Noise (3 page)

Perhaps some sub-mortuarian has been humiliated by the funeral director. Say this brooding tech spies the gold and uses a handy funerary tool to sever the bulky hand and slip the bracelet off the wrist…but then why would she take the hand away with her? To disguise the loss. No, ma'am, she might say, that hand must have been lost in the wreck, he arrived handless, as you see him, and if any bracelet were attached it must be lying in the brush of the gorge, or the bottom of the river. Terrible, terrible…

One of the proponents of this theft theory declared that it was equally applicable to the shadier levels of the hospital staff. The actual doctors and many of the nurses and technicians live in the neighbourhood. They are slim, like the other residents. They drink high-octane coffee in flavours at the outdoor cafés. They shop for aubergine and endive, pilaf and focaccia beside us at the grocery. But this affair of the hand triggered a resurrection of vile, old aspersions about the habits and hygiene of the wider people in green work pyjamas who arrive and leave the hospital on buses. They are seen to buy microwaved lunches at the convenience store across the street from the employee entrance. They are thought to empty bedpans, change filthy sheets, scrub tainted surfaces and pump the gas jets beneath the chimney.

These green-clad wage invaders from across the river have incited our suspicions before–most notably during the last labour contract dispute when their striking pickets were wrongly associated with several late-night bricks through the plate glass of boutiques on the avenue. An ill-timed spate of ferocious rhetoric ended when the brick hurlers were found to be a larking trio of our own cosseted adolescents.

Some at the café tables that night recalled this old embarrassment
and objected to targeting the hospital workers. Accusations of blatant classism erupted, and the resulting scornful exchanges threatened to halt the game entirely with a series of flouncing or stomping exits.

The freelance web designer rescued us from our bitterness by flippantly hypothesising that a bird flew over and dropped the hand. Others seized on this immediately, proposing that it could have been one of the many gulls thriving this close to the river. The voracious and indiscriminant gull has both the appetite and the size to carry a substantial hand.

An Audubon member reminded us of the pair of turkey buzzards frequenting the crest of the hill behind us. If a gull or a buzzard were involved, the relieved theorists proposed, the hand might have come from anywhere–a collapsed cemetery in the hills, oozing open in the heavy fall rains. Despite the presence of Hennessey, Gooch & McGee's esteemed funeral parlour, there is no cemetery within miles of our neighbourhood.

The bird image captivated the gentler among us, including our lone witness, John, who we ambushed as he passed by with Daisy. Bribed with hot chocolate, he agreed to perch briefly at a table as we demanded his opinion. He confessed a preference for this bird explanation. He seemed soothed by the notion that it must have been a far-off and long-dead person, not a local sufferer who lost the hand.

A tall dentist with a distracted air reminisced about the high white towers of India where certain Hindu sects expose their dead to be picked clean by birds. The dentist drank straight espresso from a paper cup as he stood rocking slowly from heel to toe in the shadow of a deep blue awning. He segued predictably to the
Tibetan method of disposing of the dead. He lingered over the impatience of the waiting vultures, hopping and flexing their wings and necks just out of reach of the priests who crush every bone and chop the corpse into bird-bite morsels on that wind-stripped plateau.

These reflections inspired John to tidy his side of the table, wipe a spill with his paper napkin, shove the napkin into his paper cup and rise with the cup and Daisy's leash in opposing hands. He was leaving again before I could ask him for details of the hand's appearance. Excusing himself, he tipped the empty cup in farewell before depositing it in the sidewalk waste bin.

The dentist took John's empty but still-warm chair to hear the Audubon volunteer explaining why the gull, having carried the hand so far, might abandon it. A midair attack, perhaps by a rival gull. Now that she thinks of it, there is a crow clan nesting in the taller firs in the park. She's seen crows ganging up on the local hawks to drive them away from the rookery.

Once dropped, the thing was quickly found at dawn there in the park amid the sleepers and joggers and walkers of dogs. The birdwatcher pictured the gull pacing at a distance, anxious to retrieve its titbit but stymied by gawking humans, harassed by diving crows.

A flurry of muttering from two tables down ended with one voice breaking out with the news that a bird wasn't absolutely necessary. There were other beasts.

