by Edward R. Rosick
It was on his twenty-eighth day out of jail when Kevin Ciano noticed the first black hair. He was drying off after his morning shower when a sharp, biting sensation in his right shoulder caused him to grimace in pain.
"What the hell?" Kevin grumbled, turning toward the mirror, expecting to see an inflamed zit or an insect bite. Instead, the steamy reflection showed a short, thick black hair sticking straight out of his pale, freckled skin.
"Great," Kevin groused to himself between sips of lukewarm coffee as he finished drying, "I'm starting to sprout hairs on my back. Next I'll be plucking them out of my nose and ears." He finished his coffee in one long gulp, quickly dressed, then ran outside, hoping he hadn't missed the bus, the presence of the hair vanishing from his mind.
Kevin had just finished sweeping the floors and was starting to count out the money from the cash register, when a hard knock on the front door of Big K records and tapes caused to visibly flinch.
"Hey, man, what's with the closed sign?" his friend Caesar asked, walking into the small, cramped record store after Kevin unlocked the door. "If Kinnerly happens to come strolling by and sees that you've closed up early--"
"Then I'd lose this wonderful job," Kevin finished for him. "Wouldn't that just be a fucking shame. Anyway, I'm due to close in less than an hour."
"Listen, man, I know it ain't the greatest job, but I had to do some ass-kissing with Kinnerly to get you hired on here, you know."
"I know, Caesar." Kevin sighed. "And I'm sorry if I don't sound grateful to you, getting me a job straight out of the can. I am. But shit, man, sometimes it's a swift kick in the ass to realize I'm thirty three-years old and working as a clerk in an alternative rock and roll record store."
"Compact discs, man. They don't do the vinyl stuff anymore."
"Yeah, whatever, Caesar."
"Hey, man, I'm just joking with you, you know, trying to lighten things up," Caesar smiled. "And hey, I've been where you're at. I know it's hard just getting out of the joint and all that, but it'll get better."
"Will it, Caesar? Will it really?" Kevin walked away from the counter and flipped through a rack of CDs. "I've never even heard of most of these bands," he commented. "Hell, Caesar, I was away for three years, and sometimes it feels like three hundred years, and I--" Kevin stopped speaking in mid-sentence and glanced down at his arm, then suddenly grabbed just below his elbow.
"What's wrong?"
"I just had these two nasty-ass shooting pains in my left elbow, like someone stuck a needle in me or something." Kevin stood in the middle of the floor with both elbows outstretched, finally lowering them slowly to his sides.
"You okay, Kev?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Kevin walked back to the counter and began place the money in neat stacks. "Guess I'm just falling apart," he tried to joke, his face still etched with pain.
"Well, K, ol' doctor Rameriez here can help you with that," Caesar said, walking behind the counter and pulling a small plastic bag out of his pants pocket. "I got some pretty bitchin' herb here. It'll cure what ails you."
Kevin dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "Right, Caesar, that's all I need now. Smoke weed, break parole, and go back to the can because I'm getting old and creaky."
"Well, man, if you need any, just let me know," Caesar remarked, rolling back up the bag. "Hey, Kev, your probie let you go out to play pool? They're having a pool tournament down at Anthony's tonight. Why don't you come down there with me? Hell, who knows, maybe we'll even run into some of our old girlfriends or something."
"I appreciate the offer, Caesar, but if I get to drinking I'll probably start doing my imitation of some two-bit country singer. I’d be telling how when I was in jail my old lady divorced me, sold our house and took my dog, one year-old daughter, and what remained of our bank account out to California."
"That's not funny, man."
Kevin looked out the window of the store at the setting sun and smiled sourly. "You're right, Caesar. It's not funny at all."
Kevin decided to walk home from the store instead of taking the bus or getting a ride from Caesar. The air was cool and clean, with just a hint of color changes in the leaves, signaling the beginning of autumn. The connection between the sudden pain in his elbow and the hair on his shoulder didn't even occur to him until he took off his shirt in his stuffy second-story flat.
"Son of a bitch," Kevin muttered, raising his elbows up closer to his face. Sticking out of his left elbow were two small, distinct hairs, looking exactly like the one on his shoulder. He moved behind the couch and turned his shoulder to a large, cracked mirror hanging off the half-painted wall. That hair seemed longer, thicker, and Kevin sat down hard on the couch.
"What the hell is happening to me?" He whispered, feeling a large, sour ball of fear growing in his guts. With a shaking hand he reached up to his left elbow and tentatively placed a finger on the two hairs. There was a mild sensation, almost like the touch of a vibrator or a weak electrical shock. Getting up from the couch, Kevin walked quickly into the bathroom. "Let's see how fast you grow if I keep you trimmed down," he said to the solitary hair on his shoulder, clumsily picking out a pair of scissors from the medicine cabinet. He carefully placed the metal against his skin, then immediately jerked his hand back, a stabbing pain surging in his shoulder as soon as the scissors touched the hair.
Guess I won't do that again, Kevin thought while walking slowly into his bedroom. Lying slowly and carefully down on his left side, he curled up into a tight ball, not bothering to turn off the dim overhead light.
Kevin slept intermittently through the night, ethereal nightmares crowding his mind. He finally crawled out of bed just as the sun was working its way over the eastern horizon.
Standing in the kitchen on unsteady legs, Kevin turned on one of the electric burners on his small, two burner hot plate and put a pot of water over it for coffee. He was afraid to look down at his body but knew it was inevitable. Walking back to his bedroom, he stripped out of his underwear and methodically began to inspect his slim, naked torso.
