The Ram (2 page)

The absurdity of the name makes her smile now. Why can’t the songbirds so many associate with lengthening days and warmer temperatures have a darker side as well? She imagines their sharp, yellow beaks piercing the flesh of berries with crimson skin and sallow, pulpy innards. A murder of robins.

Peach sits at a small desk in the corner of her living room, the view from her seat looking out over the front of her building. It’s a rickety, second-hand piece of furniture made of walnut, mid-century or older, deep gouges crisscrossing its flat surface from the misplaced needle of a mathematician’s compass or the delinquent hand of a bored child. The work she’s brought home is pushed to the side of the desk and she sends a print job to the laserjet printer perched on the top of a side table to her right. She stands, waits for the paper to clear the feeder and spit back out. It catches on the rollers and she sighs, pulls a little at the corner of the envelope and it comes free, a crease running lengthwise down the center. She stuffs the envelope with its intended contents and uses a small, damp sponge the color of her pale lips to wet the envelope adhesive.

She heads outside barefoot in defiance of the weather, the earth still too cool to feel pleasant on the soles of her feet, and drops the letter in the mail collection box for her apartment. A drip of water off one of the carport gutters splashes against her forehead as she tiptoes past robin crap to get back inside.

Before she reaches her patio, a robin chirrup catches her attention and she sees a lone bird, away from his murderous rabble, riding the air currents as if it were a dipping and pitching cargo ship facing a stormy sea. She watches the creature enjoy the ride, the pleasure of flight, until it alights on a brown length of an ash branch half-torn from the tree in the last major storm. It eyes Peach with black orbs throwing out a silver sheen in the dim light and she wonders if the bird envies her like she envies it.

Peach moves to her next task, heads inside her home and deadbolts the door behind her before walking into her master bathroom. A blue plastic sack from a discount store sits on the counter. She flips on the vanity lights and turns on the red heat-bulb housed in a metal casing in her ceiling. A flow of warmth hits her shoulders and she smiles as she dumps the contents of the bag into the sink.

She picks up a pair of new, sharp scissors with red handles, then an electric razor meant for grooming the necks of men and a plastic disposable razor with a pink handle. She completes her collection by pulling a small cylinder of shaving cream out of the porcelain basin and arranges it all in front of her in order of use: scissors, electric razor, cream that smells of lime, Bic.

Peach removes her t-shirt and jeans, letting them fall into a pile on the faux-tile floor. She stands in front of the bathroom mirror in mismatched underwear, a floral-print, red bra and light pink cotton panties. A solitaire gemstone pendant the size of an eyeball lies against her collarbone. Its oval shape contains swirls of reds, greens and gold.

She gathers her sandy-colored hair from behind her shoulders and lets it fall against her heavy breasts. The length of her hair rests just above her waist, with a strong side part and wispy bangs pushed to the side of her face.

“Gorgeous,” she says, running her fingers through it, catching her thumb in a snarl, causing her hair to fluff with static. As a teen, she hated the color of her hair. There was something about being blonde which made her feel obligated to be bubbly and light of heart. She’d threatened to dye it a common, unremarkable medium brown but her mother had forbidden it. But Patti is not here now, with her Pall Mall in one hand and Diet Coke in the other.

Peach fingers a tight fist around the base of her skull, holds onto the hair as if she wrings the neck of a swan, picks up the scissors, and cuts it all off.

The clump of hair cascades to the floor, scattering about her feet like dry grass, harvested wheat. She works over her head with the scissors until the hair is too close to the scalp to shear and she nicks herself with the sharp point of the blades. She blots at the blood with a piece of toilet paper and then takes up the electric razor, plugs it into an outlet behind her toothbrush holder, and flips it on. The buzz, the vibration as it runs over her skull makes her entire body shimmy. The raining of the sharp bits of cut hair onto her shoulders, into her cleavage and down her thighs makes her body feel as though invaded by golden-colored fleas.

