The False Arms

This is a very rough draft. Tell me what to change, if you please.



Poetry cannot undo deep melancholy, something Ike discovered after too many hours with Emerson and Eliot in a spare room. Verses and words seemed but a sleight to Ike, a way to deftly maneuver or adroitly sidestep. He new what the words wanted, what the poets that came before asked of him, to seek creation from his melancholy. Shall his time pass away fruitlessly? Should ennui bar composition? These are the thoughts that haunt minds of men at three in the afternoon.

The answer to the spectral questions was yes, melancholic ennui will be a barrier, in Ike’s mind. Poetry’s song was hoarse, and he took a walk instead.

From the shutting of his plastic white door, Ike recognized that there was solemnity in this afternoon. This is was an afternoon of seriousness. Skies and clouds, something adorable to Ike, were a dull color, defying categorization, seeming yellow, grey, white, and brown all once. Bars of deep grey ran through the oppressive blanket, a cage keeping the unintelligible out.  No birds were to be seen, keeping to themselves. The sidewalk remained a little damp from the previous week’s rain, but was slowly drying.

Ike shuffled through the solemn day on that sidewalk. Another shuffler looked at him adroitly, offering a smile of encouragement, blank eyes dancing as Salome. Ike was in no mood for encouragement. He looked aside, as shufflers do, and found himself face another set of eyes. These were eyes that were grey with thought, and still, still. Eyes that were so still as to reflect all they saw, as a deep pool reflects trees, stars, moon  and sun. Deep eyes that did not move.

They did not move because they were part of a painting installed in the window of an antique shop. The portrait was an old man with a wise beard, standing underneath an olive tree. The tree was twisted and shaped rather like a viper Ike had seen in the country once. The man was dressed in brown and had the attitude of a sentinel. The old man with sagging face had eyes that saw Ike’s eyes, saw into his own eyes, saw the thought behind the eyes. He stood and saw, and saw Ike. A smile, or was it anything, was there any expression besides watchfulness and seeing? In red letters, small, spiked and slender, were the words:

"vigilitate et orate"

Ike stood at the window of the shop, regarding the old man and the old man regarding him. A perceptive observed would have claimed them to be in deep conversation. This could have carried on for some time, but a powerful voice broke out, and snatched Ike from the conversation.

“God bless the senator and God bless this country! I was nothing back home, I was not even a man. Now I come here, and  I am given new limbs, new arms, and I am whole again. I am a man again.”

A black man stood at a street corner a block from Ike, with fake plastic arms. He was small, almost diminutive, but his voice was surprisingly powerful and carried quite well. He would do well on a stage, Ike reckoned. A grey-haired women was near him. She seemed to be his tutor, or something to that effect. A sizable group of shufflers stood, hunched, and listened to the man and the woman. Ike shuffled over to hunch with them.

“Listen to Mohamed’s story! And then please be generous to The Christian Church of Limbs! All money you give today can help those like Mohamed to regain their dignity and feelings of self-worth.”

She also had a potent voice, like a Diomedes challenging an unfortunate Trojan. Mohamed eagerly nodded his head as she spoke. Ike thought Mohamed looked like he belonged on a dashboard.

A thin man with false arms. He had been in a place far away, over the sea where the people are cheerful and the suns shines too much. His arms were hacked off by men with machetes. They were rebels, or "political discontents," as the grey-haired woman had called them. The man waved his arms about energetically, brandishing them, telling his story over and over. The watching women cried, the men stared at his whirring arms (the latest in prosthetic technology.) At the end of the speaking, the crowd moved like a school of fish to a clear plastic donation box, avoiding the grey haired woman as if she were a shark. She moved through the crowd towards Ike.

“What about you? What can you give to help the poor and victimize get new limbs?”

Ike had no money with him.

“I don’t have any now. I could go back to my flat and get some.”

"I'm sorry, but after this testimony, I have to go to my herb garden, to keep the rabbits out. They are so bad this time of year, and I do love my hyssop. Come back tomorrow. We’ll speak at the country chapel."

“I work tomorrow.” Why on earth did she grow hyssop?

The woman with grey hair looked at him, but didn't see his perplexed face. Her eyes were
black and looked plastic and black, as if she had buttons for eyes, or had stolen the eyes
from a doll in a toy store. She could look at something for minutes and not see anything. She
could stare, but not watch anything. Nothing and everything would escape her if she sat in a
garden, keeping watch. She abruptly grasped Ike’s hand and stroked it.