The speaker had seen a whole family of opossums parade down an alley just the night before. Big Possum leading, then middle-sized followed by three identical kits, all in a row, tails high.

Several nods agreed that if the hand was misplaced at the
funeral home a possum could have carried it the short distance to the park.

Someone else proposed raccoons, reminding us of the noisy pair who play their shriek-and-chase games over the roofs and building marquees. Questions of raccoon and possum diets were raised and disputed.

Inevitably, the topic of rats surfaced. So close to the river and the docks, our rats are impressive and bold. Dark tales of rodent encounters followed, so it was a relief when one of the hill folk spoke up for coyotes.

The expensive-view houses on the hills behind us had been under siege for years. Too many reports of bloody cat fur smeared in the shrubbery or pooch carcasses gutted on front lawns meant the hill pets were kept locked indoors. On still nights even here on the low ground we hear coyotes yipping to each other up above.

Their range is much wider than the coons' and possums', of course. None of us was sure that a coyote couldn't or wouldn't carry a hand all the way down from the cemetery. We all laughed when somebody said coyotes were so smart they'd take a bus. It seemed close to true.

‘You're forgetting the blood,' said a woman who had been so silent I hadn't noticed her. ‘There was a trail of blood leading away on the sidewalk next to the grass. John said so.'

I don't know her but others at the table called her Margo. She had a weathered leopard face and a grey helmet of hair. Her voice was low, a courteous purr.

‘The blood was liquid,' she said. ‘It had to be fresh.'

She ignored us as she spoke, staring into the cup in front of her.

‘Imagine,' she said, ‘a homeless guy. A beggar and wine addict. He hurts his hand somehow, an accident, a fight. The bones are fractured and infection sets in. Or it's just a scratch from rooting in the garbage, from sliding through the brush at night looking for a place to curl up and sleep.

‘But it doesn't heal. Blood poisoning, or staph infection, then gangrene. The pain is agonising. But there's a reason he summers under the bushes and winters in a crate beneath the railway bridge. He hates hospitals, doctors, police, social workers, all emblems of authority.

‘He has a heavy knife. Maybe even a hatchet,' she said. ‘He scrapes enough change for enough booze to bring his blood level to .307, the brink of unconsciousness. Then he hacks off the hand. He wraps a rag around the stump and staggers away. Or he persuades a booze buddy to do it for him.

‘Picture two of them dressed in layers. Shirt over shirt over shirt. Their beards short and scraggly from poor nutrition. The hairs break off rather than growing in full. They are familiars of the street. We see them and look away. They squabble often, but stick together. The one injured and in pain. The pal offended by the growing smell of the wound, the delirium of the wounded, his cries in the dark.

‘The friend takes less than his share of the bottle that night, so the wounded one will be stupefied. He wraps a belt in a tourniquet above the limp elbow as though they were going to shoot up. Well meaning, he props the arm against the metal of that meaningless sculpture. He waits for the steady snore. When he strikes, the blow is sharp and clean. He lifts the gasping, blinking body with anxious care and staggers away with him, or wheels him, rattling in their shared shopping cart. They are hiding somewhere in the
neighbourhood. Some rarely visited basement or some stand of weeds abandoned at the end of an alley.

‘Or maybe,' she said, ‘the hand's owner has actually died by now from shock and blood loss. The friend has emptied the pockets, taken the shoes if they fit or are swappable, appropriated that valuable shopping cart or fled on a southbound freight as befits the lateness of the season.

‘Maybe the corpse is lying one handed beneath a thin cover of leaves, or cardboard, or at the bottom of a dumpster. Maybe the dumpster has been emptied already into one of the huge trucks that shatter our sleep before dawn. Maybe his flaccid, colourless form is already deep in a landfill to be unearthed by some archaeologist of the future who will consider this one-handed skeletal remain a fair representative of our time, and of us.'

The tables were emptying before she finished. No one offered a comment but brisk head-shaking accompanied their caffeinated strides. She didn't seem surprised, just lifted her cup and looked into it.