There were more of the coal-black hairs. Some were solitary, others in groups of two or three on both his arms, some on his legs, and two patches of them sprouting from his back.
Kevin stood in mute disbelief, naked and shivering, until he forced himself to put on some clothes, involuntarily wincing as the cloth lay down on his body. As he went back into the kitchen and mixed some instant coffee, Kevin forced himself to think, trying to calm the rumbling terror that was building up inside him.
There's no way I can go to work today he thought to himself, not on a couple hours of lousy sleep and all this craziness happening. He finished his coffee, then quickly made himself another cup, trying to wash out the weariness that held his brain and made his thoughts come out pedantic and slow.
All right, I need to figure out what's going on, and for that I need information, and the cheapest place to get information is the library. Sipping on his coffee, Kevin began to feel slightly more at ease, if only because he had some small bit of hope, real or imagined, to find out what was going on with his body. He tried to convince himself that he was being paranoid, that it would probably turn out to be nothing, maybe just a reaction to the stress of leaving prison and having a life again, or maybe some type of reaction to a food, or an allergy brought on by the change of seasons. He focused hard on these thoughts of hope, for if he didn't, he knew much darker thoughts of terror and insanity would quite readily take their place.
Kevin was opening his second pack of cigarettes of the early afternoon when he heard a sharp knocking on his door. He remained quiet for a moment as the pounding continued, and only got up when he heard Caesar's muffled voice behind the old wooden door.
"Hey, man, what's up?" Caesar asked, walking into the flat. "Figured you'd be up here."
"Yeah, why's that?"
"Because I stopped by your store and you weren't there. My boss gave me an extra hour at lunch to drop off some expansion plans for the plant downtown, so I stopped by to drop you off an application to my shop. Heard they might be hiring a couple new guys in the next few months to apprentice on the lathes." He threw a thrice-folded form on Kevin's lap, then sat down across from him, taking out a cigarette from the newly opened pack.
"Kinnerly was working the counter at the store," Caesar remarked after lighting up the cigarette. "He was pissed, Kevin. Quite pissed."
"That's too damn bad. I mean, I call in sick one lousy day and he blows a nut? C'mon, man, cut me some slack."
"Yeah, he said you called in sick this morning." Caesar picked up the pack of cigarettes and waved them at Kevin. "I thought you quit these."
"I found some money tree in my closet and didn't have anything better to do with all the tens and twenties hanging from it."
"You know these fucking things will probably kick up your asthma again, but hey, it's your life." Caesar leafed nonchalantly through the library books scattered on the floor. "So what gives with all these medical books, Kev? You really sick or something?"
Kevin looked down at his friend, then suddenly got up from the couch and began pacing back and forth in the small living room.
"Caesar, remember yesterday at the store, when I told you I had these sharp pains in my elbow?"
Caesar stared at him for a moment with a perplexed look on his face, finally shrugging his shoulders. "I guess so. What the hell's that got to do with you calling in sick today?"
"Listen, I went to the library today to get all these books, but man, I'm getting scared, Caesar. Really scared."
"Kevin, right now I have no idea what you're rambling about, and that's scaring me."
"Okay, man, okay," Kevin said nervously, stopping his pacing to squat down next to Caesar. "But before I tell you, before I show you, just promise not to say anything right away, okay?"
"Whatever, K."
"All right, well. . .hell, just look," Kevin said, standing up and taking off his shirt.
"What the fuck are those things, Kevin?" Caesar questioned as he walked around his friend, examining the hairs. "I mean, they look like hairs, but--"
"But they're not just hairs," Kevin said, then brushed away Caesar's hand as he moved to touch one on Kevin's back.
"No, man, it hurts like hell if you touch 'em too hard."
"Sorry," Caesar apologized, sitting down on the couch and lighting up another cigarette. "So have you, like, figured out with any of these books what they are?"
"No. I mean, I learned all sorts of great things about abnormal hair growth, hiursutism it's called, but this, well, this seems to be something nobody really gives a shit about. Or knows anything about."
"Man, you need to see a doctor or something."
"C'mon, Caesar, I just got out of the can, remember? I can't just look one up in the yellow pages and say, hey doc, I'm a just-released con without any money but I have these hair-things growing out of my body and you feel like taking a look at them for free?"
"I know, Kev, I know, but maybe you could--"
"Could what?" Kevin interrupted after putting back on his baggy shirt. "No doctor is going to see me without any green." He sat down hard on the couch and motioned to Caesar. "You got any weed on you?"
"What?"
"You know, that killer dope you said you had yesterday."
"Well, yeah, I got a couple joints on me."
"Then light one up. If I can't go to a doctor to give me some medicine for this, I might as well treat it the best way I know how."
Caesar looked at the slumped form of his friend on the couch, then shrugged and pulled out two thin joints, lighting up two and passing one to Kevin. They sat in silence for a moment, the air growing redolent with the odor of cannabis, until finally Caesar stood up.
"All right, man, how's this for a plan. I'll call my boss and tell him I've been tossin' up my lunch, hell, I got a lot of sick time coming anyway. Then we'll go out to get something to eat and put our brains together and figure out how to deal with this craziness."
Kevin blew out a long, thin line of smoke and nodded appreciatively toward Caesar. "I think that sounds like a plan, Mr. Rameriez. A damn fine plan."
Kevin and Caesar spent the rest of the afternoon downing a pitcher of beer and two greasy pizzas at their favorite hangout. After finishing the food, they made plans to meet that evening for some pool down at Anthony's.
Kevin haphazardly worked on the job application material for an hour after he got home, then decided to try to take a shower to help clear up the lingering dullness he still felt. Making sure the water was only lukewarm and coming out in a weak, thin stream, he carefully stripped off his clothes and entered the stall.
