Pretty Little Dead Things

Copyright © 2010 Ernest Bloom.

I wonder what's keeping him? I called it in almost an hour ago. How long? Oh. Just over half an hour. Funny. Seems like longer. Well, that's how it is when you're sitting alone in a car and waiting and waiting and nothing's happening, nothing going on, not a thing, time stretching out like a taffy pull. And it's so wide open and quiet out here anyway, the country wide open with nothing to capture and hold the eye. The minutes dragging down, not a single thing happening for five minutes, ten minutes, nothing except now and then when a trailer truck suddenly zips up out of the blue and roars whooshing by, vroom! Doppler effect, sound waves bunching up ahead, pulling apart behind. None of them bothers to stop for a decrepit old car half off the shoulder. They've got their eyes on the clock, too. Places to be, miles to make before calling it a night.

Bright-eyed little birds out there, flittering in the tossing grass, or catching gnats.

The lady said half an hour. Now it's been that. ETA. Estimated Time of Arrival on the scene, give or take. The scene of the crime. Scene of the incident. Ah, but give or take how much? That's the question. It's sundown now. A few minutes ago. It'll start growing dark soon. Already that pale pink smoldering on the skyline ahead with the twin white asphalt bands streaking away into it, and the green fields darkening around, north and south. It'll be a terribly dark night out here in the middle of nowhere.

Is that Venus twinkling? I can't tell yet. Soon it'll be too dark for him to be able to do much investigating once he does get here, if he has a mind to do so, and they usually do. Put on a little bit of a show at least. Going through the motions, assuring themselves they're doing something useful, something practical, walking up and down the roadside, looking around. And who knows, maybe they are accomplishing something. Maybe making some random observations that will have value much later when they least expect it on an unrelated matter. We all do that, remembering things later in a different context. The kind of tiny details each of us tends to obsess over only have the value we give them. No one else understands why they matter to us. That's why they dismiss us from further consideration and decide we're loco. Well, we all do it. We say we don't understand people, but the truth is we're all the same, none of us wanting to value other people's obsessions and preoccupations like we value our own.

Well, we're not all the same. Not exactly. Most people share common banal obsessions about their jobs and personal affairs and clipping coupons and shabby, trashy paperbacks they've read and TV shows and pop music and so on and never look deeper into the world at all. Sleepers and string puppets stamped out on long conveyer belts at the economic cannery, sell you back your brain in dilute emotional secret sauce one happy meal at a time, hey presto, is that for here or to go?

They're lucky I called at all. I didn't have to. Why did I, come to think of it? Because it's the right thing to do? Poppycock.

I hope he doesn't waste too much more of my time when he finally does arrive. There's not much investigating worth doing around here. No more evidence to be discovered. I should know. I looked around enough before I called. I guess I walked a mile back, and probably half a mile forward, carting along my flat scoop and plastic bags. Just greasy smudges and tire tracks, especially from those great big sixteen wheelers that go tear-assing through the night. Find yourself bunched up between a couple of them and all thought of a speed limit disappears.

Every tire that rolls over a road must leave a microscopic thin tracery of its own rubbery self behind. And the wind of their passage kicking up cyclones. You see the weeds and grass off the shoulder kicked around wildly and the dirt sucked in, blowing all around the road in chaotic vortices, rewriting any story that might otherwise have been read there. Palimpsest, they call it. All history is like that, written down in the heat of the moment, partially erased, rewritten, and clouded up with the propaganda of warring, self-interested interpretations. Instant mythology, like microwavable rice, sixty seconds or less. Official versions of history, so-called. Trying to make all the world stop, hit the pause button, even for just a few minutes. Trying to get one's bearings and a feeling of control in a world whirling out of whack.

It is Venus, I think. . . .Yes.

ETA. Estimated Time of Arrival. Or. . . .Elevated Telekinetic Awareness. . . .Moving things with your mind. ESP, and all that hogwash. With enough faith you can move a mountain. Where orogeny intersects psychology. That explains the unyielding presence of mountain ranges through the centuries, I suppose. No, through millions of years. Geological eras. The Appalachians were huge long ago, big as the Himalayas before weathering and erosion melted their bulging, muscle-bound biceps into girl-soft round shoulders. The early colonists, heirs to the pilgrims, thought the Appalachians were pretty big, but that was before anyone had seen the Rocky Mountains yet. Even those Puritans couldn't persuade the slightest Appalachian hillock out of the way of their progress West, though. That's why the Cumberland Gap was so important, wasn't it. Find a nice little game trail and you don't have to worry yourself to death with mountain-moving faith. Dogged persistence of silent, brooding mountains unimpressed by your determined faith. Maybe those Puritan forefathers were not so pure of heart after all as the religious right likes to think? Ancestor worship.

