Brian Evenson - Last Days

"But it was no accident," said Gous.

"No," said Ramse. "Others argued, successfully, that it was no accident but instead an act of will. But then the question came 'An act of will on whose part?' On the part of the gentleman with the hatchet, surely, no denying that, but responsibility can hardly rest solely with him, can it now, Mr. Kline?" He turned a little around as he said it, pivoting his missing ear toward Kline. "All you had to do was tell him one thing, Mr. Kline, just a lie, and you would have kept your hand. But you didn't say a thing. A matter of will, Mr. Kline. Your will to lose the hand far outweighed your will to retain it."

Outside, the highway had narrowed to a two-lane road, cutting through dry scraggled woods, the road's shoulder heaped in dust.

"What about you?" Kline asked Gous.

"Me?" said Gous, blushing. "Just the hand," he said. "I'm still new."

"Have to start somewhere," said Ramse. "We brought him along because the powers that be thought you might be more comfortable with someone like you."

"He's not like me."

"You have one amputation, he has one amputation," said Ramse. "Yours is a hand, his is a hand. In that sense, he's like you. When you start to look closer, well. ."

"I used anesthetic," said Gous.

"You, Mr. Kline, did not use anesthetic. You weren't given that option."

"It's frowned upon," said Gous, "but not forbidden."

"And more or less expected for the first several amputations," said Ramse. "This makes you exceptional, Mr. Kline."

Kline looked at the seat next to him, the open tin of sardines, the filets shining in their oil.

"I'm exceptional as well," said Ramse. "I've never been anesthetized."

"He's an inspiration to us all," said Gous.

"But that you cauterized your wound yourself, Mr. Kline," said Ramse. "That makes you truly exceptional."

"I'd like to get out of the car now," said Kline softly.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mr. Kline," said Gous, grinning. "We're in the middle of nowhere."

"I could count the number of people who self-cauterize on one finger of one hand," said Ramse.

"If he had a hand," said Gous.

"If I had a hand," said Ramse.

They drove for a while in silence. Kline stayed as still as he could in the back seat. The sun had slid some little way down the horizon. After a while it vanished. The tin of sardines had slid down the seat and was now at an angle, the oil leaking slowly out. He straightened the tin, then rubbed his fingers dry on the floor carpeting. It was hard not to stare at Ramse's missing ear. He looked down at his own stump, looked at Gous' stump balanced on the seat's back. The two stumps were actually quite different, he thought. The end of Gous' was puckered. His own had been puckered and scarred from the makeshift cauterization; after the fact, a doctor had cut a little higher and smoothed it off, planed it. Outside, the trees, already sparse, seemed to vanish almost entirely, perhaps partly because of the gathering darkness but also the landscape was changing. Ramse pushed one of his stumps into the panel and turned on the headlights.

"Eight," said Ramse, gesturing his head slightly backward.

"Eight?" asked Kline. "Eight what?"

"Amputations," said Ramse. Kline watched the back of his head. "Of course that doesn't mean a thing," he said. "Could be just eight toes, all done under anesthetic, the big toes left for balance. That should hardly qualify for an eight," he said.

Gous nodded next to him. He held up his stump, looked over the back. "This counts as a one," he said. "But I could have left the hand and cut off all the fingers and I'd be a four. Five if you took the thumb."

They were waiting for Kline to say something. "That hardly seems fair," he offered.

"But which is more of a shock?" asked Ramse. "A man losing his fingers or a man losing his hand?"

Kline didn't know if he was expected to answer. "I'd like to get out of the car," he said.

"So there are eights," said Ramse, "and then there are eights." They came to a curve. Kline watched Ramse post the other hand on the steering wheel for balance, turning the wheel with his cupped stump. "Personally I prefer a system of minor and major amputations, according to which I'd be a 2/3."

"I prefer by weight," said Gous. "Weigh the lopped-off member, I say."

"But you see," said Ramse, "bled or unbled? And doesn't that give a certain advantage to the corpulent?"

"You develop standards," said Gous. "Penalties and handicaps."

"Why do you need me?" asked Kline.

"Excuse me?" asked Ramse.

"He wants to know why we need him," said Gous.

"That's easy," said Ramse. "A crime has been committed."

"Why me?" asked Kline.

"You have a certain amount of experience in investigation," said Gous.

"Not investigation exactly, but infiltration," said Ramse.

"And you don't flinch, Mr. Kline," said Gous.

"No, he doesn't flinch."

"But-" said Kline.

"You'll be briefed," said Ramse. "You'll be told what to do."

"But the police-"

"No police," said Ramse. "It was hard enough to get the others to agree on you."

"If it hadn't been for the hand," said Gous.

"If it hadn't been for the hand," said Ramse, "you wouldn't be here. But you're one of us, like it or not."

He woke up when the car stopped in front of a set of metal gates. It was fully dark outside.

"Almost there," said Ramse from the front.

The gates opened a little and a small man stepped out, turning pale and white in the over-bright halogen glow of the headlights. The man came over to the driver's door. Kline could see he was missing an eye, one closed lid seeming flat and deflated. He was wearing a uniform. Ramse rolled down the window, and the man peered into the car.

"Mr. Ramse," said the guard. "And Mr. Gous. Who's in the back?"

"That would be Mr. Kline," said Ramse. "Hold up your arm, Mr. Kline," said Ramse.

Kline lifted his hand.

"No, the other one," said Ramse.

He lifted the stumped arm and the guard nodded. "A one?" he asked.

"Right," said Ramse. "But self-cauterized."

The guard whistled. He drew away from the window and made his way back to the gates, which he drew open just wide enough for the car to pass through. Through the rear window, Kline watched him draw the gates shut after them.

"Welcome home, Mr. Kline," said Ramse.

Kline didn't say anything.

They passed a row of houses, turned down a smaller road where the houses were a little more spread out, then down a third, smaller, tree-lined alley that dead-ended in front of a small, two-story building. Ramse stopped the car. The three of them climbed out.

"You'll be staying here, Mr. Kline," said Ramse. "First floor, second door to the left once you go through the entrance. There's probably an hour or two of night left," he said. "We'll see you in the morning. For now, why don't you try to get some sleep?"

When he went in, he couldn't figure out how to turn the hall light on so, instead, wandered down the dark hall dragging his hand along the wall, feeling for doorways. His fingers stuttered past one. He lifted his fingers from the wall and brought them near his face. They smelled of dust. He went on until he came to another doorframe, fumbled around for the handle.

Inside, he found a switch. It was a small windowless room, containing a narrow single bed with a thin, ratty blanket. In one corner was a metal cabinet. The floor was linoleum, a streaked blue. The light, he saw, was a naked bulb, hanging from the center of the ceiling. The walls' paint was cracking.

Welcome home , he thought.

He closed the door. There was no lock on it. He opened the cabinet. It was full of stacks of calendars, each month featuring a woman in various states of undress, smiling furiously. He looked at the first picture for some time before realizing the girl was missing one of her thumbs. With each month, the losses became more obvious and more numerous, March losing a breast, July missing both breasts, a hand, and a forearm. The December girl was little more than a torso, her breasts shaved off, wearing nothing but a thin white cloth banner from one shoulder to the opposite hip, reading "Miss Less Is More."