It felt like being hit with a hundred pellets from a BB-gun as the water splattered on the hairs; Kevin could only stand the pain for a couple of minutes. He spent the rest of the time in the shower gingerly rinsing off soap with tiny handfuls of water.
Kevin had just started drying off when the phone rang. He half-considered not answering, but then changed his mind and wrapped a towel around his head before walking out into the living room and picking up the phone.
"Hey, K, what's happening?" he heard a female voice say on the other end of the line.
"Nothing much," Kevin said, trying to figure out the face behind the voice.
"You don't know who this is, do you?" the woman spoke.
"To tell you the truth, I don't," he answered.
"C'mon, don't tell me you've forgotten your main squeeze already?"
Main squeeze? "I'm really sorry," Kevin apologized, "but after being away for three years my memory sometimes fails me."
"Well, okay. It's Cara."
Still nothing. "Cara? Cara--"
"Cara Simone. C'mon, Kev, don't be shitting me here."
Cara Simone from Rockford? "Cara Simone? Hell, girl, it's been a few years."
"I know," she said, "too many years. Anyway, I heard you was back in town, so I thought I'd give you a call."
"I'm glad you did. Caesar give you the news about me?"
"Uh-huh. Anyway, what are you doin' tonight?"
"Ah, nothing really," Kevin answered, looking at the mass of paper-work spread out on the floor. "You got something in mind?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, I thought maybe you'd like to come over for a while."
Damn, maybe my luck is finally changing for the better. He thought. "Yeah, Cara, that would be great. Where you living these days?"
"I'm in a small apartment Complex right on the corner of Orange and Fort."
"Hell, girl, that's only a mile or so down the road from me."
"Then why aren't you over here right now?" she laughed.
"Listen, give me a half hour or so, and I'll be there."
"Great. I'm in apartment six, on the north corner, third floor. See you in a few."
Kevin chuckled to himself as he placed the phone down, then sat on the edge of the couch. Maybe this is the start of things getting better he thought, maybe things are finally starting to look up. He pushed the application form on the floor with his toes, promising himself that he'd get up early tomorrow morning before work to fill it out. I'll drop it off during my lunch hour and figure out how to see a doctor and things will be all right.
He tried very hard to hold onto that last thought while he finished drying off, being very careful to not touch any of the hairs.
"Hey, Cara, how you doing?"
"Real good, now that you're here, Kevin," Cara answered as she ushered Kevin inside from the open third-story walkway. He quickly walked in, not wanting to have to face a tight embrace.
"Nice little place you got here," Kevin commented, standing in the middle of her modestly furnished living room.
"Thanks. Sure beats the hell out of that dump I lived in out in Rockford, eh?"
"Well, I can't say I remember too much about that place, except you did have a pretty nice bedroom."
"Yeah, we did spend a lot of time there, didn't we?" she laughed. "Anyway, listen, have a seat while I pour us some drinks." She walked into the kitchen and pulled out a fifth of Jack Daniels. "So Caesar said you just got out of prison a little while ago."
"Just about a month ago."
"You know, I've never been out with a guy who did time," Cara observed, placing some tall, thin colored glass tubes into a wooden rack. "What's it like, being locked up with a thousand other guys?"
"I thought it sucked, but that's just my take on it. Some guys liked it. Some guys hated it so much they killed themselves. Most of them just tried to get by without too much hassle."
"So what the hell did you get busted for, if you don't mind me asking?" Cara questioned as she stood in the kitchen, pouring the bourbon into the glass tubes.
"For being a stupid nice guy."
"What?"
"I was shooting pool over in Ecorse when these four guys suddenly start pounding the shit out of some drunk little Mexican. For some reason I thought I'd be a nice guy and help him out, so I broke the biggest dude's face open with a pool cue." Kevin stopped speaking for a moment as Cara placed the shooters in front of him. "However," he continued on, "it turned out the dude was the son of South Detroit's police chief."
"Oh, man, that wasn't good," Cara said, sitting down on the couch.
"No, it wasn't good at all. The chief made the Mexican disappear and made sure I received a real nice sentence. And that was the end of that." He pounded down two shots in quick succession, then moved closer to Cara. "Anyway, it's old history. What's been up with you?"
Cara smiled provocatively, then pulled off her oversized sweat-shirt, revealing a tight black tank-top that read GlamorGirls in loud fluorescent lettering.
"GlamorGirls? Isn't that the high-priced strip joint off Eight-mile?"
"It's not a strip joint. It's a gentlemen's exotic dance club."
"Sorry, my mistake. So when did you start working at this gentlemen's exotic dance club?"
"When I learned from a friend of mine just how much money I could make dancing there," she smiled after downing two of the shooters. "You know what I get paid?"
"I have no idea."
"It's such a sweet deal. I dry hump old men and frat boys during a two and a half minute song and get twenty-five in cash. They get blue balls, and I get their green."
"Sounds like a hell of a deal to me."
"It is," she laughed wickedly, then quickly downed another shot as she pushed her body into Kevin's. "So I hear you guys do a lot of weight lifting in prison."
"I did my share," Kevin shrugged as he finished off another one of the shooters, already starting to feel the effects of the alcohol.
"I thought so. You look pretty nice and trim under those clothes. Of course, you always did have a pretty hot bod."
"Yeah? Then why'd you dump me?" Kevin asked, half in jest.
"C'mon, Kev, that was almost five years ago. I was young, crazy--"
"And Leon Means had a Black 300Z."