Before anyone white had seen the Rockies, that is. Well, the Spanish and Portuguese had seen some big mountains in Latin America a couple hundred years before they spilled that tea in Boston, but they hadn't bothered texting anyone about it, had they. Not a lot of uploaded pix in the early 1500s, either. And besides, those snooty Puritans probably wouldn't have considered them white, either, if any of them had the temerity to try moving into their gated communities. Hola, mi compadre, let's be friends. Get on the horn and call a special meeting of the decency committee, get some exclusion clauses on the books pronto. God knows they don't consider them white now.

Where is he? Or she. I have things to do, too. I have miles to drive, too. On to Memphis. Find the motel, then back to Mississippi tomorrow. Back home. Do I have enough supplies? Lye. Tannin. Salt. Calcium hydroxide and cyanide and sulfuric acid. Needles and thread. I ordered more tannin a week ago. Supposed to arrive a few days ago. It should be here now, or at least soon. They bungled the order last time and that's what left me short. Might as well go on a collecting trip. A stitch in time. . . .Stitching. Push the curved needle through the pelt edges, over, and over, and over again. Always need more supplies. Always need more.

They always think it's about a morbid preoccupation with death, because they can't see it through my eyes. Reduce it to something simple. Slightly mocking. Looking down the nose. The instant of death. Why do they think that? Because of the whole soul business, I guess. But death's just a line drawn vertically through time. A slice, like with a scalpel. Before: living thing, integrated organs, tissues; after: inanimate substance. Raw material for artistic expression.

Pretty little dead things.

I saw it right away. Remember? As a little girl. No different really than say fallen pinecones or needles on the forest floor. The trees don't care, and why should they? It's all just part of a cycle. It can't be omitted or pretended away. But the jumps and hops and twists and contortions they put themselves through to try to pretend animal death away. Funny that way about meat. Consummate doublethinkers at dinnertime, though. Vision like a chameleon then, roly-poly eyes on opposite planes of the head. Yummy-yummy flesh-grilled carrion steaming up from the platter, curling into the nostrils. But who gets excited about forests? Collect pinecones, take one to school, attach pretty fans of construction paper and fake feathers, make a nice little turkey centerpiece for Mom for Thanksgiving. Wouldn't want a stuffed opossum at the center of the Thanksgiving spread, thank you very much. . . .Oh wait, is that. . . .Light rack on top, cream-colored Crown Victoria passing opposite direction, brown and yellow streaks on the side panels. . . .Yes, slowing to come back around. He saw me here. Watch in the mirror. Yes. He's slowing. . . .Coming down across the grassy median. Thank God! He's behind me now. Stopped and talking on the radio. Arrived on the scene. Here he comes -- a big fellow, isn't he, young, in his mid-thirties, I guess. Short red hair and moustache. Has a notepad and pen in his hand. Better put the window down. Should have thought of that sooner.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. You called for a trooper?"

"Yes sir, officer. I'm the one who called it in."

"What's your name, ma'am?"

"Shea Robinson. S-H-E-A."

"Okay. Uh, and can I get an address and phone number from you, please?"

"Okay. Oh, wait. Here. I'll give you one of my cards. You can have that, or copy from it."

"Okay. Everything on here is current?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay."

He's copying it down, for the report. An intent young man. Serious. With blue eyes. Bird's eggs. And how crisp his uniform is.

"You're from Mississippi?"

"That's right. Out by Aberdeen. About fifteen miles out."

"And you're a. . . .taxidermist?"

"Among other things. Taxidermy. And a tanner. An artist."

"Like a painter?"

"No."

"Okay."

"No, you keep the card. I've got plenty."

"Okay. So why don't you tell me what you found."

"I'll show you."

