Michael Rizza - Cartilage and Skin

IX

The apartment was lit by candles that were placed throughout the room: on the countertop, in the kitchen, and upon a pair of snack trays, which was a new addition to the scene. On the floor by the baseboard, a radio played techno dance music, its steady throb keeping the time and rhythm of a heartbeat. Despite the flickering shadows and the sound of music, the room seemed frozen. The moment was suspended, like a held breath, strained and ready to break. Ralph was sitting on the floor, with his forehead lowered to his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins. In the weak light, his bare flesh was ghastly, the color of ashes. His thin body appeared wasted. He didn’t lift his head to look around, and he didn’t move at all. Although the boy was standing — staring not so much at the man as beyond him, through him — the boy didn’t move either. The chain, still fastened to the cast iron radiator, trailed across the floor, rose up the front of the boy’s body, and ended at a black neck collar. One of the boy’s stockings was pooled around his ankle, while the other stocking disappeared under the boy’s red skirt. He stood with his hips cocked and one arm akimbo, as if he’d been posed. He was shirtless. His nipples were painted a bright, vibrant red; and the same shade of red, gaudy and perverse, was smeared all over his mouth. Yet, even when Ralph’s body began to shake with tortured sobs, the boy still didn’t move. His eyes remained as vacant as death.

X

The sunlight melted the snow a little, but by evening a cold, vivid darkness crept over the houses and streets, and froze the landscape all over again, turning the surface of the snow into a hard layer of ice, which reflected the next morning’s sun so sharply that its blinding glare caused the few cars that were out to move slowly and the drivers to squint, while icicles dripped from gutters and windowsills, and long skins of ice dropped off of tree limbs like flayed bark, and trickles of water trailed down driveways to meet up with the more steady flow alongside the curbs: This was the sound of flaw as the rest of the world appeared suspended and hushed in an attitude of lethargy, and many houses seemed to cough up disease and silently create the gray sky out of chimney smoke. The blond haired boy named Ray and his friend climbed between the wooden rails of a fence and headed across a front lawn. They walked upon the icy surface with short, careful steps. They didn’t have the shovels this time; there was no reason for them. Instead, Ray held a long stick, a makeshift staff he used for walking. The other boy was a pace behind him. They didn’t talk. Before they came to Kyle’s yard, they made a detour toward the road. Ray’s staff tapped on the wet pavement. He was still in the lead. Both of the boys kept their gazes lowered to the ground, until they started to pass by Kyle’s driveway. The tail end of the old Civic stuck out into the road, its engine softly idling. Despite the daylight and the glare upon the ice, the car’s headlights were on, so the dark, slick driveway gleamed from their light. Ray and the other boy ceased walking. They still didn’t look at one another or speak — even as Ray gave several light whacks to the car tire with his walking stick, as if testing the car for something. The other boy circled to the other side of the car, inspecting it. He peeped through its windows, although it was obvious that the car was empty. On the hood of the car was a wet, brown clump, which Ray first poked with his stick and then lifted into the air. It was Kyle’s sports jacket. Both of the boys looked at the coat as though it were a strange artifact from a distant time. The other boy, still not speaking, sucked in air through his teeth, making a hissing noise, as if from disgust or brief, wincing pain. With wide eyes, he looked around rapidly and then dropped to his hands and knees, to check beneath the car. Ray shook the coat from the end of his stick. He stared up at the house, where nothing was moving.

“He’s an odd bird,” Ray said.

“Should we shut off the car?”

“I’m not touching anything.” Ray continued to watch the house. “He’s either dead or he’s killed someone.” Because he was squinting a little, he appeared as though he might have been smiling.

“Let’s get someone.”

“But he could be in there watching TV.” Ray now turned toward the other boy. “Let’s go check.”

“You go check.”

“We’ll peek in the window.”

“You go peek.”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Ray said. “We’d look pretty stupid if we called the cops and he’s in there jerking off.”

“Let’s go then.”

“We’d look even worse if he had a heart attack and we didn’t do anything.”

The other boy turned his gaze away from Ray and up to the house. Then he looked at the idling car again; it was a bad omen. He put his hands in his jacket pockets, lowered his head, and started to walk away. Ray watched him for a moment, but Ray didn’t follow after him or say anything. He stood silently, with his head slightly cocked, as though contemplating something profound and mysterious. When he began to walk up the driveway, he still held the staff, but he didn’t place it on the ground. He rested it on his shoulder the way he had previously rested the shovel. He looked from side to side, perhaps expecting to find Kyle sprawled out on the ground. The shrubbery was caked with little beads of ice, and the ground was too hard to have been marked by footprints during the night or early morning. As Ray moved up the driveway, the sunlight caught the windows of the house at a new angle, making them burn black and yellow — but close up, on the walkway now, the windows again appeared still and somber. He cupped one hand upon the glass and peered into the family room. Nothing captured his attention or alarmed him. Everything was quiet, save for the ice falling from trees and the sound of trickling water. On either side of the front door were two slender, rectangular windows. Ray looked through one of these and then turned around to face the road. The other boy was now out of sight. Ray headed slowly back down the walkway. There was something hesitant in his step, as though he were thinking about something, possibly about whether or not he should walk around the house and look into the rest of the windows. Kyle easily could have been sitting at the kitchen table in his underwear, drinking coffee, and reading the morning newspaper. When Ray reached the driveway, he first glanced at the car and then looked down the length of the house. Although he carried the silly stick on his shoulder, he appeared somewhat sturdy and composed. For the first time, as if he’d never noticed it before, Ray stared at the detached garage. Its side door was standing open — at once conspicuous and normal — as perfectly concealed as any good trap. Ray left the driveway and walked on the frozen lawn, making a wide arc around the door and all the while trying, with a fixed gaze, to scan the interior of the garage. He eventually reached the back corner, and from there, he could see that the side and the back of the building were windowless. Gripping the stick more tightly, he crept alongside the ice-covered firewood that was stacked against the wall, and approached the doorway. When he came near the opening, he paused for a moment, and as if suddenly visited by a strange premonition, he slowly looked back over his shoulder. Then he glanced at the house again, which still appeared lifeless. He lowered the stick and vaguely probed the doorway in a way that suggested that he expected to trigger something to clamp down on the stick. When nothing happened, he leaned into the opening. He looked at an oil spot on the concrete floor, the cluttered shelves, and a mess of boxes and tools piled up against the back wall; a push-mower was partially buried. Ray stepped inside the garage. His eyes settled upon the turned-over milkcrate in the center of the parking space. His gaze was causal yet penetrating, as if he had discovered in the milkcrate not only a clue but also the last visible sign that the world had once moved. Another premonition seemed to have visited Ray because all at once his expression changed as something inside of him snapped open. He looked up. Yet Kyle’s body wasn’t hanging from the rafters — only the rope, the empty noose.