 

As far as I know hers were the last words spoken on the subject of the hand. The intrigue died overnight. By the next morning the grocery clerks were rolling their eyes over a parking bribery scheme. The million topics of the population swept back to separate us. My own regrets have to do with the game ending just as I caught a faint glimmer of the rules. I say nothing, of course, only asking, as if casually, the names of certain dogs. Perhaps the others have not forgotten but are, like me, waiting to hear.

Sue Carlyle was shopping for a penis. Not for herself, of course. God knows she had no use for one. It was a gift. A little surprise for her good friend Heather, a girl so beautiful it made her heart hurt. Lately Sue had become increasingly worried that Heather might be longing for one of those ridiculous creatures and, like the good girlfriend she was, Sue was determined to give her baby what she wanted. Not that Heather had come out and said anything, she was too classy for that, but Sue prided herself on knowing her lover's mind and over the past few weeks something was on it and Sue was terrified it might be a penis. Hence the shopping trip.

Sue didn't know a thing about penises. She had never seen one, not even her father's. She knew about the general shape from seventh-grade health class and the graffiti on the subway, but beyond that she was blind. She considered asking Ty, her make-up artist, for a quick peek, just for a frame of reference, but neither of them wanted that. So instead she decided to follow her usual game plan when shopping (which she hated to do) and just hope for the best and keep the receipt. She did ask Ty for some store suggestions and he gladly sent her downtown to his favourite spot. But beyond that, she was on her own.

She supposed this type of adventure would be best undertaken at
night, but she had no patience for theatrics. So the sun hung high in the sky as Sue made her way down the narrow side streets of a part of town mostly asleep at this hour. She stumbled across Ty's store almost immediately; Wildly Suggestive, the sign above the window read in playful pink letters. Behind the glass beneath the sign a small scene had been arranged depicting a mannequin couple dressed in leather clothing directly opposed to their plastic genitalia (or lack thereof). The man/woman stood above the woman/man with a large vibrator in hand in what could be construed as a menacing gesture, if not for the total blank expressions on both their plastic faces. Instead, the effect was of an unorthodox Tupperware party right before the sale. Sue ignored the display, set her shoulders and stepped into the store.

The small space within overflowed with merchandise. The walls, already close, pushed bright red and pink boxes right up alongside her, each promising a transcendental sexual experience unachievable by organic means. Thin strips of gauzy material topped with limp plastic bows hung off hangers above her, threatening to melt off their wearer's body at the first touch of sweat. Over-endowed women in bottle-blonde hair struck lascivious poses on the walls, their lips bulging out like collagen blisters. Sue imagined Heather up on that wall, her features puffed up as if attacked by a sex-crazed Photoshop imager, her beautiful skin mummified in shiny black latex, her lovely dark hair drained of life and colour, her winsome face arranged into a clown's vision of lust. Was this what Heather missed? Being imagined like this? Being assaulted like this? Sue was out of her depth.

Sue moved farther into the store. Now the merchandise surrounding her began to replace crude photos with grinning
cartoons. Sex became a joke as huge-breasted cartoon women peddled candy garters and cherry-flavoured edible condoms (a particularly senseless item, to her mind–how many babies came about because of that snack? she wondered). Small wind-up penises with large, improbable feet hopped about in front of boxes of breast-shaped pasta. ‘Novelty' was the word plastered everywhere. Sue hated that word. Love was not light hearted; it was no game. Love was deep, so deep, and did not involve cartoons or wind-up toys or, least of all, novelty.

Sue pressed on. She began to feel like Lucy in the wardrobe as she walked forward with no end in sight. The merchandise took a dark turn and whips and chains appeared around her. Red balls to be lodged into the mouth of the willing lover hung above piles of sharp, cruel heels. Sue kept her eyes ahead and moved swiftly past.

Finally, the back of the store came into view. A small counter in the corner with a single beaten-up cash register stood next to a large case filled with what she had come to buy: penises. Rows and rows of penises. Was this the normal progression? she wondered to herself as she slowed to examine the items in the case. A too-quick journey that began with the promise of full lips and silky undergarments, and ended here among the dildos and vibrators? She didn't dwell on the thought; after all, this was not her place. She was here for a friend.

