Sloughing Off the Rot (8 page)

“But, what am I looking for at the end that is going to be so important?”

“At the end of the road you will encounter this man,” said the voice. And on John’s eyelids appeared the severe face of a black-haired man in mirrored sunglasses. His features tensed as he laughed and shook his head about. The thick black hair lay slicked back and clinging to his skull as if it were spray painted on. A half-grin sat uncomfortably on his face and gave way to a scowl. The image of the man grew and developed, and he stood before a congregation of cowering parishioners. He towered several feet above the tallest of his followers. His black leather pants, black shirt, and boots matched the slicked back hair. And the white of his priestly collar matched the gleam of his sharp, sneering teeth.

John’s balls partially retracted into his abdominal cavity at the vision of the Man in Black. He clenched his teeth and tensed his eyes, trying to wipe away the vision. But the Man in Black remained. His image grew until he appeared to be twice as tall as the members of his cowering congregation. He pounded with balled fists at the podium before him and it crumbled as if it were made of sand. Even with the podium smashed to dust, he continued to pound his hands in the air before him to emphasize each word that he spat from his mouth. The congregation stared, rapt. They swayed from side to side, slowly waving their raised hands in the air, their collective arms like an anemone’s tentacles drifting in the ocean current.

“His name is Android Lovethorn. The Right Reverend Android Lovethorn,” said the burning bush. “He holds the key to your return. He can help you return to yourself and become whole again. You must find him. But, before you do, you will travel the road. And you will decide who you are and what you are. And the man you become on your trek is the man that you will take back to yourself. The journey will make you stronger than your other half. And you can make amends for everything bad that the other you did. You can rectify the past and make a new future. Until then, though, you are split. And the man you used to be is of no consequence. So follow the road and find the Reverend Lovethorn.”

“But he scares me,” said John. “He reeks of madness.”

“He is mad. And evil, and hateful. And he will do everything he can to prevent you from reaching him. He sends lunkheads to slow you. He floods you with temptations from the villages you pass. He troubles your dreams. He will afflict the land with plagues and send demons to stop you. But, stay on the red brick road and follow the trail. Your travels will end at Lovethorn’s door. And you must be strong enough to make him return you to yourself.”

“But, when do I find Lovethorn? What do I do when I find him? How do I make him return me to myself?”

John’s words fell from his mouth and died a quiet death on the ground as the flames on the bush burnt themselves out, leaving the thorn bush green and unmarked. Rubbing his eyes and erasing the images of the Man in Black from his eyelids, John stood. He wobbled on his feet and put his hand down on something to steady himself. That something was Alf the Sacred Burro’s head. Alf liked the feel of John’s hand, so he stayed in that place and let John use him for balance. John steadied himself and walked away from the bush and the donkey in a daze. Alf convulsed and twitched and coughed up a hairy lung-ball that he spat on the ground. He slowly approached and walked beside John, hoping that the man would need him for assistance with his balance again.

First the tickling on the face, like a feather duster on his skin. And the buzzing. Then the burn and sting of many bites on his face and arms. Santiago ejecting profanities from his mouth like spent cartridges from a Gatling gun. The irate, strained braying of a sacred burro. Drawn out hisses of turkey vultures. Surprised cries of desert scurves. Crazy Talk screaming, “Boze dee boze dee bop, diddy bop.” And John woke up. A black cloud of munkle flies, so thick that it seemed to extinguish the morning sun, had enveloped their camp. John jumped up from his sleeping spot and clawed at his nose, where he could feel flies wriggling into his nasal cavities. He blocked his left nostril and blasted out a snot-rocket of flies and their eggs and then did the same with his other nostril.

Three Tooth ran through the swarm of munkle flies, waving his arms to try to clear the way in front of himself, and grabbed John by the front of his robe. “You have brought this plague on the land. You have polluted our desert. You must move along, go away from here. I am leaving two of my men with you to help with your journey. But I must leave you to your business. So take Crazy Talk and Two-Dogs-Fucking. You can take the donkey, too. We will have scouts tailing you to make sure that you need no assistance. But, we can stay with you no longer.”