*      *      *

She's getting out of the car. Let's see is anyone. . . ? No. No traffic coming. Let me just move back from the door. She's having trouble swinging it open. Jeeze, she's a tiny thing, isn't she. Three feet tall? No more than that. Probably less. About sixty years old, I guess. Her silver hair pulled back in a severely tight bun, so tight it's like a clamp on the back of her head pulling the skin of her face taut. Maybe that's why. Pull the wrinkles away to invisibility. Like anyone's going to be fooled. Vain. She's hobbling almost. Age, or because of her midget anatomy? Or the slope of the shoulder of the highway? I can't tell. What kind of coat is she wearing? A fur coat? Jeeze! Sitting in that car with the windows up in a fur coat! Another nut. Well, the world's full of them; at least the Tennessee highways are. Opening the back door of her ancient Olds now. Roof faded and sun-cracked. What's she doing in there? Pawing about. That's some coat. What kind is it? Raccoon? Skunk? Possum? Like some crazy hodgepodge. . . .

"Here you go, officer."

Turning around. With a plastic bag in her hand. It's. . . .

"Jeeze. That's--"

"A human finger, yes. Still wearing a ring, too. Gold. A wedding ring, I think. I can't believe it didn't fall off somewhere along the way. It's pretty scarred up from the road. Both the finger and the ring, I mean. Can't tell anything from it, really."

What in the hell. . . ? "Where'd you say you found this?"

"Right here, right on the road. About a hundred feet back or so, past your patrol car."

"The bag's cold."

"I put it in my cooler."

"What cooler?"

"Here."

Looking in the back seat. Cracked upholstery. Dusty. Dirty. Old newspapers and wadded up fast food litter. A red and white plastic cooler with a smaller thin white bin inside, packed all around with blue icepacks. The cooler is about half full of other plastic bags. They contain other objects, small brown bits. . . .

"What's all this?"

"It's for my art. I'm on a collecting trip. Collecting raw materials. To me, it's raw materials. To you, well, I guess you'd call it roadkill."

Jerking my hand back out of there. "Roadkill?"

"You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Raw material for art. Roadkill." She's shrugging, kind of hunched over, a little.

"You mean you drive the highways collecting roadkill?"

Shrugging again with a half-senile little old lady grin.

"I take them back to my shop. Dry them out. To you it might look like a process of mummification or something. Then I carefully remove the pelts. Then I soften them up. Sometimes I strip the fur, sometimes I'm able to preserve it. Depends. . . ."

"You got a permit to do this?"

"I don't know that a permit's required."

I don't know either. I could contact animal control, but it hardly seems worth the effort, and besides, they've probably already all gone for the day. Anyway, she did report a crime, or a nasty accident of some sort, and she did preserve the evidence, the little freak.

"Show me exactly where you found this."

"Alright."

Just how I wanted to end my shift -- following a creepy midget wearing a cloak of stitched together roadkill along the side of the highway.

Evening's coming on fast. We're losing the light. "Wait a minute." I stop at the patrol car for the camera.  "Okay."  Tramping on through the grass along the side of the road. Still feel the heat rising from the asphalt, rolling off in big, curling, invisible waves. But the air's starting to cool over the fields around us. The first stars are peeking through. Looks like a nice night. But visibility's failing. I'm not going to be able to see out here much longer.

"Right here. Right out there in the road, about half way to the stripes."

An Impala flies by right where she's pointing. Whoosh. Car lights are coming on. Making sure there's no more traffic coming. Stepping onto the road.

"Show me where exactly."

Walking out with me. Pointing down.

"Here."

Hold my breath. Flash of the camera, but it's nothing more than featureless asphalt. Pointless. Panning around. A few more for perspective. They zip out of the big Polaroid. To locate the exact spot again, if necessary. Triangulate. It won't ever be necessary, though. Sometimes you just know. This is a human body part that's never going to be reported missing. A mystery at best, and a bureaucratic logjam and waste of time at worst, and the worst usually happens. Sure to generate a long paper trail to nowhere. Walk back to the roadside.

"So you were out hunting dead animals, and you saw this finger in the middle of the road."

"Yes sir."

"Just lying there?"

"Did you think it would be creeping forward along the road or something?"

"I mean. . . .You didn't see any other body parts?"

"Just the finger. But I guess that's enough, isn't it."

"Yes ma'am. That's enough."

Look at this thing. Pale yellow, and sliced up with cuts all over in every direction. The nail brown. Completely mangled. You can see the bone at the end. What can they do with this? Not much. Still, I'll have to get a detective out here, but they won't find anything. There's nothing to find.

