Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 20

by Gavin J. Grant Kelly Link

  Scott listened to the wind blow through the tops of the Douglas firs and imagined he heard the swishing flight of the flying squirrels that lived invisibly among them. Each house in the River Park had five acres of woods and meadow around it, and strolling around the neighborhood felt a lot like walking through a campground at night. Only there weren't any bears or mountain lions—there were too many dogs around (and Caitlin was on a first name basis with each one). The most serious wildlife here was the neighbors.

  Semi-rural living attracted a peculiar mixture of people. Scott passed Bruce Smith's tawdry mobile home, where he lived with his Ph.D. wife and periodically tided himself over by pawning his gun collection. The wife almost never left the house, and Scott had a bad feeling about what went on inside there. Still, Bruce was a loyal neighbor in his own way. If a foreign army ever invaded Olympia, Washington, he'd come in handy.

  Scott walked past Carol and Judy's cabin of lesbian iniquity and reached the Carsons’ place at the bottom of the hill. The Carsons had bordered their lawn with lime-green plastic foliage, strangely discordant among the evergreens, and though the main RiverPark street itself remained unpaved they annually poured fresh asphalt on their driveway to keep it smooth and black.

  Light streaming from a streetlight in the Carsons’ yard reached out toward the home of the man with horns and lost itself among the cedars, hemlocks and Douglas firs. Scott made out a dirt driveway striking off between two cedar stumps, crossed the street and, after some hesitation, stepped onto it.

  After ten feet, he could hardly see the way. He pushed the button that lit the dial on his watch. Nine-fifteen. A little late to show up at someone's door unannounced. When the road turned to gravel, he let his boots crunch as loudly as possible. It didn't pay to surprise someone with horns.

  The house had a light on above the door, and another light in the living room shone through scarlet curtains. A black station wagon parked in a gap between dense trees turned out to be a new model Mercedes. Whoever he was, he had money.

  Scott heard a sharp cry and a groan. He wished that he had a gun, or at least a heavy walking stick. A second groan filled his mind with images of half-dead bodies hanging neatly from meat hooks, bound women pleading for mercy. Maybe he should turn back. Caitlin had only one parent.

  But there wasn't any real risk knocking on a neighbor's door.

  He knocked twice, and heard a voice respond, “Coming ..... just a second."

  Footsteps rattled the mobile. The door opened, and an obese man dressed in a black silk robe and a pullover cap peered out.

  "Hiya,” the man said, with a broad, friendly smile.

  The bulges were easy to see under the pullover, two symmetrical, thumb-sized lumps, too smooth to be tumors.

  "I'm Scott Bouillard, your neighbor,” Scott said. He pointed up the hill.

  "Yes! Haven't met, though I've heard about you. You're a doctor, right?"

  "A plastic surgeon."

  "A plastic surgeon! I'm honored.” He put out his hand. “My name is Cary Ginder. I'm sorry I never introduced myself. I'd invite you in, only I'm in the middle of something now, and ....."

  "I don't mean to bother you. I just wondered—my little girl saw you and scared herself—is that under-the-skin jewelry on your forehead?"

  Cary brushed the cap back. Uncovered, they looked huge.

  "They're beauties,” Scott said. “Can I touch them?"

  "My pleasure."

  Scott palpated the skin-covered horns and felt an irregular hardness underneath.

  "It's not jewelry,” Cary said. “It's real bone. Transplanted from my hip. That way they'll keep growing."

  "I've read about that,” Scott said. He reached up and lightly pinched the skin above one horn. “You'll need some extra skin grafted in soon. You've reached the elastic limit of what you've got."

  "That's a worry,” Cary said. “Why don't you come on in and tell me more."

  They walked through a hallway decorated with oil paintings that resembled scenes out of Hieronymus Bosch, except that the monstrous creatures wore politician's faces.

  Cary took a sharp breath and held his hand to his side. “Can't skin keep on expanding? Like when you get fat?"

  "Yes, but those horns are pointy,” Scott said. “They put pressure on your skin and compromise the circulation. I'd recommend taking a graft off your stomach."