The vibrators were of no use to her. She had one herself, a small pink thing she'd been given at a bachelorette party a few years back. She'd succumbed to it once, with little effect. It made her uncomfortable to feel the cold plastic pressed up against her skin. The vibrations sucked the joy out of the sensations she sought. She hid the device deep in her closet. Heather had come upon it once
when searching for a T-shirt. It made her giggle like a little girl. She danced around with it, waving it about like a magic wand, threatening to transform Sue's clitoris into a pumpkin. Sue laughed along, though inside she cringed. Heather recognised the make of the device and dismissed it as archaic. She had her own small crop of helpers and she offered to take Sue on a sampling tour. Sue couldn't decline quickly enough. It smacked of novelty.

Ignoring anything battery powered, Sue turned her attention to the dildos. They seemed so flimsy, so ineffective, that she couldn't understand the allure. What did Heather see in them? The thought of an answer made Sue's stomach roll.

Sue had met Heather at a publicity function. Sue was shooting for a trade paper while Heather was running the event: something to do with fashion designers dressing up their pets. Sue noticed Heather immediately; later they both noticed an inordinate number of photos with Heather's slim form just at the edge of the frame. But Sue held back. Heather proved extremely difficult to figure out; one moment she'd be letting her fingers linger in the hand of a beautiful redhead and Sue's spirits would soar. The next, she'd be whispering playfully into the ear of a well-built waiter and Sue's world would crash. As a rule Sue avoided fence sitters; though beautiful, they did the digestion no favours. But something about this girl stuck with her and she kept her just at the edge of the frame.

Towards the end of the evening, Sue decided she'd taken enough photos to satisfy her employer and reached for her lens cap. It fell from her hand and came to rest against a beautiful open-toe shoe. A delicate hand reached down, lifted the cap and carried it up to its owner. Sue met Heather's gaze as Heather dropped the cap into her hand. Heather's smile told Sue that she'd noticed the attention,
even as her eyes didn't know how to feel about it. Against her better judgement, Sue invited Heather to dinner. Two dinners, a coffee and a breakfast later they were lovers.

Heather had never been with a woman. She'd spent her thirty years bouncing from man to man without thought; easily hopping on to a new boat just as the last one sank. Some treated her poorly, others well. None of it excited her any more, she confided to Sue, as they lay intertwined. But this was different. Sue brought something to Heather's life none of those poor men could ever hope to provide: understanding. Sue understood her baby. She knew how things should feel. Heather had never been happier and neither had Sue. Something deep grew between them, something true. And now, eight months later, Sue stood in the back of a dingy little sex store staring at rubber penises. That was the price of love.

‘Can I help you?'

Sue practically jumped out of her skin, though outwardly she seemed only to blink and turn at the voice. A young boy, no older than eighteen, had come out from the back to stand behind the counter. He had thin, stringy hair and watery eyes that sank downwards beneath Sue's stare. This was men, she thought.

‘Are these all the…aids you have?' she asked.

‘We've got some others in the back,' he replied, looking a little below her and to the right. ‘You wanna seem 'em?'

‘Not yet,' she replied. ‘I'm still browsing.'

She turned back to the case. Her heart beat so loud that she felt sure the boy could hear it, but he gave no sign. Her hands began to sweat as she felt the boy's eyes, now freed from her strong gaze, land upon her back. As she always did in stressful times, she took charge.

‘Are all the dildos like these?' Her voice rang with authority.

‘What do you mean?' the boy asked, a small crack appearing at the end of the sentence.

‘This flimsy, I mean.'

‘No. We got glass ones over here. They're real sturdy.' He pointed to a trio of icicles standing in the corner of the case.

‘Don't they get cold?'

‘I guess.' The boy blushed. People usually purchased or they left. They didn't ask questions. ‘I wouldn't know.'

‘What's this?' She pointed to a long, rubbery snake with twin heads.

‘That's for…well…both a' ya.'

‘Ah.' She nodded. ‘A double-sided dildo. I've heard of these. It doesn't look satisfying.'

‘I guess not.'

‘How close to a real penis would you rate these things?' she asked smoothly, though inside she reeled and tumbled with shame.

‘Well…' The boy did not want to answer this question. ‘Not too close, I guess.'