"I've seen it before, you know."

"Ma'am?"

"In my line of work. It happens, I think more often than people suspect. My theory is it happens especially at truck stops on cold nights. In the summer like this it's rare. But on cold nights the bums look for warmth under the trucks, I guess. They fall asleep or pass out, and when the driver comes back to his rig and starts it up, it's too late. They get caught underneath somehow or other and get dragged for miles and miles. The driver never even hears it or feels it. It's just the big, heavy trailer moving behind him, you know? The body sheds pieces of itself in small, raggedy chunks over the miles as the driver presses on through the night. Other cars bounce over the remains before they see them in the road, not thinking anything about it. Eventually everything ends up flat, or crumbly lumps on the roadside. Scavengers take care of it pretty quick."

"Well. . . .I hope it's not as common as that. Anyway, this looks like a wedding ring to me, like you said. Maybe he wasn't homeless."

"Maybe, maybe not. Lots of people have lost their jobs and been thrown out on the street. The economy."

"Yes. Well, you're right about that."

Could it have been like she said? It seems. . . .possible. Plausible, even. Horrible way to go, though. I wonder how long it would take. Too many variables. Each case would be different. Might end quickly, especially if he went under the tires. Or it might take longer. Awful, feeling the flesh abrading against the road. Could any death be any more painful or horrible than that?

"Listen, officer. . . ."

"Yes?"

"Do you have any more questions for me? Because I hate to break up this party, but I need to be moving on, if we're done here."

Look at her standing there. Lunatic's done her civic duty and wants to be about her business. Well, what else can she contribute? Not much.

"There's nothing else I need to know? No other relevant information?"

"I've told you what I know. There's just this finger. . . .And anyway, you have my information. You can reach me if you need to."

Nodding. "Okay then. I'm just going to look around a little bit more. You're free to go. But be careful walking back to your vehicle. And drive safely, ma'am."

"Thank you, officer. Good evening."

"Good night."

Look at her go. Weirdest fur coat I ever saw. Fur? There's feathers in it, too. Not dangling from it, but patches of bird skin with the feathers still attached. The crazies you meet out here! She calls herself an artist. She must be some crazy death artist then. Gruesome. Imagine that. Driving around looking for roadkill you can scrape off the asphalt. Everyone needs a hobby, but. . . .Jeeze! What do you do with someone like that? Just leave them alone. Let them clear out as soon as possible. Probably she works out of a trailer somewhere down in Mississippi. That would explain it all right there.

Ah, I hate calling this one in. Might as well get to it, though. . . .But I hope I don't have to wait around out here all evening for a detective. Be here all night, and then my luck it'll be that fat idiot Pruitt. Him spitting tobacco and cracking his stupid racist jokes in his slow monotone, moving about like some bloated tortoise. That's the last thing I need. Forget it. I'll just write up my report, take the evidence back to the substation, let them deal with it tomorrow. That's a better idea. Much better. Yeah. It's not as if they're going to find anything out here. It's a miracle the old woman even found the finger, if you can call it a miracle. Rotten bad luck, more like it. They'll never solve this one unless the carcass falls free into the road somewhere.

I wonder whether that old witch is right. Said she's seen it before. I should have pressed her on it, but she's too creepy-crawly. That type. Better just to let them go. Anyway, she can't be right about it being a common occurrence. This is just some horrible, random, rare accident. Grisly.

Alright then. Head back to the car and write the report and get out of here. Look. She's at her car already. Can hardly get the door open, the little midget, her car pitched at an angle like that. Dwarf? Didn't have the look. Facial characteristics. Short, stubby fingers? I didn't see. They look more like they're made of stone. Her taillights on now, the engine struggling to turn over. Wheezing like the broken down piece of junk it is. Blast of blue, oily smoke. Old Oldsmobile, her broom. Little crone. And she's off, inching forward cautiously, one foot per minute. A wonder she's able to see out the windshield at all. There she goes. Up onto the highway, and she's off for the big city of Memphis and a wild night on the town. Right.

All I want to do is get home to Nikki. Yes. Stop and get something to drink on the way. Curl up with Nikki, drink some beers, watch one of her dumb programs. Good idea. Much better than hanging out here all night with. . . .

Wait a minute.