"And Leon Means had a Black 300Z," Cara laughed, leaning into Kevin's body, and he moved away as she pressed down hard on one of the hairs on his arm.
"Hey, what's the matter?"
"Nothing," Kevin lied, moving back close to her. "Just an old shoulder injury I got in the joint."
"Really? You want me to rub it and make it all better?"
"I can think of other things you can rub that would make everything all better."
"You nasty boy," Cara giggled, reaching up and unbuttoning Kevin's shirt. "How about if I start up here and then go down?"
"Sounds like a winning plan to me," Kevin said, trying to give in to the numbing effects of the Jack Daniel's, trying to relax and forget everything else in his life. Cara's hand expertly undid his belt and zipped down his pants while kissing his chest, lightly teasing his nipples with her tongue. His breathing began to quicken as she moved further down until he could feel her lips on his cock, then taking him deep into her mouth.
"Shit!" Cara exclaimed, jerking her head up from his lap, holding both her hands on her left cheek.
"What's the matter?"
"Something jabbed me," she frowned, still rubbing her cheek. "There!" she remarked, pointing with one hand down at his crotch. "What the fuck are those things?"
Kevin looked down and shook his head from side to side, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. "They're ah, they're just hairs," he finally muttered. On both sides of his already shrinking cock, like tiny, miniature bull horns, were two straight black hairs sticking out of his red pubes. "Some people just, ah, just have different colored hairs on their body, that's all."
"Then why in the hell did they feel like two needles going into my face?" Cara grumbled, still rubbing her cheek.
"I don't know, Cara. Sometimes hairs just feel like that, I'm sure--"
"No, Kev," she interrupted, "these hairs of yours are definitely some nasty little sons-of-bitches."
Kevin suddenly felt stupid sitting on the couch with his pants down around his ankles and reached to pull them up. "Listen, Cara, I appreciate you asking me over, but it just doesn't seem to--"
"C'mon, Kev, the night is still young," she interrupted again, playfully pushing him back on the couch, "and besides, I have an idea."
"Like what?"
"Like I pull out those two pesky little hairs, get back down to business, then let you get down to business on me."
"You want to pull the hairs out?"
"Uh-huh. I'm sure with just a little tug they'll come right out.
"Cara, I just don't think I could handle that. I mean, I'm just not into the whole pain scene at all."
"Look, I'll just pull one out, and you'll see it won't hurt." She pushed up against Kevin, giving him a long, deep kiss, her hand slipping between his legs to caress his balls. "And then I can make you feel real good."
Kevin leaned forward and quickly downed the two remaining shooters. "All right," he finally agreed, knowing he was making the wrong decision but unable to say no.
"Good!" Cara squealed, then jumped off the couch and ran into the bathroom, returning a few seconds later with a large pair of tweezers in her hand.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"Uh-huh," Kevin grunted, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
"Okay, on three then. One, two, three!" She grabbed the hair with the tweezers and gave a quick, strong pull, and Kevin felt something rip, felt something tear deep inside him.
"Oh fuck," Cara swore, her voice sounding hollow and distant. "Man, Kevin, you're bleeding like a stuck pig." She jumped off the couch and grabbed a dirty towel off the kitchen table, then threw it over his groin. "Here, hold this towel up against it. C'mon, Kevin, you're bleeding all over my couch."
"I'm. . .I'm sorry," Kevin spoke as he opened his eyes, the room spinning, the pain hot and intense.
"You look fucking terrible," he heard Cara say, as he closed his eyes again.
"And I feel fucking terrible," he agreed, trying hard to slow his rapid breathing, trying hard to keep from passing out.
"Listen, Kev, I think you should leave."
"All right," Kevin answered, his eyes still shut, "just give me a few minutes and--"
"No, Kevin, I mean now," Cara announced, fear and anger in her voice. "I mean, maybe you probably picked up some kind of shit in prison, and I don't need to get no crazy shit, just getting that job down at GlamorGirls and all, things finally going good for me and I don't need no crazy shit right now."
"All right, Cara, just calm down and let me sit here a few more minutes."
"Now, Kevin." Her voice was flat and hard, and he opened his eyes as he heard the hammer of a gun being cocked. Cara stood five feet away, holding in her shaking hands what looked like an old police-style thirty-eight special.
"Listen, Cara, I'm moving, okay, see, I'm moving." Deliberately and carefully Kevin wrapped the towel around his crotch and pulled his pants up, all the while keeping eye contact with Cara.
"I don't need this crazy shit, Kevin," Cara said as he finished putting on his pants and slowly made his way to the door. "I mean, I thought maybe we could have fun like we used to, maybe make each other feel good you know, but this is way too fucking weird."
"Yeah, Cara, it is," Kevin mumbled in pain, closing the door behind him and stepping out into the cold night air.
Kevin was crouched over his toilet in the throngs of severe dry heaves when he heard the phone ringing. He continued choking over the porcelain for a minute or so more, then crawled into the living room.
"Yeah?" Kevin mumbled into the receiver, his eyes squinting in the glare of the late morning sun shining through the windows.
"Ciano? Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to reach you since nine this morning."
It took Kevin a few seconds to recognize the voice of Alan Kinnerly. "Sorry, Mister Kinnerly, I've been, ah, I've been sick."
"You've been sick? Well, Kevin, let me tell you this: Being an ex-con who doesn't call in when he's sick won't get you very far in the working world."
"Listen, I'm really sorry. It's just that, well--"
"Can the excuse," Kinnerly interrupted. "Just get in here in the next half-hour and I'll forget it."
