SHORT STORIES

From Vices and Versas
From Plaintiffs and Pontiffs
ROADKILL 2010

 “Give me your full attention,” she said. Actually, the sheer screech of her voice conflicted with the phone earpiece in such a way that the higher vowels were apt to become static instead, so that what she said ended up sounding much different. But from necessity, the kind of necessity only an irate woman could invoke, I had learned to adapt my ear to compensate for what the phone itself couldn’t tolerate. I inferred “give me your full attention” then, as much from the interplay of confused static as from what I knew of her demeanor from beforehand.
    I didn’t hesitate. I strained my ears until my cochlea filled with a sensation of burning, which caused me to relax a little before the pain became distracting in its own right, defeating the purpose of focus. I attempted to repurpose both my nostrils and eyes to the aim of listening, and achieved this with moderate success. Until I was the embodiment of attentiveness.
    The ambient noise rose to the foreground. I was bewildered for the longest time by an angry electronic hissing that I interpreted as her emitting a steady “eee” sound, since I had never heard her do this before and didn’t know what to make of it. But this was only preamble. The cacophony surged precipitously into a blaring, then a glint of light, which I believe literally deprived me of consciousness, it overwhelmed my head so. I believe this because when the world became coherent again, the car I had been driving was in a ditch, and I was drooling haphazardly out the window.
    “Hot damn, you nearly tagged me there!” A voice appeared that I didn’t recognize. I tried to ask, “Who is that you’re with, Honey?” but realized, after no response was provided, that my phone was no longer in my possession, nor was this new voice speaking through it. The revelation added an unexpected element to the already disorienting condition of being in a ditch. Now that I was aware of the real presence of the voice, rather than a transmitted—painfully obvious now that I wasn’t under the delusion of otherwise—I clearly discerned it to originate from behind me, something I should have noticed from the beginning. I distractedly saw if I could see him, while I went about the more important matter of finding my phone. I had discovered it not to be in my car at about the same time a man startled me by tapping on my shoulder.
    The same insistent glint from before caught my eye as I extended the search from the confines of my vehicle to the outside world, near vicinity of my window. The glint was in fact a shovel that forcefully caught the sun, the rare moments the sun broke through the thick foliage from its far-advanced position in the sky. I made out this and other details of the man’s description only as they became incidental to my search.
    He wore jean overalls and lines etched deep into the corners of his eyes. The same tawny redness that comprised his face resurfaced at intervals as soot in his clothes, which gave the impression of rust, like the man had just been sitting idly for days, perhaps months, in the rain as he corroded. His shoulders recalled resilience, as one could perceive the amount of weight they had endured, like a scar that disfigured them, yet they stood sill erect after all so that the man had an old, rustic, yet surprisingly invigorated look about him. I noticed half of these things, or noticed them halfly. I don’t even know how I noticed them, distracted as I was by my inability to find my phone. I imagined all the while my agitated and expectant Honey waiting on the other end of the line, boiling away.
    The man must have mistaken my reasons for being so distraught. “No need to worry, no harm done. I thought you’d seen me, as you were looking straight at me. But then you kept going, right so awful close. I bout near fainted, before you swerved. What a godsend of a reflex that is! Like imagine you hadn’t swerved, I woulda fainted the very next instant and wouldn’t have been anything for getting out of the way. How cruel a mistress, Nature! Like I damn deer I was, in headlights…” His excited rhetoric deteriorated rapidly in the last line, into some sort of introspective reverie. He recovered quick enough though, to say, “Anyway, point was, no harm. Contrariwise, reminded me I was alive.” The shovel was slung desultorily across his shoulder, and brandished with the emphasis of his sentences.
    A change of thought registered on his face—his face seemed a very expressive one, and was probably indicative of every thought and feeling that flowed under it, and I doubted his ability to keep secrets, or to be disingenuous at all. It was naïve as it was lined, as it was soothing. He immediately gave voice to the cause of this most recent facial configuration: “You haven’t damaged anything, now have you?” He now regarded my frantic peering around and about my vehicle as some sort of inspection for damage.
    “I can’t find my phone.”
