Jack O'Connell: Word Made Flesh

You are hearing the screams of a small, fat man. This will be your last opportunity to turn away. The noise should end presently. At the very least the sound will be diminished, transformed into something you might find somewhat more acceptable. The ghost of the scream. There may even be a moment or two of silence — the time between the man’s realization of what is about to happen to him and his realization that there is absolutely nothing he can do to prevent it from happening.

I refuse to accept blame for what you are witnessing. This is not my fault. To some degree, we all have to admit, Leo Tani put himself in this situation. He knew full well the hazards of his particular occupation and he did not behave prudently. Had he never heard the advice, Act reverently when sojourning in a foreign land?

You will argue, at some future date, that the ’Shank has long resided in the city. That he has made the city his home since his arrival, from Turin, in the midst of his extended and overheated puberty. I would only answer that this is one more rumor we will never see confirmed, a statement without evidence to prove its truth, repeated for so long that we accept it at face value. But you should know, better than most, that no one can make this city his home. We remain transients here even if we never leave. And strangers to each other forever.

If you move to the left, you should be able to see them preparing. Don’t be ashamed. It is nothing but human to be fascinated by ritual. Please try to relax. In days to come you may wish to castigate yourself over your passivity. But this is a futile and regressive response to a new form of knowledge. You were simply curious and since when has this been a crime? Isn’t wisdom born of curiosity, the inherent need to watch and to listen and thus, to know? Isn’t this the nature of the witness?

I hope you have the generosity to admit that there is a kind of beauty in the ritual. A perverse grace, I will grant you, but still. My advice would be to look for the significance of each small gesture. These signals tend to coalesce, to bind together in the end and reveal a larger and deeper pattern. Notice, for instance, that they use Leo’s own silk monogrammed show handkerchief as the blindfold. Try to remember, if you can make it out in this light, the color of the masking tape they use to secure the cotton wadding in his mouth.

I have no way of knowing if you are a religious individual. I cannot say that I care either way. But as you watch them now, stripping the ’Shank of his fine clothing, do you think of some historical precedent? Or can you not move past what you imagine to be going through Leo’s mind? Let me assure you he is mistaken. The violation you are about to behold is something so much greater than a common rape. It is an outrage against the entire corporal world. Do you think I am being flamboyant?

That is Gallzo you are smelling. A liquor produced in a particularly arid region of the Middle East. Derived from the roots of the hyssop reed. It is an acquired taste. I will tell you a small secret: each barrel is flavored with a drop of urine from the honey buzzard. Have you ever had the pleasure? It is known to be one of Tani’s greatest indulgences. You might take heed of the fact that none of them guzzle. One reverent sip. And then the remains of the bottle are poured over the victim’s naked expanse. A bit closer you would hear the small splash, the liquid bouncing off his girth, running down the skin, off the body and finally into the cinder bed beneath their feet. Through this century of ash and into the dry earth itself.

Like a trip to the River Jordan. The action has that kind of power. You might expect a black dove to appear up here in the balcony with us, the flutter of the wings somehow worse than Leo’s muted cries. Do you believe the alcohol will cause the burn to be even more intense? Or will the ’Shank be unconscious by then, the body fallen to shock, the victim unable to observe what you will remember forever?

I suppose there is a lesson here for every businessman — be careful what you bring to market. And isn’t that what we all are in the end? Businessmen. Merchants. Entrepreneurs of one sort or another.

The bread crusts on the floor? Most likely they were left by the tinker children. By all accounts, this train station is their home. I see by your face that you distrust this myth as well, but I can attest to its veracity. They are not nearly as feral as the common wisdom would have you believe. They are extremely crafty in their own way, but, of course, they lack your years of experience and the formal training of a rational mind. This is why you are the witness and the tinkers have abandoned their refuge for the night.

Excuse me, look closely now. They are readying their tools. I only wish you could hold the blades yourself. It would make the event so much more palpable for you.

They still produce their cutlery by hand, in the manner of the ancients, particularly the Greeks. Though it is said they have acquiesced to the use of stainless steel rather than bronze. They employ the techniques perfected in Solingen. They are not dilettantes — none may use the blade who do not craft the blade. Beginning to end. They refine their own steel in individual clay crucibles, forge the blade with hammer and anvil and grinding wheel, endlessly polish until the motion of the soft rub becomes a kind of trance-making prayer. I once heard they used a roue of their own blood and bile as the cutting fluid. But you know how these types of legend can take on a life of their own. The same source swore to me that they must single-handedly, and in an elaborately orchestrated fashion, kill the beast chosen to provide the handle of horn or bone or tusk. Elsewhere I heard that every hilt is made of mother-of-pearl. Who are we to believe?

It takes years to complete a single scalpel in this manner, but the instrument will last a lifetime. Or, perhaps, several lifetimes, if you follow my meaning. After the winter of glazing comes the spring of buffing. And after the summer of mirror satining, we are to understand, a name that will never be spoken is finally etched into the blade.

Now, please, pay attention — here is the first incision. There may be a spurt of — yes, there it is, did you catch it? You see, they start at the base of the neck, very careful to avoid the arterial network. They want Leo alive throughout the entire procedure, if possible. They believe it keeps the tissue more vibrant and supple in its afterlife.

I have no way of knowing how much background you have in human anatomy. And certainly I don’t wish to interfere with your observing. It is just that I personally find the integumentary system so fascinating. Both in the area of its organic nature, the beautiful complexity of its layering, and in the fact of its existence as an ecosystem itself, the housing it provides to that microscopic, parasitic world we ignore every day.

I see you flinch. And we are only at the beginning. But you did not close your eyes and that will make all the difference. It bothers you, I suppose, that Leo is still conscious. The way his head attempts to jerk back and forth within the confines of their hands. You imagine him choking as the wadding works its way deeper down his trachea. Try to think of Mr. Tani as more object than person. This has worked for others in the past.