She clicks off the razor, smoothes shaving cream over her skull and uses the disposable blade to relieve her skin of its final vestiges of hair. Using a damp washcloth, she wipes the last of the cream off her scalp and splashes water on her face and head while leaning over her sink, not waiting for the water to warm up coming out of the tap. Her skin tingles. Her cheeks flush red like the robins’ undersides. Peach grabs her towel and massages her head, noting the divots and ridges she’d never been able to feel before with a full head of hair. If she were familiar with phrenology, she could make guesses as to what each dent or line meant for her life. A round mound over her left ear might mean an aptitude for fulfilling desires. The short trench over her once delicate fontanel could mark her for greatness.

In the mirror she can see her facial features are sharper with a bald pate and she thinks of the Dalai Lama and Black Friars with their tonsured heads, and wonders if they attain spiritual solemnity with each hair they slice from their skin. She touches her nose, her eyebrows caked in bits of fallen hair. She smiles, her teeth seemingly longer and whiter. She brings the stone around her neck up to her lips and presses a kiss on the multi-colored rock.

Digging around in the cupboard under her sink, Peach pulls forth another bag. She sets this on the counter, undoes a double knot constructed with the handles, and pulls out a mass of hair. She sets the wig on her shorn head, tugging at where it hits at the tops of her ears to get it to sit flush against her crown.

Peach takes herself in again, sees that the hair she now wears is nearly identical to the hair she’s just lost. The only difference is the shade of blonde. There is a ruddy tint to the wig not present in her natural hair. But she doesn’t think most people will notice. Just as most people don’t see the breasts of robins aren’t a true red, but the muddled tint of pyracantha berries mixed with the pink of nightcrawlers.

“Gorgeous,” Peach says as she bends to pick up her clothes, her wig shifting slightly, a plume of spent hair lifting up from the fabric of her t-shirt into the air.

03 Riley

The pain is all the way to his heart now. At first it resided only in his left foot, a blooming of agony slow at first and then sharp and throbbing. He can’t feel his toes; the point nearest to the wound with sensation is the bottom of his ankle. It feels to be pierced with ice shards and poisonous thorns. Riley’s eyes are closed but he can hear the men shutting off power tools, their boots scuffing against the floor as they run toward him. The smell of conifer has subsided and now the scent of fresh sweat from his armpits claims its space.

He can hear the booming of Double Al as he shouts, moves aside his employees to get to Riley. Riley knows that his boss is hovering over him. A man with such presence in body and personality has the tendency to loom over those weaker, not to threaten but to aid. Plus, Riley can smell the vinegar of the pickles the man ate at lunch.

“Riley, you with us?” he asks and crouches down to look at the anvil and the foot disappearing beneath it.

Riley opens his eyes and sees the cluster of faces above him. One face belongs to the big-eyed brute responsible for the anvil at rest on Riley’s foot. Or maybe only partially responsible. He shuffles up to rest on his forearms and bites his lower lip hard.

“We’re gonna need to lift this thing off you. You ready?” Double Al waves over four men and they crouch with their employer. He points at three of them. “You’ll be lifting, straight up from his foot.” Then he nods at the fourth man. “And you’ll be gentle with Riley’s foot and pull it out of the way from the under the anvil. You hear me? Nod and verbal affirmation, please.”

His coworkers grunt, nod, shake out hands and pop their knuckles. There is no countdown or preparation for the task. Double Al grasps the horn of the anvil as if he could pull the pronged beast off Riley himself and the other three men array themselves around the iron. The boss shouts out, “lift!” and the boys do. The fourth man, hands blackened with soot, cups Riley’s foot at the ankle and pulls his leg away from the anvil before it’s placed back on the concrete with a dull thud.

The movement of his leg causes bile to rise in Riley’s throat, but he chokes it down as he cries out in pain. His coworkers stay silent and don’t dare to make light of the situation. Double Al moves to him and hooks one arm under Riley’s neck and the other beneath his knees.

“Don’t you dare carry me out of here,” he whispers to his boss. “I know I’m smaller than you, but I’ll never live it down with these assholes.”

Double Al frowns but changes position, lifting Riley up at his armpits. Riley puts all his weight on his right foot and the man with the ash-covered hands disappears for a moment and returns with a length of PVC pipe with a T-juncture threaded onto the end. It serves as a decent makeshift crutch and Riley sets his lips into a line but nods at the man in thanks all the same.

