The Clay Head Benediction

by Marty Rafter

carry it downstairs. It does not fit through my front door.

  I try several times to squeeze the head or adjust the angle to make it fit, but no matter how hard I try, either the ears or the nose get hung up on the frame. I sit on the floor and look at the wrapped object, and chide myself for my inattention to this major detail, when it occurs to me that I may be able to fit the head out of the window. After some quick measurements, it seems like it will fit, however, I do not have anything to lower it down with. So, I race downstairs and detach the trailer from the bicycle and ride as quickly as I can to the Target in East Liberty, and buy four 30 foot packages of heavy rope. When I come out of the store, my unlocked bicycle is still thankfully where I had left it, and I quickly ride home with the rope. After some experimentation, I devise a sort of upside down parachute basket from the blanket with rope attached to the top in a little pointed tent of knots. After that is done, I tie three of the ropes together at secure them to the blanket. Then, I lift the whole apparatus by the ropes at the top of the blanket to test the strength, and once I am satisfied that the cargo is secure enough to make the trip, I very gently ease it out of my window. Holding tightly to the long length of rope, I slip the head out of the window, and down the side of the building. The bundle bounces against the wall a few times, and is briefly hung up on a first floor window sill for a moment, but ultimately, the whole package makes it down to the ground safely. Then, I drop the rest of the guide rope; close my window and race downstairs to inspect everything. I discover that the head made the trip without any damage, so then I jog around to the back of the building to retrieve the bicycle and the cargo box. I have to spend a few minutes reattaching the trailer, and when I come back around the building wheeling my bike, I encounter Donald dressed in jeans and a heavy bathrobe inspecting the head.

  “Oh. See, now that explains it…here I thought that there was some strange shit going on outside my window, so I come out to check…and now, I know there is some strange shit going on” he says

  “Hi, Donald” I say

  “I figured you had something to do with all this” he says gesturing to the head

  “It is my art project” I say

  “When I saw it coming past my window, I thought you was getting rid of a dead hooker or something”

  “You really thought that?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you.” He says

  “So, your natural reaction when you think somebody is getting rid of a dead body is to go interrupt them” I say

  “Man, I ain’t scared of you” he says

  “You don’t have reason to be” I say “No one does”

  “I wouldn’t go that fuckin far” he says “this aint the most normal thing in the world, standing out here at midnight with a big head wrapped in a blanket”

  “It is my art project”

  “Oh, so you an artist now? First you the rental guy, then you the super, and now you’re an artist?”

  “If you say so” I say

  Donald doesn’t move, so I decide to start untying the head, and repackaging it for transport.

  “So, you really made that, huh?” Donald asks

  “Yeah, I did. From paper mache. Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, actually I do”

  “Thanks.” I say

  “No, really though, I been looking at art forty hours a week for twenty six years…”

  “I never really thought of it that way” I say

  “You know what I don’t like? When they had that International...you know, the last time? I spent four months standing in front of a cardboard box with a pair of damn dirty shoes on top of it”

  “I remember that. I think that guy is kind of famous.” I say

  “That guy is proof that rich people is fuckin dumb” he says

  “There is probably some explanation for it.” I say

  “No kind of explanation that is worth anybody paying any kind of money for. They paid me ten thousand dollars to make sure people don’t touch something that worth about twenty bucks.”

  I laugh “I guess I never thought about it that way”

  “It's almost like the guy that made that, he never thinks about a guy like me…protecting his goddamn cardboard box.”

  “No, he probably didn’t” I say

  “..I don’t care, that shit is humiliating. Good thing I don’t have no family. Have to go home and tell my son I spent all day protecting a cardboard box and a damn pair of old shoes”

  Then, Donald reaches down and helps me hold down the blanket while I secure it with tape.

  “What are you doing with this? Taking it to that girl?” He asks

  “No, she has a boyfriend. Plus, she told me that she is having a baby” I say

  “Yeah, you can tell now. I thought you still might be trying...”

