Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

Carpe diem.

I still can’t breathe. My blood is cold and my body temperature high. I close my mouth, bite onto the gun, and pray for Melissa to pull the trigger.

I orgasm.

I’m nearly blind now. Dark shapes shift in the edges of the softening morning. The pain surely must fade, because that’s the nature of pain, but at the moment it’s defying nature. I can barely make her out standing above me, the pliers now well away from my genitals, the gun away from my mouth. I can talk, but I have nothing to say. Nothing to plead for.

I close my eyes, hoping for death, but when I open them I only find freedom. Melissa has gone and she has taken her handcuffs with her. I’m a free man who has just been fooled by time, but I can’t move. I suck in a deep breath. My stomach is hot, my chest warm, my legs cold. I close my eyes again, and the world around me starts to fade away.

I don’t know how much time passes before I slowly lift my head and look down my naked body. My penis and thighs are caked in dried blood. My stomach is covered in a mixture of red and white fluids-a cocktail of blood and semen. Vomit has pooled on my neck and chest, and I can feel it crusted over my face and chin. It smells putrid. I can’t even remember throwing up. I guess I’m lucky not to have choked to death-then decide I’m unlucky not to have. I gently lower my hand down to examine the damage. Something that feels like spaghetti is pushing out of something that feels like cardboard.

Oh God, no. Please, please let this be a dream!

My arms are stiff, the muscles tender and sore. I put them behind me and lever myself up. Pieces of sick roll down my body. I nearly black out. The pain is nothing compared with earlier and, judging from the sun, I’m guessing earlier was about three hours ago. It’s somewhere around nine o’clock, and Sunday morning means people are either still in bed having a lazy morning of bondage, or are at church. Either way, they’re being fucked over.

There won’t be anybody coming down to the park for a while yet.

I roll onto my side. A scream rises in my fragile throat. I fight it back, but not hard enough.

I look for my clothes and see them about thirty feet away. As I try to crawl toward them, my testicle sways back and forth, jamming between my legs. It feels like the pliers are still clamped on. I keep thinking that if I can make it home I can survive this. I just don’t know if I can make it home.

It takes two minutes to cover the thirty feet. I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. Sweat drips from my forehead. Blood rolls down my thighs. I shrug into my shirt. My jacket is nowhere to be seen. Same with my gun. And my knife.

My keys are sitting on top of my jeans. Rocking as gently as I can onto my back, I try jamming my legs into the denim. Much harder than it sounds. I stop halfway during the movement to take a small time-out, during which my world grays away. My strength drains with it and the pain seems happy to come back. I have to fight to keep from passing out. I wish I had been wearing jockeys rather than boxers, because then the weight of my swinging mess would get braced. Instead it’s hanging like a rotten tomato, seeping as if infected from too much sun. I pull up a handful of wet grass and wipe my face. Two more handfuls of grass clean most of the vomit off my neck and chest.

I glance at my wrist and am surprised to see my watch still there. It’s only eight o’clock. The last few days I’ve been running late. This morning I’m thinking it’s later than it is. Okay. Time to do this. I make my way to my knees, then onto my feet. All I have to do is get home. Not far. Just one foot in front of the other. Repeat the procedure. Ignore the pain until I collapse onto my bed. One foot forward. This is the first step. I push away from the tree.

The plan is to walk evenly at a slow pace, and I don’t appreciate the irony as I try to step slowly but end up running forward in an attempt to maintain balance. Not only do I move fast, but my legs land heavily, jarring me and sending pulsating blasts of heat up my legs into my groin. A combination of staggering and falling takes me sixty feet before I land on my knees in a crying ball of bloody agony. I want to close my eyes and just lie here for a few more hours, but I know I can’t. Sooner or later others will arrive in the park. From beneath the benches on the fringes and from the cubbyholes in the children’s playground, glue-sniffers will be waking to the morning of another chemical-induced day. They’ll eventually find me, but they won’t help me-only help themselves to what possessions I have left.

I get back onto my knees. Onto my feet. Start forward.

It’s easier this time. I hold my arms out to my sides, balancing myself as I zigzag forward. I keep my eyes focused on the edge of the park. Don’t look down. Don’t look around. Just keep walking. Just keep walking and I’ll be fine. . Twenty yards go by, thirty. Then, in a few minutes, I’ve covered a hundred yards. A few minutes after that and I’m back on my knees fighting to contain a scream. This time I win.

I watch the sun as it crawls up into the sky. I wonder what the weather will be like today. Sunny, warm, with lots of pain scheduled for brief but strong periods over the day. And for the remaining week. Perhaps the whole Goddamn year.

I manage to get back onto my feet. I walk slowly, with my legs spread. I cup my balls in one hand: it hurts like hell, but the walking becomes easier. I stumble a few hundred yards, pause to vomit, then stumble a few hundred more. I even pause to urinate; the sensation is painful yet simple since I just keep my dick in my pants and go. Urine drips down my legs and onto my leather shoes. It is warm, uncomfortable, and it stings.

The journey home takes me more than an hour, by which time the front of my jeans are soaked in piss and blood. Not once do I pass out, but on several occasions the world sways and darkens. I pass a few people on the way; some see me, some don’t. Those who do stare at me and say nothing. Nobody offers to help. It’s not the kind of neighborhood where people care. I consider it a miracle just to get home still in possession of my empty wallet and watch. When I reach my building, it no longer looks like it was meshed together by a junk sculptor. Instead it looks like a palace. I wish the architect had designed an elevator for it.

I make my way up the stairs by sitting backward and slowly lifting my ass stair by stair, taking most of the weight on my arms. I only have to make three flights, but it becomes an epic journey, like scaling the outside of the Empire State Building-only naked with my balls rasping against the walls and getting caught beneath all the window frames. I keep telling myself I’m almost there, but I know when I reach the top I’m still looking down the road of a thousand problems.

When I get to my door, I dig into my pocket. My jeans tighten across my crotch. I wince as I take hold of my keys. Fumble with the lock. Thirty seconds. And I’m not picking this one.

I close the door behind me, drop my keys on the floor, and stagger toward bed. My entire body is shaking. Is this the next step? Lie down forever?

No. Although I want to do nothing more than rest, I know I need to take care of the injury. Best to do it while I still have the balls. .

Huh!

. . to go ahead with such an operation.

I find a towel and toss it onto the floor, then make my way out of my jeans. Don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wear them again. From my experience blood, unfortunately, stains. I spend fifteen minutes undressing myself, then another five finding a bucket and filling it with warm water. My fish watch me with odd looks on their small faces. I say nothing to reassure them. I want to feed them, but can’t.