Kevin blinked hard a few times and felt his stomach rumbling again. "Mister Kinnerly, I really don't think I can make it in today, maybe, ah, maybe I can--"
"You make it in here in the next half hour or you're fired." The line went dead, and Kevin let the phone handset drop haphazardly down.
"What's fucking next?" Kevin said to himself, sitting back against the couch. He pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack on the floor, then lit it with shaking hands. He sat in that same spot for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette, finally getting up to answer the pounding on his door when it became evident the person wasn't going to stop.
"Yeah, who is it?" Kevin said, leaning heavily up against the wood.
"It's Caesar, Kev. C'mon, open the damn door up."
Kevin unlocked the door then shuffled back to his spot in front of the couch.
"What's going on, man?" Caesar asked. Kevin said nothing as he took a drink from a half-empty bottle of cheap gin.
"Whew, man, you need to get some air in here," Caesar remarked, ignoring his friend's indifference. "It's really nice outside today."
"What's the matter, don't like the fine aroma of puke and booze and cigarettes?"
Caesar paced the floor in front of Kevin, finally squatting down in front of him. "So what's the deal here, K? I mean, you blew me off last night, don't show up to work, and now you're living in a fucking pig-pen."
"Yeah, well, it was sort of your fault."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean my old girlfriend, Cara Simone, gave me a call last night and invited me over."
"No shit," Caesar said, his face momentarily lighting up. "I met her up at Anthony's a few days ago, we got to talking, and I ended up giving her your phone number. What happened?"
"It didn't work out," Kevin answered. "You got any dope on you?"
"Yeah, I got some." Caesar pulled out a fat bag of joints and tossed one to Kevin. He lit it up, then offered it to Caesar, who declined with a shake of his head.
"So how's the hair problem going?" Caesar finally asked.
"The hair problem, Caesar? Well my man, that problem is going poorly. Very poorly."
"Shit man, that sucks. More of 'em?"
Kevin shrugged and took another long hit off the joint. "Yeah, there's a few more," he answered. "And of course the old ones are getting bigger and more painful." He took another quick hit off the joint, then stared at his hand. "Surprised I don't have any on my palms," he said, blowing the smoke onto his skin, "seeing as how I beat off pretty regularly when I was in the can. Isn't that what they used to tell us, that you'll get hairs on your palm if you masturbate?"
"Yeah, Kev, that's what they used to tell us."
"Maybe it's fucking cancer," Kevin blurted out after taking a long drink of gin.
"I don't think so, Kev. I mean, you told me these, these hair-things have been growing just in the last few days. I don't think any cancer grows that fast. Besides, you're not having anything else going on, are you?"
"This is enough, Caesar."
"I know man, but if it was some kind of crazy cancer you would think you'd be really sick."
"Then what the fuck is it?"
"I don't know."
Kevin suddenly got up and Caesar quickly backed away, almost knocking down the lone lamp in the living room.
Kevin stood quietly for a moment, smoking down the joint to a glowing roach that he dropped and crushed out with his foot. "So if you don't think it's serious, Caesar, why'd you just jump away from me, or not want to smoke this weed with me? Afraid you're going to catch something?"
"I do think it's serious, Kevin," Caesar replied, embarrassment in his voice. "Something is going on with you man, something bad." He moved closer and put his hand on top of Kevin's. "C'mon, man, let me take you to the ER. We'll figure out some way to pay for it."
"I appreciate it, Caesar. But how? Go down to the nearest crack house and ask if I can slang for 'em?" He sat down carefully on the couch, gin bottle in hand. "You know, I played by the rules, did my fucking time for my terrible crime against humanity. And when I got out last month, I just wanted to get my life in order again, get a job, stay clean, maybe even save up some money and go see my little Jesse. But now it's all gone straight to fucking hell. "
"Kev, I know you don't want to hear it, but you need to go see a doctor."
"No!" Kevin screamed. "I'm not gonna be a freak show, let the fucking doctors gawk at me, hell man, can't you just hear when they see me, 'hey there everybody, take a look at the freak ex-con who's turned. . .turned into a damn wolf-man.'" His voice trailed off into cracking sobs as he unsteadily stood in the center of the living room.
Caesar backed away from Kevin and threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of defeat. "Whatever you want then, Kev. I mean, I got no more ideas. I think that going to the E-R would be the best thing to get this taken care of, but it's your choice."
"I'll think about it, Caesar," Kevin mumbled after a long moment of silence.
"I hope you do, man, I really do." Caesar shifted uncomfortably around on his feet, then pulled the bag of joints and some money from his pocket. "Listen, Kev, I'm going up-state for the next couple days to train some guys at our new plant in Grayling, but I'll leave you my number so you can call me if anything more comes up."
"I'll be okay," Kevin said, waving Caesar off with his hand.
"C'mon, man, don't be a martyr." Caesar placed the bag of joints and money in Kevin's hand.
"All right," Kevin sighed. "But listen, Caesar, do me one last favor before you leave."
"What's that?"
"Go down to Jerry's," he said, handing Caesar one of the twenty dollar bills, "and buy me a carton of cigarettes and as much whiskey as you can."
The next two days for Kevin were a mix of numerous trips to the bathroom, dry heaves, and nightmares. The dreams were the worst for Kevin, terrible visions of the hairs forming an air-tight cocoon around him, bloody, terrible images of the hairs tearing themselves from his body, each forming into giant slugs with row upon row of razor teeth. He awoke the next day from a nightmare, shivering with cold and fear in his bed.
"Caesar's right," Kevin mumbled to himself, sitting up on his bed, "I have to get to a hospital. I can't go on like this. I can't live like this." Without much conscious thought he began to dress, trying to clear the hellish dreams from his mind, trying to figure out just what the hell he was going to say to the doctor.