  “No, I am taking this down where people can see it.” I say

  “To a party or something?”

  “Kind of”

  Then, Donald helps me put the wrapped head into the wooden cargo box. “You need to get yourself a car…that right there is why you don’t have a woman in your life, ridin’ around on a bike...”

  “You never know, Donald, there are all kinds of people in the world”

  “Ain’t no doubt, you’re all kinds” He says. Then, I shake his hand, and we wish each other happy new year and I ride away.

  The ride is easy, and after the stress and unplanned delays of getting the head stuck in my apartment moving through the brisk air feels like a fantastic relief. Panther Hollow and the jail trail are totally deserted and the wintertime isolation feels a bit disconcerting, so I pedal as quickly as I can through the darkness, and soon, I emerge at Point State Park. After a quick pedal through the park, I arrive at Gateway Center. Dropping the box is as easy as I expected, and I do not linger after I am done. I return along the same dark trail that I arrived on, and as the adrenalin of the night’s events wears off, I feel the chill of the night for the first time. I ride fast without the box towing behind me, as I pedal franticly to escape the intimidating darkness of the jail trail, and I start to sweat. By the time I get close to home, the sweat has cooled on my body, and I am completely freezing cold. I bring the bike back into the laundry room, and go upstairs to sit by the radiator in my apartment. As I warm up, the exhaustion of the evening catches up with me. And so, I drag myself to bed and fall quickly into a deep sleep.

  And when I do, I dream. I dream that I am in a theatre, but this time, I am in the audience and there is only one person on the stage: the man...dressed in his usual tuxedo, but this time, accessorized with a smart velvet cape…black with a red lining. And the man addresses the crowd, but I am too surprised to have returned to dreaming so soon to pay attention to the specifics of what he is saying. The rest of the audience is noisy anyway…talking to each other, not paying attention. But on stage, the man is a magician and he carries on, undisturbed by his inattentive audience. And then the magician’s assistant roll out a large square object covered with a cloth that I know right away is the wooden box I made. And this assistant spins the box around, and taps on each side of the box with a hammer. Then very delicately, the magician assists her as she turns the box back on its end to reveal the bottom, which she also taps on with a hammer. Then, together, they swing open the lid, and tip the box forward to reveal its contents, and I have flash of panic that the product of my tireless work will be spilled out across the stage, but the box that the performers show to the audience is empty.

  Then the assistant returns the box to its proper position, and the magician and his assistant engage in a theatric pantomime about which one of them will be placed into the box. In the end the dispute is settled by the assistant, who, despite her small stature, lifts the magician up like he is a ballerina and deposits him into the box. And then they pause for a moment to allow time for the audience to cheer their slapstick punch line, but nobody is paying attention but me, and I elec
t not to clap. So, then the assistant spins the box around again with the magician standing inside of it with his arms folded across his chest like the statue of Christopher Columbus outside of the conservatory, and then he crouches down and is completely concealed by the box. Then the assistant spins the box around a few more times, and once that is done, she knocks on the lid and pantomimes that she is listening for a response by cupping her hand behind her ear and pressing her face to the side of the box. Then she undertakes an exaggerated sequence of being unable to open the box. Then, finally she remembers the hammer that has been set off to the side of the stage, and she returns to smash the lid over and over again with theatrical flourish. When the lid is destroyed, she looks into the box, and with feigned surprise, turns it over so the audience can again see that it is empty. Then, she rights the box again, and covers it with a cloth. After a few moments, the cloth starts to move, and then slowly levitate on its own, and so, the assistant rips the cloth away to reveal dozens of dazed doves. A few of the doves try to fly, but they get distracted by the lights and return quickly to the stage, where they join their associates wandering around the stage like city pigeons.

  The assistant pauses for applause, but when no one does, she continues on by frantically pointing to the top balcony. Her pointing finally seems to get the audience’s attention, and soon, the entire crowd has turned to look towards the balcony where the