The trip out to Double Al’s Dodge Ram takes ten minutes at a slow, agonizing pace but Riley refuses the suggestion they call an ambulance. “Do you know how much those things cost?” he says as he limps over pebbles and sand in the dirt parking lot. His boot still hides whatever mess has been made of his foot. He keeps his eyes ahead, focused on moving forward, so he won’t be crippled with worry and justifiable anxiety.

Riley only allows himself to be lifted for a moment by Double Al so he can heave himself up into the passenger seat of the vehicle. He bumps his foot on the door and lets out a scream that gets muffled when his boss slams the door and rushes around to the driver’s seat. To distract himself from the agony, he tries to remember if Double Al has ever picked him up before and recalls a vague memory of a sprained ankle at a junior high track meet and Riley’s father lifting and walking on one side of his body with Double Al on the other, both of his feet floating over the rubber, sepia track.

Double Al steps on the metal foot rail and pulls his large frame into the truck. Riley notices how hard his boss is breathing, taking in short, tight breaths. He’s strong, but he’s out of shape and nearing retirement. Double Al keys on the ignition and fumbles to turn down the country music that blasts from the dashboard. The singer’s nasal voice relates a ballad about hunting dogs and shelled peanuts.

The truck is a 1993, its shocks and struts old, and the trip passes painfully for Riley. He grits his teeth tightly as they speed over potholes and roads under construction. To keep his attention off his foot, Riley stares at a large chunk of iron pyrite hung from the rearview mirror. Fool’s gold. It catches the light as it swings left and right in wild arcs.

“You check those chains, Riley?” Double Al asks, his breath settling.

Riley watches the fool’s gold, how the sharp angles and lines of the thing shift in color from gold to gray to black depending on how he cocks his head. Anyone who knew anything about gold could see it for what it was. False. Worthless. Good for nothing.

Double Al clear his throat and looks to Riley, tries out a joke. “You must have been playing at being the Road Runner, son.” He grins, his double chin lifting with the corners of his mouth.

“I’m not the Road Runner, boss,” he says and keeps his eyes on the iron pyrite. The pain tugs at his throat, inches up to the temple on the left side of his head. “It’s Wile E. Coyote who always gets the anvil dropped on him.”

“Crazy thing is Wile E. Coyote is the one responsible for dropping the anvil on his own stupid head.”

Double Al stops his grinning and turns the radio up slightly. A new voice comes through the speakers singing about women, whisky and tumbleweeds.

“You got anyone you want me to call to meet us at the hospital? I can’t keep track of your lady friends, Riley. Never could.”

The fool’s gold keeps up its swinging until Riley reaches up and stops it with his hand. He squeezes it so hard the sharp sides of the rock cut into his flesh and his mind finally swivels to consider the likely state of his foot. He imagines applesauce, homemade, blush pink with bits of Red Delicious skin.

“Hell no,” Riley says, “I’ve got no one for you to call.”

04 Peach

The hairs cleanly removed from her head stick to her fingers as she sweeps them up with a small broom into a dustpan. Peach feels elated; a sense of freedom unlike she’s experienced since young childhood takes over her actions. New life seems to come with bold moves. While she cleans, she’s playing, not working, and the knocking at her front door becomes louder, more insistent before it breaks her from her revelry and captures her attention.

She puts down the broom and shuts the bathroom door behind her. The knocking is harder by the time she gets to the front door. She wonders if the person on the other side means to break their hand.

“Peach!” Her name is called out by a voice she knows.

She unbolts the door and Linx pushes it open before she can officially welcome him inside. He wears a scowl, the lines of his brow hidden by his choppy, black hair. He’s got on a pair of slim-fit jeans, a tight cardigan and high-top sneakers. He smells like cilantro.

“I thought you were dead. I didn’t hear from you at all last weekend.” He shuts the door behind him with his foot and dives for the couch. His Converse shoes hang over the back of the sofa and he sighs heavily.

She eyes him in repose and wonders why such an effeminate and hyperbolic man chooses to be her closest companion. They have little in common when it comes to personality or personal grooming. Peach wiggles her buttocks in near his back and swats his feet down. “You’re my best friend, not my handler. I was busy. And you’re looking particularly Asian Hipster today.”