of the water.

  As he sat, Dom thought about his last swimming lesson. When he was smaller, he’d admired the way the other children laughed and played in the water, and he’d expressed his admiration. Denpa had brought him to this same spot and told him what to do.

  “Once you learn that you cannot sink, you will be able to float,” Denpa had said. The man, not yet so old, had removed his robes as he waded into the lake. He paused and grimaced when the cold water reached his knees, and then paused again when the water crested his crotch. After acclimating himself to the water, Denpa had leaned back and fluttered his hands gently while floating on his back.

  “You return to this position whenever you become anxious. You try.”

  The younger Dom had tested the cold water on his feet and then run to Denpa’s side. The boy threw himself back and fluttered his hands. He immediately sunk. Denpa had pulled him back to the air, choking and coughing up water. That first lesson had been Dom’s last. He didn’t wait for Denpa, but ran all the way back home.

  Now, as Dom waited for Denpa, he decided to try the lesson again on his own. He waded out to where the water was waist-deep and he sat down, until the water came up to his mouth. He exhaled, and tilted his head back. His head went under and his nose filled with water. Dom thrashed to his feet and coughed his lungs clear.

  “Take a deep breath, and hold it,” a voice said from the shore.

  He looked up and saw Denpa disrobing.

  “Hold it?”

  “Yes,” Denpa said. “Fill your lungs with air. This is what I should have told you so many years ago. Air will not sink, but your flesh will. As long as you have lungs full of air, you will stay afloat.”