The trip downtown on the bus to Saint Lawrence Hospital was uneventful. The hospital's E-R was filled with a mass of sweating humanity; haggard mothers holding their screaming infants smelling of urine and soiled diapers, drunks lying on the floor with thin strands of spit and vomitus dripping out of their mouths, a dark symphony of downcast, half-hidden nameless faces who could turn nowhere else for help. After what seemed like days, Kevin found himself standing at the check-in covered by a bulletproof window, staring at a triage nurse who looked as tired as he felt.
"Name?" she questioned, looking up from the mass of paperwork surrounding her.
"Kevin Ciano."
"Any insurance, private, public, Medicare, Medicaid?"
"No."
The nurse pushed a clipboard holding a form and dull pencil to Kevin. "Fill this out to the best of your ability. Hand it to the nurse or attendant when you're called."
"Thank you," Kevin said, moving with his clipboard to the least-crowded part of the room. Slowly, methodically, he filled out the form as best he could, staring for a long time at the section entitled complaint. He finally scribbled in migraine headaches.
The hours seemed to slow into years while Kevin waited nervously. He stood in a corner of the room, shifting back and forth on his feet, not daring to sit down with the rest of the patients jammed into the waiting room seats. The nurse behind the counter would occasionally pound on the window when someone got too loud or obnoxious; otherwise, the only break in the monotony was when a patient was called in by an extremely tall orderly with acne scars pocking his face.
Kevin had almost fallen asleep when a searing pain deep in his shoulder caused him to wince in pain. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then looked down at his watch. Two fucking hours and I don't think more than six people have been called back. There's no way I can wait much longer. Spying a lone doctor standing near the entrance doors, Kevin pulled together the last remnants of his courage and walked over to her.
"Excuse me, ah," he quickly glanced down at her I.D. badge, "Doctor Walton. My name is Kevin Ciano, and I have this, this problem that's a little hard to talk about."
The doctor impatiently waved her hand in front of Kevin's face and stepped away from him. "Sir, have you been called back here?"
"Well, no, but--"
"Is there a problem here, Laurie?" Kevin heard a voice boom out behind him, and he turned his head to see the tall orderly.
"I don't think so, Michael," the doctor replied. "I think this patient was a bit confused, that's all."
"Yeah, I guess I was," Kevin said, defeat thick in his voice.
"Oh shit, the voodoo man's here," Doctor Walton suddenly cursed. "How the hell did he get in again?"
Kevin turned around, at first not even seeing the man. It was the woman he instantly focused on, a tall, pale figure wearing impossibly out-of-date clothes. He watched her standing perfectly still in the room, scanning the area like a hawk looking over a grassy field. Finally, Kevin noticed some movement in her shadow, recognizing it as the figure of a man.
Nehimiah came shuffling out from behind the woman. His eyes were magnified behind thick glasses, and hard lines of time cut into his ebony face like the work of a mad surgeon. He wore a two-sizes too-large dark blue three-piece suit, and held tightly in his left hand a cracked and peeling wooden cane.
"Get him out of here," Doctor Walton whispered urgently to the orderly as Nehimiah moved toward them, his female companion two steps behind. "If he causes another ruckus like last Saturday, I'll--"
"You need help." Nehimiah's voice rang out low and strong, and his words were directed at Kevin. It was said it as a statement rather then a question, and that would have bothered Kevin in less insane days.
"Yeah, I need help," Kevin spoke. "Can you help me?"
"Perhaps," Nehimiah replied, then motioned to Kevin as both he and his companion turned back around, walking out of the emergency room entrance into the cool evening air. Kevin glanced over his shoulder at the doctor, then followed Nehimiah outside.
"I was almost one of them once, one of those doctors," Nehimiah observed, contempt thick in his voice as the three walked down the garbage-laden streets, "but I saw the wickedness of their ways, their sinfulness of pretending to be God when they were really acting on the behalf of the devil."
Kevin nodded his head in weak acknowledgment, afraid to say anything, afraid to think about the path he was taking. Two more blocks down the street they stopped in front of a boarded up store front. Hanging over the door was a crude, hand-painted sign that read Woodward Ave. Spiritual Clinic. Above that were dim Neon lights flashing Je_us _aves.
"Please, come in," Nehimiah said to Kevin after the woman unlocked two large padlocks on the door. The room was heavy with the odors of ammonia and rubbing alcohol.
Nehimiah nodded to the woman, then looked over at Kevin. "Our flock should be here shortly, my friend, and then we can all share in the healing powers of the Lord."
"Ah, I don't think I can talk about my problem in front of a group of strangers."
Nehimiah furrowed his brow in apparent confusion, then shrugged his skinny shoulders. "I suppose if you wish to first talk alone, you and I can do that. Yes, we will talk, and then you will be more at ease to tell your sins to the flock when they come." He turned and walked into a dark hallway. Kevin followed, his eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light, nearly bumping into a wall as Nehimiah made a sharp left in what appeared to be an old storage room.
"Here is where I heal, if the Lord wills it," Nehimiah proudly said after switching on a solitary overhead fluorescent light, which hissed and blinked as if angry for being awoken.
"How often do you, ah, do you heal people here?" Kevin asked, noticing the thick layer of dust on the floor and
counter tops.
"Oh, almost every night. Often I become quite tired, but the Lord's work is never over." Nehimiah pulled two black plastic chairs from the corner. "Here, sit and tell me your sins so I may help you."