    “Did you drop it somewhere out round here?” He didn’t wait for an answer before joining wholeheartedly into the search, but after a considerable amount of time still nothing had turned up. I was in near-hysterics, chunks of my hair were lying on the ground in places I swept back over in desperate hope of my phone, which told me I must have been pulling some out. It also told me that I had searched there before, though, which was helpful. It was about this time I realized that I still wasn’t using my eyes for seeing, but rather for hearing, and only noticed my hair on the ground from the dull rasp it made as it scraped the rocky terrain underneath. This led me to believe I would only be able to find my phone if I could hear it, and I gave up in a fit of rage, into a collapsed pile on the ground. Her last words were still in my ear, and I was still helplessly obeying those words, still paying her full attention.
    “Well, I can’t offer you your phone, but I could offer you mine, since you seem to need it so bad. My house is just up the road, you see.”
    I had been almost entirely ignoring him as he spoke, but something inside me realized that he had offered an at least temporary solution to my predicament (I had many levels of hearing at this point, making the combined sum hard to decipher) and on account of this I experienced that phenomenon, where you hear someone long after they’ve spoken. “Yes, that would be great, if you don’t mind.”
    “No, not at all.”
    I offered him a ride but he declined, saying that it really was close and he had some business to attend to anyway, just real quickly. I didn’t want to be driving behind him as he walked, like some fat inept stalker, because driving under thirty miles per hour fills me with a feeling of impotence, which becomes fury, which I have the speeding tickets to prove. So I opted to accompany him on foot, and to return to my vehicle later.
    Devastated shrubbery left indications of where I deviated from the road, which became evident as we retraced that path back up to where the ordeal took place. “I’m Ron, by the way,” the man said as he assumed what must have been the exact location and even posture as he had before my interruption.
    He exhibited once more a deer-in-the-headlight look, somewhere between imitation and that same melancholy introspection, before lowering his shovel to the ground, upon which what once was a badger lay, resembling very closely the shrubbery in the direction of my vehicle. He heaved it all at once into the air and over his shoulder, giving him that stereotypical vagabond look, the kind that carries all their belongings on the end of a stick, as they are depicted in the cartoons I used to watch as a child. He had the same adventurous gleam in his eye. “And now we are ready.”
    He led the way to what proved to be as close as promised, a modest dwelling with exceptionally clean windows and everything else in tatters. The color was a faded, peeling red, and what was undergrowth in the surrounding trees gathered the courage necessary in the clearing of his house to become overgrowth, and forced itself torrentially against the walls of the abode, except where a path was cleaved through to the door, which had seen its share of comings and goings, by the look of it. Trees encroached ominously on every side, making the house barely perceptible from the road, easy to miss. He led me straight up to it.
    I had been trying to simultaneously follow him while avoiding the stench of the badger, which I occasionally neglected to heed. The stench caused my sight to blur and distort—what I believe to be the lingering effects of my synesthesia.
    Delicately he lowered the badger and shovel to the ground before the threshold, ostensibly not wanting to trek him through the house. He beckoned invitingly that I follow him inside, when he noticed that I hesitated at the threshold.
    “Here it is,” he said as he indicated a monolith of a phone that was probably just barely maintaining its mounted position on the wall, from sheer untenable mass. While I took it in hand, he went courteously off into the next room and out of sight, so that I might have some privacy. I could hear him shuffling something about, a dial tone, and all the slightly differentiated notes that keys make, which now alternated between magnum opus and raw dissonance for me. She allowed two rings before answering.
    “Who is this?” The number was foreign to her.
    “It’s me, Honey. I’m calling from another phone.”
    “Where is yours?”
    “I lost it. I had an accident. But please, continue as you were.”
    She only obliged to ‘continue as you were’ after making a sizeable fuss about accidents, and how they are generally to be avoided. What was almost requested by her some half hour prior: “On your way home, couldn’t you fetch us a Christmas tree? The holidays are approaching, and I am just dying to prepare.”
    “Surely, of course. Won’t come home without one.”