‘I want realism,' she declared.

‘Um, I guess that you could maybe look at a strap-on. They look pretty real.'

This threw Sue worse than the boy's first appearance. She strove to keep the waters still.

‘Of course! I should have guessed. Bring me your most realistic strap-on.' He slunk away to the back, happy to run. Sue stood rigid in place, waiting. She'd heard of strap-ons, of course. She'd never wished to be acquainted with one. But this seemed a step in the right direction. If she wished to push the thought of penises from
Heather's mind, then appropriating the image would be the way to go. She could be like any man, but no man could be like her.

The boy returned, a long box in hand. He smiled nervously as he opened it.

‘It's called the Bull. It's the only kind we got that looks real, cause it's from a mould, it says. A real porn star di…um, penis. Iron Jeremy. Heard of him?'

Sue stared at him coldly until his weak smile dissolved.

‘No, I haven't.'

The boy swallowed and returned to opening the box. The picture on the front seemed promising. Long and thick, with actual veins running up and down the shaft, it certainly appeared anatomical. It looked much firmer than the dildos in the case. Hopefully it wouldn't remind Heather of a previous lover, at least not one in particular. Sue's stomach began to ease as she warmed to the idea.

‘Sorry it's takin' so long, the harness is all tangled up,' the boy said quickly, fumbling inside the package. ‘It's real nice. Silicone based, and it warms up so you don't have to worry about the cold. It's the only strap-on I'd use…If I used one, you know? We only have a few left. It should do you fine…Here you go…'

His voice trailed off as he pulled it out and he let out a spastic giggle at what he saw. Sue's stomach dropped and her voice took on its most authoritative tone yet.

‘You must have another.'

The boy nodded and quickly ran into the back, leaving the large thing lying stiff on the counter for Sue to contemplate. There had to be another. The boy returned.

‘That's the only version of that type we have left, lady,' he said, miserable under her hard stare. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘When does your next shipment arrive?'

‘Not till next month. You can try our sister store in Brooklyn if you want, though I think they'll say the same.'

There was no chance of repeating this experience, she thought silently. As she stared at the shaft lying on the counter, she considered her options. It was a penis, after all. One penis was as good as another, right? Once strapped on, it would be the picture of reality, almost. This was what Heather wanted. Sue had to show her that there was nothing that she couldn't provide her with. Be it a vacation in the Hamptons, a loving, understanding ear, or a large, erect member, it all came from Sue. Anyway, wasn't it the size that mattered? She was sure she'd heard that somewhere. The truth was, she couldn't wait a month. She needed to do this now, before it was too late. Heather teetered and Sue had to push in the right direction.

‘I'll take it.'

The boy swallowed and quickly stuffed the thing back into its box. Sue paid, grabbed her package and then walked with dignity and no small amount of speed past the whips and chains, the hopping penises and breast-shaped pasta, the cheap negligees and the leering faces of the women on the walls, out the door and away.

Heather had come home distracted again, and this time Sue joined her as they ate in silence. Afterwards Sue implored her to wait in the bedroom with eyes closed for a special surprise. Heather cried weariness, but Sue was insistent. This was a special gift, just for you, she said. Just for my baby. Heather waited in the bedroom now, eyes shut, uncertain what Sue had in store. Sue stood in the bathroom, naked, her pale white skin glowing under the harsh light.
Heather could tan without trying but Sue only burned. She pulled out the penis and attached it to her pelvis. It wasn't complicated and she'd already read the instructions ten times. After a moment, it was done. Her penis hung from her like a bloated cocoon about to let loose a butterfly. It felt heavy around her waist. She hoped it looked real, or real enough. A small flash of worry, the last she would entertain, raced through her. If only they'd had another colour. It was so…black. It seemed even blacker against her pale skin than she'd anticipated in the store. Glancing in the mirror, she took in the two-toned creature with the long black tube growing out of her crotch and a small voice whispered to her that she appeared thrown together, a sexual Frankenstein. But she pushed that voice away. Maybe that's what all penises are: hanging flesh both ugly and ridiculous, practically unnatural. She'd never understand. She took it in her hand. It did feel strong. Big, black and strong. She mastered herself. This would be a good night.