"My sins? Listen, it's my pain that's the--"
"You're in pain, physical pain?" Nehimiah interrupted, his eyes growing huge behind his thick spectacles. "I can help you with that, oh yes I can." He moved closer to Kevin and spoke in a low, serious tone. "My companion sitting in front, Carolyn, was in great pain when we first met. Her pain came from an affair with a legion of Mephistopheles' own. But I removed the bad seed they placed in her, the seed which was causing her so much pain. Would you like to see it?"
Before Kevin could answer, Nehimiah got up from the chair and began opening cupboards on the opposite wall. "Here it is,"
Nehimiah finally said, pulling out an old mason jar. He pushed it in front of Kevin, who was horrified to see a well-formed fetus floating in fluid.
"I got you, didn't I, you demon-spawn, and without the training of those fancy heathen doctors," Nehimiah cackled as he stared with huge owl-eyes into the jar, swishing the thick yellow liquid back and forth, the fetus's spidery limbs slowing moving about in a nightmarish pirouette of unheard music. "Yes, I remember how you jerked and squirmed when I pulled you out of Carolyn's hole, but you stopped your protests soon enough when I called on the Lord."
"Look man, I shouldn't have came here," Kevin sputtered, getting up out of his chair while Nehimiah placed the jar back in the cupboard. "I don't know what got into me back in the E-R, I mean, I'm not cut out for this type of, this type of healing."
"You haven't even let me look at your source of pain yet," Nehimiah said, a note of dejection in his voice. "You know it's the Lord's will that you be healed, don't you?"
"All I know is that your place here isn't for me," Kevin answered, turning away to walk out of the room.
"Wait!" Nehimiah cried, grabbing Kevin's arm. Kevin screamed in pain and fell against the wall, holding his arm tightly against his chest.
"Don't do that," he gasped in a ragged whisper.
"You truly are in pain," Nehimiah said in awe, "pain that I know only the Lord can heal. Open your heart so the Lord may come into me so I may let his healing powers come into you."
"You really want to see what causes my pain?" Kevin angrily asked Nehimiah, who still stood up against the door. "Okay, fine, take a look at what your Lord has given me." He tore off his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, opening it wide in front of
Nehimiah.
"Those are indeed very strange markings, very strange markings," Nehimiah said, peering intently at Kevin's chest. "They are over your entire body?"
"Oh yeah, just about everywhere." Kevin shook his head in disgust and quickly buttoned up his shirt. "So what do you think it is, doctor?"
"I don't know," Nehimiah said, oblivious to Kevin's sarcasm. "Perhaps somewhere in your life you absorbed some type of poison, and now it is coming out."
"What?"
"Yes, yes, perhaps a, a poison of the heart," Nehimiah said, his myopic eyes twinkling with the idea. "This poison has entered into you and now it is growing both outward and inward, reaching for your soul to feed on."
"You're crazy."
"Sometimes the Lord's truth is unbelievable, but it is still the truth."
"Why me, then?" Kevin asked, wanting to run out, yet still wanting an answer, any answer, even more. "Why did your God put this shit on me?"
"Maybe you were somehow ready for this burden. Maybe you were an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Or maybe this disease should be looked on as a blessing rather than a curse."
"A blessing?" Kevin spat incredulously. "Man, you have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, but I do," Nehimiah said, smiling widely. "When I was your age, I too thought I was cursed, but then I turned to the Lord, and He alone showed me the truth." Nehimiah took off his jacket and vest and began walking toward Kevin. "You see, I carry the sins of my mother, a woman who was an alcoholic whore, a grievous sinner who swore, lied, stole, murdered, and cavorted with licentious men. I was the result of one of those disgusting encounters, and my blessing is a reminder of my sinful heritage, so that I would always remember what happens when one forgets about the vengeance and anger of the Lord." Like a shy little boy, Nehimiah took off his shirt, and in the dim light filtering out of the storeroom, his blessing could be seen.
On his shrunken, hairless chest, pushing out through the dark skin where his left nipple should have been, was an
albino-white face. Its two tiny eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but its mouth was open, as if caught in mid-scream, three jagged yellow teeth protruding out at oblique angles from paper-thin translucent lips.
" What is it?" Kevin whispered.
"I believe he's my brother," Nehimiah answered, nonchalantly picking up the head by its few wispy hairs that sprouted like withered grass on top of the thing's leathery head. "Yes, he and I have been together all these years, and believe me, there were many times when I considered him a curse, an abomination to haunt me forever. It was only when I accepted him, only when I realized that he was a true blessing, did the Lord allow him to awake."
Kevin backed slowly down the hall, still staring at the shrunken head on Nehimiah's chest. "What do you mean, awake?"
"I mean he comes alive," Nehimiah smiled, tenderly stroking the cheeks of the head. "When the Spirit comes into me, my brother wakes up and talks, yes talks of all the things that can be done in the name of the Lord!"
Kevin had no trouble not asking any more questions as he turned and ran, hearing the voice of Nehimiah calling to him long into the night.
Kevin could smell the smoldering fire before he saw the faint tongues of yellow flame jumping out of the fifty-gallon overturned oil drum. He had wandered down various streets and alleys, slowly and methodically draining the last pint of whiskey he had stored in his jacket, not caring where he was going, not caring about anything. The fire gave him a temporary focus, and he followed its trail of smoke down an embankment near a freeway overpass. He worked his way through mounds of trash and garbage, absently throwing some nearby broken two-by-fours into the fire when he finally reached it.
"Hey, chief, mind sharing that drink?"
Kevin turned quickly around to see two men in the flickering light of the fire walking down the embankment.