    “That’s a good dear. Bye.” The phone’s disconnected tone would have been deafening to me, had I not been relieved of my attentive duty and thus back to a normal state of consciousness. The matter of the Christmas tree needed resolving immediately, but before I had taken two steps in such a direction the phone went off in the kind of peremptory ringing that demands those nearby to attend directly, though I did not feel at privilege to answer and so was left only to mill about awkwardly in its vicinity.
    My rustic friend was quickly at hand to spare me, by lifting up the receiver. “Oh… why yes, here he is.” And he extended the phone back to me. I was dismayed that someone could possibly be calling for me, but I went along with it anyway.
    It was Jackson. “Hey, Demitri. I was trying to get a hold of you, and your Honey told me I could reach you here.”
    “Certainly, I am reachable here.”
    “Good, good, because this is very important. Oh, wait. You’re going to have to wait a bit.” And then the other end of the line went silent, except what sounded roughly like a toddler being ruthlessly beaten in the background. This happened to go on for a very long time, and my arm went a mixture of numb and limp from the effort of holding the phone upright, but I was obligated to wait. So I slouched copiously into the wall, and did what I could.
    Ron had left again, but he must have thought the silence to mean that I had finished, and he diligently reappeared to accommodate me. Seeing that I remained on the phone, he feinted respectfully backwards, but upon noticing that I was naught but waiting he opted instead for a whispered conversation.
    “You on hold, or something?”
    “I believe so.”
    “Well, just come along then, I have something to show you, take the bite out of the wait.”
    I corrected my posture that was in no way suited for walking, in order to follow him out through an adjacent door to the backyard, concealed before by the house. The phone was corded, and the line only had ten feet superfluous after the door, so I followed the Rustic so far as my domain allowed. The door swung shut behind us, the wire finding a conducive hole below the framing. A child was incessantly brutalized in the background.
    “What do you think of it?”
    His backyard was a clearing, and distinctive about it was the metric ton or so of dead carcasses amassed together at various locations. The same palette of the Rustic’s face and clothing made one last appearance on the ground, which appeared stained alkaline by the fluids streaming from the animals. The clearing seemed better described then as the trees retreating bodily from this barren, caustic soil, from this spectacle. The smell was nauseating. Ron wore gloves.
    “What have you done?”
    “It’s a little collection of mine.” As he spoke, he applied a wooden stick with a single loop of string to the newfound badger. The string he fastened so that it caught the badger underneath the armpits, allowing the whole body to be manipulated by way of the stick. I then realized that all the innumerable carcasses sported the same apparatus. “More than a collection, really. It’s a monument. Not your normal style of monument, no. Not of some famous person, like them we have a habit of using a lot of metal for. Not a monumental triumph either, so to speak, those big piles of metal and so on to demonstrate the prowess, capability of man. No, no. This one runs counter to all of that, this one is really flesh.”
    He paused to consider, as he stroked his bare chin with the gory fingertips of his glove. “Plus, it’s more of a Zen garden of a monument. You know, some people have those little things with the sand, and shiny rocks, and it’s supposed to be all satisfying and cathartic to rearrange the little pieces and so on, rake the sand in another direction, be a master over something before going out into the real world and bungling everything else. I got me one of those, only I raised the scale a little. You see, today I make all the bigger animals out like they were islands of sorts, and all the little ones cloistered about for harbor and safety.”
    The diversity of deceased was impressive. Among their number was at least three mostly intact deer, a fair amount of rabbits, far too many skunks, the recent addition of a badger, several armadillos, a few birds, and even a full-grown bear. All inundated in a sea of dead squirrels.
    Their level of decomposition varied also, from a fairly pristine variety which allowed for the belief that the animal was just sleeping on its own accord, albeit a wooden pole strapped to its back. Others were spilling intestines and festering with maggots, and the straps were prone to slip right through the animal, finding no resistance that vitality used to provide. These latter variety were hardly recognizable by species, but alongside their brethren nonetheless.
    “Tomorrow I reverse the natural order of things, when I’m feeling ironic.” He chuckled a little bit to himself. “I bring the old car back here, and then heap all the animals up and over it. They make a swarm, overwhelm the hapless vehicle that has wandered into their realm, you see. It’s my way of commemorating what was lost to us. Nature means nothing to us, and roads mean nothing to animals. And many casualties result from this mutual ignorance, yeah? And like I was saying, fair representation exists of humans that have foundered against the great indifference of nature. Here’s to the other, to them, animals in the road. Roadkill.