  "Would you do that for me?” Cary gestured to a Danish style teak and leather armchair.

  Scott sat and eyed the rest of the furniture. It must have cost a small fortune in the eighties, but now it seemed drab and colorless. “Usually the original surgeon is responsible for revisions."

  "But I'm the original surgeon,” Cary said.

  My goodness, Scott thought, he's doing self-surgery.

  Cary winced slightly.

  "What's wrong?” Scott asked.

  "Another operation. A little tender, that's all."

  "Maybe I should look at it,” Scott said. He heard squeaking from the kitchen and smelled something unpleasant.

  Cary shook his head. “It's not ready to show. A work of art in progress, you know. But soon."

  When Scott stood up to leave, he glanced over a short partition and on the table in the breakfast nook he saw taped and folded parcels of blue surgical paper, a tray full of electronic parts, and a small cage with mice in it. Back outside on the street again, he imagined carving away at his own stomach and felt a surprising sense of relief: relief not only from Caitlin's illness but also from the endless round of boob jobs and tummy tucks and operations on burn victims who still looked monstrous after he worked on them and wished themselves dead rather than rescued.

  Maybe he'd come back another day to graft some skin over Cary's horns. Compared to his usual work, it sounded downright jolly.

  * * * *

  Thankfully, there were no ambulances outside Michael and Jennifer's house. Reverend Michael came to the door, his bright red hair tousled above wire frame glasses. He was an intelligent man, even if he was a religious bigot. Scott took his usual place in the kitchen, on an uncomfortable white chair made of twisted rectangular metal bars and a hard woven seat.

  "I talked with him,” Scott said.

  Jennifer's eyes glistened.

  "It's bone grafts in the skull,” Scott said. “It's something of a fad these days. But here's what's bizarre: he operates on himself."

  "Oh God, what a sick man,” Jennifer said.

  "Sick all right,” Michael said. “Not to be uncompassionate or anything, but he's not someone you want around your kids."

  "I don't know,” Scott said. “He seemed harmless enough."

  Michael was shaking his head. “He's not going to live in this neighborhood."

  Jennifer licked her lips.

  "What are you going to do?” Scott asked. “Burn his house down like they did to that sex offender down in Centralia? He has a legal right to live where he wants."

  "Sometimes you have to take a stand on things,” Michael said, “or things will stand on you. Though in your case ....."

  "Michael,” Jennifer said sharply.

  Scott knew what the good reverend had been about to say: that since Caitlin was dying, it wouldn't matter as much to Scott as it would to other parents.

  And there was something else too.

  Scott and Dawn had known about the malformation in Caitlin's heart long before she was born. Scott had argued for an abortion, but Jennifer and Michael had talked Dawn out of it. Of course, now that Caitlin was alive, he couldn't regret the decision. But he did regret the moral superiority it gave his neighbors.

  He made noncommittal noises into the awkward silence, and excused himself.

  * * * *

  Two weeks later, Scott got one of the neighbor teenagers to babysit in the evening so he could go for a walk. He needed a break. Caitlin had been so sick recently he'd begun to doubt himself now, wondered whether he'd made a terrible mistake by not keeping her bed-bound. But when he tried makin
g her stay in bed one weekend she wouldn't stand for it. She was a little girl of the woods now, not an indoor kid.

  He set his cell phone on vibrate and took a trail to the Deschutes River, whose oxbow bend formed the neighborhood's backbone. Gorged now with the January rains, the water surged along close to flood stage, the moon painting highlights on the moving sculpture of its surface. Every winter, the river undercut its banks as it slowly snapped the loop of its oxbow bend further downstream. According to the Army Corp of Engineers, the river would wipe out the whole neighborhood in another two centuries.

  Scott walked beside the water for over an hour. As he was coming back along the road, he stopped at the sound of loud voices.

  Ahead, illuminated by the streetlight, he saw the Carson twins, James and John, blocking Cary's Mercedes as it came between the cedar stumps. Scott didn't much like the two teenagers. They were home-schooled, but not in a pleasant, hippie sort of way. Caitlin said that their parents chained them to their desks.