"Hey, chief, didn't mean to startle you," the younger-appearing of the two men spoke. "Me and Juan got this fire cranked up earlier, but Juan found some green stuffed in his coat that he done forgot about, so we went out and got us some wine to cook our tar with."
"Yeah, whatever," Kevin remarked. "Here, have a drink."
"Man, that's real good stuff, that is," the man named Jimmy-D said after taking a long draw off the whiskey bottle. He handed it back to Kevin, who waved him away.
"Go ahead, finish it."
"Well, thank you much." Jimmy-D took another drink then handed the bottle to his friend. "Here, have a drink, Juan."
"So you down here looking to buy?" Jimmy-D asked Kevin.
"No. I'm not looking for anything."
"Oh." Jimmy-D shrugged his scrawny shoulders and motioned to Juan. "Lemme have the junk, man. I'm startin' to get itchy."
Juan finished the last swallow from the bottle, then tossed it off to the side, the glass breaking with a sharp sound in the darkness. He dug into a pocket of his baggy coat for a few seconds, then pulled out a small, rectangular piece of aluminum foil and handed it to Jimmy-D. Kevin watched with mild interest, pulling out what remained of the joints Caesar had given him and lit one up. He offered it to Jimmy-D, who shook his head from side to side.
'Preciate it, chief," Jimmy-D smiled as he expertly wrapped his upper right arm with a soiled red bandanna, "but a pot buzz isn't what I'm looking for." He sat down on some newspapers next to the trashcan and emptied the contents of the aluminum foil onto a tablespoon.
"We'd share with you, but we both got the AIDS," Jimmy-D said matter-of-factly while pouring some wine over the heroin on the spoon before firing up a lighter underneath it. "Me and Juan just get high with each other now."
"How do you deal with it?" Kevin asked. "How do you deal with having something you know is killing you?"
"You just go day by day," Juan answered as Jimmy-D filled up a used syringe and shot up the heroin into a bulging vein in his right hand. "I was on some of that AZT and other fancy shit for a while, but then the state cut off funding and the hospital said I would have to pay five hundred dollars a week for it!" He laughed sourly and moved closer to the fire.
"I told 'em that I could buy the finest junk in town if I had that kind of jazz." He bent down to get the spoon and syringe from Jimmy-D. "Why you asking?" he questioned Kevin. "You got the AIDS, too?"
"No, not AIDS, but something nasty. Something that's killing me just the same."
"Somethin' what?"
"Something fucked. You boys want to see something really fucked up?"
"Sure, man," Jimmy-D answered, a sloppy, dreamy smile already etched on his dirty face.
Kevin opened up his coat and shirt and took a step toward the light of the flames, the fire feeling hot and tingly on the hairs.
"Hey, man, that's some pretty fuckin' wild looking shit," Jimmy-D slurred. "What the fuck is it?"
"Don't know," Jonathan said after taking another huge hit off the joint. "Some crazy healer down on Woodward said it was maybe some type of poison."
"Why don't you just pull 'em out?" Juan asked, staring intently at the hairs.
"Pull them out?" Kevin questioned, quickly burning down the joint with two more deep puffs.
"Fuckin' a right," Juan said. "See this?" he asked, opening his mouth and pointing to his lower jaw. "Fuckin' teeth were fuckin' rotten, so I took me my pliers here and yanked 'em out!" He smiled a manic, toothless smile and pulled from his pants a pair of rusted pliers, waving them around in slow motion like a mad conductor in front of an invisible orchestra.
"Remember, Juan, I helped too," Jimmy-D mumbled happily. "I helped get out those back ones, 'member?"
"Yeah, Jimmy, I remember, and you did a real fine job," Juan said, still waving the pliers around in large, lazy circles.
"Didn't it hurt like hell?" Kevin asked Juan. "How the hell did you handle the pain of pulling your own teeth out?"
"Yeah, I guess it fuckin' hurt," Juan answered after thinking about the question for a moment. "But they was doing me no good and hurtin' like hell anyway, so I figured if I could jus' get through one big hurt, then all the hurt would go away."
"Makes sense, I guess," Kevin said, more to himself than to anyone else, taking one last long drag off the joint before flicking it in the trashcan. "So you think maybe I should just go through one big hurt and get rid of all these nasty fucking things?"
"It's your life, man. Do what you gotta do."
Kevin nodded slowly and threw more pieces of wood in the trashcan, sending orange and red glowing embers floating in the air around them. Scrounging around in the trash heap, he soon found a foot-long piece of metal bumper from a junked car and placed it on top of the trash can.
"If I start bleeding too much, one of you is going to have to cauterize the wound with this," Kevin said, pointing at the piece of bumper that was already glowing blue and gold with the heat. "You understand what I mean?"
"Yeah, man, no problem. I can do that," Juan excitedly said. "Blood and shit don't bother me at all, right Jimmy-D?"
"That's right, man," Jimmy-D answered slowly, his eyes half closed. "Hey, Juan, aren't you gonna cook your shit?"
"After this, man," Juan answered, intently watching as Kevin took off his coat, shirt, and gloves and stood in the light and heat of the oil drum fire.
"So who's first?" Kevin questioned, looking down at his body, over his legs and arms, until his blurred vision fell upon the long, solitary hair on his right shoulder. It seemed to be twitching, moving, as if it was alive, as if it knew what Kevin was planning.
Keeping his eyes focused on the hair, Kevin carefully took the pliers from Juan, and in a THC and whiskey-colored haze, grabbed the hair and began to pull.
Edward R. Rosick has had stories published in such magazines as Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, Mystic Fiction, and The Twilight Garden. He also attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Workshop at Michigan State University.