Look at this thing. All battered. A little fragment of human remains in a zip-lock plastic bag. Looks like someone got dragged under a vehicle, like the old lady said. But. . . .Was I too quick to believe that? What if it wasn't. . . ? A wedding ring. . . .

She said she found it in the road. Look around. Nothing's out here anywhere, not a farmhouse, not an exit for a gas station, nothing at all, just the stars and the grassy fields. But what if. But she wouldn't have called it in if there was. . . .Not her, but maybe her story was wrong. Her idea of what happened. I don't know for sure it was someone trapped under a truck, or whatever. I can't be certain.

Oh, hell. You know what they'll say. Hillbilly wanders down to the big city and gets accepted into the academy on a feel-sorry-for-the-yokels scholarship.

Damn. I have to do it. Damn.

Open the door and get in. What am I going to say? Think of something. Give me that radio.

"THP-11."

"Go ahead, THP-11."

"Uh, I'm going to need a detective at my location."

"10-4. Stand by."

"Copy."

No beer. No TV. Probably no Nikki.

"Uh, Charlene."

"Go ahead, THP-11."

"Who's on call tonight?"

Silence. The sky darkening. Smear of light in the west is narrowing, a bloody pink stain under deepening maroon blanket of night descending. Come on. Come on. Don't let it be--

"That's Detective Pruitt, THP-11. Stand by for ETA."

Pruitt. Oh, hell.

"10-4."

*      *      *

This thing weighs a ton. Good thing it has wheels. Only they don't turn so well. I have to try to not let the door bang again this time. It's late. Dark as the underworld. Lug the bloody thing inside. These little motel rooms always stink exactly the same way. Why's that, I wonder. Get it over the threshold there. Okay. Shut the door. Bolt it. Air conditioner screaming like a banshee. It's freezing in here. But I'll worry about that later. Coat keeps me warm anyway. Lay down for a few minutes. Ahh. . . .

It was a long day driving and putzing about under the hot sun. I feel gritty. I'll get a shower. But not yet. In a few minutes. Close my eyes. . . .

Hmph. That officer. Cocky little boy. You could see what he was thinking right through his blue eyes like glass marbles the color of a robin's eggs. Well that's okay. They're all like that, more or less. Young men. Easy to read because they all want the same few things. Babes in the woods.

I'll be home tomorrow. It'll be good to get home. No need to set an alarm or get a wakeup call. I'll get up when I wake up and find me a waffle place. Get me some coffee and grits. Umm. Then I'll be back on the road. Do a little collecting on the way, if I see anything. I usually do.

I hope the tannin's there when I get home. Should be. Should have arrived by today -- tomorrow at the absolute latest. Let's see. Plenty of thread. I'll get back to work on the new coat. I'll be able to finish it now that I have the perfect pièce de résistance. I'll have to get to work on these other new materials, too, softening them up, preserving them. Plenty of work to be done. Always more. The process. Converting raw materials into finished product. The process goes on and on, and on and on and on. It never ends.

Remember when, way back? Up in Pennsylvania. Mama's disapproving, disturbed looks. No hobby fit for a girl. Taxidermy! She'd spit it out like that. I don't know why I latched onto it the way other girls latched onto their dolls or ponies or whatever. I can't remember what was first. Little baby birds? Gophers? I don't know. The snakes and frogs were later, of course. The snakes were easier than frogs, with thin skin stretched across those protruding bones in the haunches. But the little mammals and birds. Pretty little dead things. So soft. Sewing pelts together in new ways. Nice, comfy coats.

Okay. Better get up before I doze off right here with the lights on and still dressed.

Ah. My legs are tired. Be good to get a shower and go to bed and forget about how the room smells. Think of the nice, hot water. Think I'll leave the freezing air conditioner on tonight. It'll feel that much nicer under the blankets.

Have a look first.

Ah, very nice. Very nice. Some nice pieces today. Some not so nice. The luck of the draw. Depends how many cars ran over it. How long it was in the road. Whether the birds got to it. Ravenous crows and sometimes hawks. Efficient. But there are some fine pieces here. Some of these will do quite nicely. Look at these. Yes. Yes.

And yes. Here at the bottom. I knew he wouldn't look. Why should he? Even if he did decide to rifle through, I knew he'd stop long before reaching the bottom. That's the way people are, especially silly boys like him.

That ridiculous state trooper. Never appreciated it. I gave him the finger!

Well, he can have the finger, but the scalp belongs to me.

THE END.