  "Hey, let's see your horns,” one of them yelled. “Come out and take that hat off. We hear you're real horny."

  Cary stepped out of his car. “I'll be glad to show you.” He sounded eager, as if he didn't recognize they weren't merely curious.

  Then, suddenly, they were merely curious. Cary moved to a spot illuminated by the Carson's streetlight and removed his hat. The horns were clearly visible. But that wasn't the most impressive part. Cary had shaved his head, and his scalp was transparent. You could see his skull.

  James shouted in horror and shoved Cary. The heavy man stepped backwards and tripped over something, falling with a thud. John kicked him and Cary groaned but did not cry out.

  Scott yelled and ran at them. The boys moved back, though slowly, and slouched off into the trees.

  Scott helped Cary to his feet. As Cary rubbed the small of his back, Scott heard a squeaking noise coming from somewhere. “Got your mouse cage with you?” He meant it as a joke.

  "Got it, yes,” Cary said. “I hope they're OK.” He opened his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, and the sound grew louder. He lifted a flap of skin on his large belly. The inside glowed faintly blue, and by that light Scott could see a small metal box with mice in it, two of them, hard at work in a treadmill.

  "That's inside your abdomen?” Scott asked.

  "Not technically inside. There's skin behind them. They seem all right, don't they?"

  Scott looked closer. A thin strip of caulk or glue held the cage tight to the skin. “They seem happy enough. Should oil that, maybe."

  "I like the sound. It keeps me company."

  Cary dropped the flap of skin back over the opening, the squeaking still audible through a dozen air holes.

  Scott reached down, picked up Cary's hat, and handed it to him. “So why do you do this kind of thing?"

  "Life mutilates us,” Cary said, patting his stomach. “We can either resist or accept. When you choose to accept, the world can no longer harm you."

  In the slashing beam of the streetlight, his face looked inspired.

  * * * *

  A couple of weeks later, Reverend Michael invited Scott to a neighborhood meeting at his house.

  The plastic covers had come off the living room furniture. Scott shared a black leather couch with the Carsons. Bruce and his seldom-seen wife sat on another.

  "Have you heard from Dawn?” Margaret Carson asked Scott.

  "Not a word."

  "That's sad,” she said. “Caitlin must miss her."

  "She doesn't really remember her."

  "Here he comes,” Jennifer said. She popped up and trotted in her stiletto heels to the front door.

  A police car had turned into the driveway. Jennifer brought the officer inside and introduced the neighbors. He shook hands with everyone and sat beside Reverend Michael.

  "He's sure one weird guy, this Cary Ginder fellow,” the policeman said. “He showed me his arms."

  Jennifer leaned forward. “What's wrong with his arms, officer?"

  "The right one has some kind of mold growing on it, ma'am. He says he's altered his sweat glands so they sweat sugar to feed it. The mold is black and green, and at least an inch long. He combed it back with a brush while we talked."

  Michael shook his head. “I don't know what to say. I never thought ..... Is that legal?"

  "In general,” the policeman said, “a person has a right to do whatever he wants to his own body."

  "I don't agree,” Margaret Carson said. Her puffy blond hair was so stiff with spray you could balance a baseball on it. “There's such a thing as limits.” She moved her hand between two invisible points in the air. “Life exists between here and here. Not just any old place you can dream up."

  "Who are you to set those limits?” Bruce asked. He called himself a libertarian, and he seemed to be, except when it came to his wife.

  "Perhaps you can have this discussion another time?” the policeman said. “Can I go on? OK. Apparently, this guy used to have a rodent cage in his stomach, but he's taken it out. Now he has some kind of aquarium in there, made of his own flesh.” He glanced at his notes. “An artificial cyst, he calls it. There's neon tetras swimming around inside. Bright blue fish in his stomach. The skin's transparent all around, so you can see them fine."

  Mr. Carson put his hand to his chest and pursed his lips.

  "We can't have someone like that living here,” Margaret said.

  "Someone like what?” Michael said. “There's no one else like him. He's a club of one."

  "That's not true,” Scott said. “Body modification is a worldwide movement. And it appears that Cary is one of the leading figures. He has a whole aesthetic theory going. It's almost spiritual, really."