Through the black cloud of airborne insects, John made out Three Tooth’s fly-infested face and saw a tear clearing a streak on his cheek. Three Tooth turned and ran, calling out to his men. The scurves fought their way through the flies, fleeing the stinging swarm. John, too, decided it was time to flee and he called out to Santiago, Crazy Talk, and Two-Dogs-Fucking.

And they were on the road again, sprinting down the red brick trail and swatting at the flies that bit at them. A writhing carpet of munkle flies turned to a black mush as the men ran and slipped on the desert floor, now greasy and slick with the paste of flies smashed underfoot. Two-Dogs-Fucking, despite his rotundity and usual lack of motivation, ran the fastest and slipped the least. Just behind him, the moist clopping of Alf the Sacred Burro’s hooves on the ground beat out a hasty rhythm of retreat. The high-pitched screams that exited Two-Dogs-Fucking’s mouth pained the men’s ears as badly as the stinging of the flies on their skin. The enormous cloud of insects trailed John and his men, buzzing and swirling around them, and departed the pile of lunkie corpses from whence they hatched.

The departure of the munkle flies from the site of the lunkhead-massacre left behind an army of turkey vultures. The buzzards hissed and spat and undressed the corpses, tearing at the dead flesh and devouring it until all that was left was a pile of bones and a fattened flock of vultures. And when there was no more flesh for them to consume, the buzzards briefly turned on each other, hissing and clawing and pecking, until drowsiness from the feast mellowed them.

John, Santiago, Two-Dogs-Fucking, Crazy Talk, and Alf the Sacred Burro raced down the red brick road, dogged by the munkle flies the entire morning. Everything along the path – rocks, cacti, trees, the ground – buzzed with a covering of the nasty biting bugs. At midday, the sun sat directly above the men and sapped their strength with its glare. And though they felt ready to drop, they persisted in their flight. And the swarm of flies abated. The insects’ half-day life span fizzled out lamely under the harsh desert sun. With no cadavers to lay their eggs in, the entire swarm expired quietly and left no descendants to pester John and the others. The dead flies piled up, ankle-deep, and John and his crew continued until they were clear of the blanket of insect corpses.

The sweltering sun, dehydration, and fatigue combined to make a persuasive argument that the men should lay themselves out on the road and recover from their flight. When it was clear that the plague of munkle flies had concluded, John threw himself down on the red bricks. His chest heaved with a thirst for oxygen. Every inch of exposed skin swelled and burned from the countless and repeated munkle fly bites. The brilliance from the noonday sun scorched his afflicted flesh and blinded his eyes. But John did not care. His body cried out against any further efforts, being drained of strength by chicha and bezoars from the night prior. And the mad dash away from the thousands of biting attackers exacerbated his weakness. Even if he had the will to move, he had not the strength. So John lay out in the sun, exposed and weak and without a care about what happened to him. The sun sizzled him like a piece of bacon on the frying pan surface of El Camino de la Muerte. He lay there, welcoming oblivion, should he be so blessed. Alf the Sacred Burro lay on the ground beside him, heaving raspy breaths and coughing up puddles of mucus filled with dead flies that he had inhaled. Two-Dogs-Fucking and Santiago took positions far apart and collapsed from weakness. And Crazy Talk sat, not far from John, alert and still energetic, scanning the horizon.

Late in the afternoon, John awoke to the hissing of turkey vultures fighting over the corpses of several dead lunkheads. Crazy Talk sat down beside him and handed John a skin filled with water. John hydrated himself, half emptying the skin without a thought. Crazy Talk nodded toward the lunkie corpses and said, “Word is, man-meat sleeps in open coffins, and it’s happening more often.” Crazy Talk thumped a fist on his leg and flashed a brown-toothed smile. He held up a thick stick with a rock strung to the end of it and swung it around. “I make boom boom,” he said as he slammed the rock-end of his weapon into the ground.