    “Isn’t it curious? Only humans need to ‘get somewhere!’ Only humans have a friend in Miami, a relative in Pittsburgh, and need a nice convenient path to get to either. We place things that are dear so far from ourselves! How foreign this is to the animal, which could find everything it ever needed, whichever direction it chooses to go. No wonder they get confused when confronted with such obvious A to B mentality as a road. No wonder their confusion lasts until a collision with a human ends it all.
    “Anyway,” and he assumed once more the stance of a visionary—in much the way photographers box the world with their fingers, he surveyed his project over. “The next day, then I believe in the ultimate harmony of the world. No matter the species: bear and fish (yes, I have fish), snake and rat, deer and car; I place all side by side and all is festive, all is coexistence. The next day I observe the true natural order of things and split them all into their warring factions. And this goes on, and so on. What do you think?”
    I now will describe what transpired with me personally, as all of this was said. I almost immediately felt the compulsion to vomit, but thought that this could be easily mitigated by running away. I checked the door to find that it had been locked before swinging shut, barring my escape inside. I had an obligation to wait on the phone for Jackson, and had to be ready at my end of the line. This line, though, now circumscribed me like a tether into a ten foot radius of hell. I was now very conflicted, and feeling more and more sickly by the second. The smell, the smell was pervading everything, staining even the cleanest of memories in my head. The sight was also cause for concern. The contents of my stomach resolved into an enervating violence. I started questioning the value of life, toward the end.
    But suddenly, the beacon of shining salvation, in the form of Jackson’s voice, returned to the phone. “Oh, never mind,” he said, and hung up. He was gone before I could react, but even better, gone without Ron having noticed. Ron had inspired a vindictive rage in me, for having tied me up and subjecting me to this torture. So when the call was over, I discreetly dialed the numbers to the police station.
    “911, what is your emergency?”
    “Finally, not a minute too soon,” I responded. Ron had finished his harangue by now, and gave me a sympathetic smile, thinking my friend was finally reprieving me of the wait. Almost the truth. Truth enough.
    I covered the receiver slightly with my hand, to address Ron imploringly. “Is it alright if I invite my friend over to see this? You’ve really got something here.”
    “Of course, of course,” Ron was quick to acquiesce, with beaming pride.
    “What is your address, then?”
    “1680, West Sovereign Highway.”
    I returned to the phone. “Yeah, I have something I really think you should see over here… No, I can’t give you specifics, please just come. The address is 1680 West Sovereign Highway. You’ll be able to find it… Yes.”
    I just set the phone on the ground, it was the best I could do. I hoped 911 wouldn’t play that awkward “who’s going to hang up first” game, otherwise they’d still be waiting. Ron asked, “They’ll be over soon?”
    “Oh, I imagine. I’m going to get something quickly from my car.” I hurried around quickly to the front, which required wading through a large quantity of thick vegetation, and then reentered the house from the front. I imagined that if he had a Christmas tree anywhere, it would be in his cellar.
    The stairs were easy to locate, and so was the elongated box that ended up containing the tree inside. Sometimes life is convenient. I slung it over my shoulder and hobbled as best I could the short distance back to my car in the ditch. I forcefully shoved the tree into the trunk, and ramped back onto the road. I drove away. Ridding myself of it all.

A few weeks later my curiosity got the best of me, and I drove by just to see what came of it all. The front yard was just as unkempt as ever, which I could ascertain from the entrance, but in order to see the back I had to park and leave my vehicle.
    Whether the police had ordained it or not, the lot was entirely cleared except for a massive table off to one side. The ground was still stained in its morbid way, resembling a cherry hardwood floor, and the trees loomed just as ominously as ever, to the effect of walls, on account of the sheer way in which the scenery went from desolate to verdant at its borders. And the sky can make a great ceiling, if you let it. All had the appearance of a very large room then, and was less disturbing considered thus holistically. I stood there, contemplating all the good, practical uses of a table, before turning back and going along my way.