  "Spiritual?” Michael said. “Don't be ridiculous."

  "Actually, he views what he does as rather Christ-like. He feels that he's taking the pain of the world into his own body. All the things he does have symbolic significance. For example, he says the neon tetras represent, ‘drawing into the shelter of your body the remaining sparks of love in a darkening world.'—"

  Michael stared at him. “It's like a religion?"

  "Yes,” Scott said, “I guess you could say it is."

  "Wow,” Jennifer said. She was breathing hard. “What if he's the Antichrist?"

  "Oh, come off it,” Michael said. “He's not the Antichrist. He's a sicko. Scott, you're a doctor. Can't this Ginder be locked up for harming himself?"

  Scott shook his head. “I don't think so. The rules for involuntary commitment are strict. They'd have to release him in seventy-two hours."

  The policeman nodded. “The doctor is right. Look, friends, I feel a lot like you do. However, Ginder has a legal right to do what he does.” He stood up and moved his eyes pointedly around the room. “If some teenage boys rough him up, or anyone comes too close with a lighted match, someone's going to jail, regardless of what I might feel personally."

  "Holy Jesus,” Michael said, after the officer left. “Neon tetras in his stomach."

  "If it weren't so disgusting,” Jennifer said, “it might almost be pretty."

  * * * *

  Caitlin was getting worse. Her lips were slightly purple most of the time, and she used oxygen at night. Michael and Jennifer tried to convince Scott to keep her in bed, but Caitlin wanted so badly to be outside that Scott didn't have the heart to keep her in.

  On a Sunday afternoon, Scott watched from a little distance as she played alone atop the fallen trunk of a decaying red cedar. She had given names to various crevices in the soft red bark: the living room, the kitchen, the school. “No, Mr. Ghost,” he heard her say, “you have to stay in the kitchen and cook the Queen's oatmeal."

  Scott had never seen her so beautiful.

  "Go away, Daddy,” Caitlin said. “My unicorn only likes girls and you're making her shy."

  He didn't want to leave, but it was a direct order, so he moved off a hundred feet and sat on the soft fir leaves. The gray sky—the sky was always g
ray here in Olympia—thinned to tease him with the sun. He felt like he had lead weights in his chest. “I can still see you,” Caitlin said.

  Reluctantly, Scott obeyed and took a path that led beside the Carsons’ house to the river. The water level had fallen now, and wooded islands were rising out of it, their re-exposed branches broken and tangled with long thready strands. A rustle came through the wet overhanging foliage and Scott saw Cary walking along the muddy path toward him.

  "How are the new grafts doing?” Scott asked. Cary pulled back his cap and Scott examined the sewn-in tissue. It seemed quite healthy.

  They walked downstream together until they reached the field of trilliums in flower, their white and purple petals lighting up both sides of the trail.

  Cary kneeled and delicately touched one. In Washington, it was illegal to pick trilliums because they took twenty years to bloom. Longer, Scott thought, than Caitlin will ever live.

  "I have a bit of surprising gossip,” Cary said.

  "Tell me,” Scott said.

  "Hold onto your hat. The minister's wife is a body artist too."

  "Jennifer? You're kidding."

  "She cuts on herself,” Cary said. He seemed to be speaking to the flower. “It's the same idea."

  Scott was shocked, and then not so shocked. “How do you know?"

  "She came over to preach on me and I saw the scars under her nylons."

  "She admitted it?"

  "She was glad to have someone to talk to. It's hard being a minister's wife. I feel for both of them, having to keep a lid on everything."

  "Considering what the two of them say about you, it's rather hypocritical."

  Cary laughed. “I can accept hypocrisy. It's a kind of mutilation."

  They walked back together and it was only when Cary headed off home that Scott realized how much the body artist's presence had comforted him.

  * * * *

  He'd only been gone ten minutes, but that felt irresponsible. When he came close and didn't hear Caitlin's voice he forced his way through the soggy underbrush and called her name. She didn't answer. He found her lying face up on the soft, crumbling red bark. For a moment he could convince himself it was part of her game and then he knew it wasn't a game.