“You killed those men?” asked John.

“I make boom boom,” said Crazy Talk, slamming the weapon into the ground again.

“Thank you. I wouldn’t have woken up even if they were eating me alive. I just didn’t have it in me. You protected me.”

“Now, don’t go getting all misty-eyed and wet in you panties.” Santiago approached and cat-hissed at Crazy Talk. “Cochise there wasn’t protecting you. That crazy talking albina Injun is just plain screwy. We’re lucky he had lunkies to take it out on or he likely woulda bashed our heads in for game.”

Crazy Talk continued to look at John and said, “Word is, Unibrow speak with tongue twisted into pretzel. He think he big man. He think he more bacon than the pan can handle. Word is, Unibrow is nothing.”

Santiago recoiled as if he were smacked in the face with a bag of dicks. His expressions ticked through his full range of emotions and settled on outrage. “Nothing. You saying I ain’t nothing, Geronimo? Well listen up, I’m everything. I do what I need to do to survive. I live in the desert. I live in the mountains. My mind is big. Dig?”

Tightening his grip on the rock-stick, Crazy Talk stood. He took several steps backward and watched Santiago flap his arms about and pull at his own hair. Crazy Talk said nothing and waited to see if he needed to defend himself.

Santiago calmed and laughed his nervous titter. He did not approach Crazy Talk. He did not carry on with his rant. He merely squatted beside John and said, “This guy’s gotta go before he kills me. He ain’t helping us here, Johnny.”

“Well,” said John, “he saved our skins while the rest of us were dead to the world. He stood guard. He stopped those lunkies from getting at us, didn’t he? You’d be a goner, too. So tell me, how is it that you are more important to me than Crazy Talk?”

“I feed you, don’t I? Without me, you wouldn’t have all those tasty dirt-rats to eat,” said Santiago. “And I cured that nasty infection you had on your ear, didn’t I?”

“You bit off my ear and swallowed it in the first place, you lunatic. You caused the infection. How’s that helping?”

Still squatting, Santiago tugged at his beard and said, “Lookie here, let me explain something to you. I’m necessary, man. I’m what you need to survive. You ain’t got nothin’. You got no desires. Your emotional range is nonexistent. Have you really gotten upset about anything since you’ve been here? Have you been mad? Happy? Sad? Have you felt like fucking or fighting or screaming? No, you haven’t. You ain’t got it in you right now. And that’s what I’m here for. I’m your wild side, your desires, your base urges. I make you eat. I drive you to do the things that your body needs, even though your brain doesn’t even realize it. I’m your fucking id, Johnny. I don’t give a squeaky shit about consequences. I seek instant gratification. And you need that aspect to get you through. Because without the drive, you’re just going to sit here and bake in the heat, not caring, because it all seems so meaningless. Ain’t that right, Johnny?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John said. He tried feebly to manipulate his face into a look of indignation and realized that Santiago was right. He was numb. He moved along because he was pushed in a direction. He ate because food was given to him, but didn’t have the urge to seek out anything for himself. He had no urges or desires.

“I wanna ask you something personal,” said Santiago. “We’ve been all alone, and I bet you haven’t tugged your pud since you left that cave, have you?”

“That’s none of your business,” replied John, again with the faux-indignation.

“Well, you haven’t and you know it. How in the hell do you just ignore the urge to gratify yourself? Or, let’s be honest here, you don’t really feel any urges do you?”

“I don’t want to talk about this any more,” snapped John. And he was up, walking away from Santiago, avoiding the conversation. He wanted to tell himself that maybe he was afraid of blasting out another bloody spooge puddle. And maybe that was part of it. But not really. He simply felt no sexual urges at all. And the thought of it shocked him. He ambled away from the group, trying to force himself to feel something, anything.