“Come to my garden. I have tea  brewing.” Ike was perplexed and could not see past here plastic eyes. What was there? Curiosity filled him like a balloon.

“Why not?”

“Why not, indeed?” She smiled jaggedly, but easily, like someone who has done it often but badly. Her eyes were stiff, and couldn’t smile.

They walked along the sidewalk towards the red river, stumbling over grey broken blocks of concrete as they did. The blocks were from some old median stood between the lanes of a highway, knocked down and now only served to stub moping pedestrians' toes. Ike stubbed several of his toes on that walked. The grey-haired women was more graceful, like a dancer.

Although her garden was attached to a house, they entered by a wicker gate.Ike could not see any hyssop, the garden was small, cozy, and inviting. Ivy lush and thriving was everywhere, on the side of the house, on tree trunks, all over the concrete wall which determined the garden. Planters filled with five-petaled purple flowers with yellow centres bordered the walls. There were apple tree and pear trees, heavy with fruit, protecting a brick patio from an unwanted sun. The shade of the trees was lovely. It crept up Ike’s skin like a gloved hand.

“Let me get the tea and some cupcakes.”

Ike stood and awash in the colors and the life, letting his senses drink freely. A draught of the warm south, as someone once put it. He pulled in the scent of the flowers and fruit, and smelled something amiss, something warm but different. The warmth of pulling apart, not knitting together. Ike moved toward the nearest planter, where the flowers seemed thickest. He stuck his nose into the flower thicket. A stench mingled with the sweet smell. Any ennui that Ike had previously was long since vanished. He waxed intrepid, and gently moved into the flowers, seeking the loathsome. Perhaps a dead mouse had been left by a delinquent cat, or a monstrous slug awaited him. What he found was not what he expected.

The white skull of a dead horse stared at him. Hyssop grew amongst its ribs.

“Would you like a cupcake? Do you take cream?”

The black plastic eyes looked at him, unperturbed by Ike’s rummaging in the planter.

“Erm, no, thank you. Why is there a dead horse in your flowers?”

She glided toward him, as if her legs were just for appearance’s sake and were not really necessary. Her mouth opened, she slipped out her tongue, as if to taste the air. Her lips peeled back, and her teeth gleamed quite immodestly. Her button, doll’s eyes came too close to Ike’s face for him to remain entirely at ease.

“Why did Richard want a horse so badly?”

The Servant bled for the world. All the tree and rivers will clap their hands, and the sun will roll down the mountain. The sparks in the night sky will dance with each other, and come together in new shapes and friendship. The earth will sing a new song, and men will sing and dance with her. Ike saw this and was terrified. He knew that he had no place in that choir or in that dance.

Ike slouched to his flat. The cloudy sky was drenched red, red as blood, the sun setting in flashing gold. The sidewalk caught the light and flung it to Ike’s unseeing eyes. There was no writing to be done that night.

A Drive

Some absolute, unpolished, unedited, authentic rubbish... how appropriate for one of the first "abortive attempt of lesser men". Please don't hate me forever for this - IR Larson

They were driving and the inside of the car was cool. They had been driving for three days now. He had picked her up just outside of Needles. When he picked her up he had thought she was sort of pretty. But it seemed that the longer they drove, the prettier she got.

One time they had gotten out of the car to look at a wreck on the side of the road. It was in the pan-handle of Texas. After they got back into the car, he thought she wasn’t that pretty. Her make-up had smeared and there was sweat on her forehead. He almost thought of leaving her at the closest town. But at the next stop, she washed up. After that, she just got prettier again as the miles passed beneath the tired wheels of his old coupe.

As the miles took him farther from the west, she thought he seemed to grow older and more anxious. Not that he had been all that relaxed when he picked her up around Needles. Not that he was that young to begin with; not any younger than thirty-five. But it didn’t matter what he looked like or how he acted, she didn’t pick her rides. She wanted to get back to her folks in Arkansas, and he said he was headed out east.

His car looked like salvage from a yard, but it was cooler inside than the truck she had gotten a ride in from the valley. Talking wise he was alright; he either talked just a little too much or said nothing. Said he had worked the mills up by Russian River and travelled the Cascades for the lumber company. He had even worked the mines out east of San Diego, but that didn’t last long. Talked a lot about the mines. She believed him. Why not? But past Texas, after he was all through talking about himself, he didn’t have much to say.

Radio’s broke. Static’s all that’s coming through.

Yup.

I like the radio. Helps pass the time. Though music here’s not like it is back home.

Sure ain’t.

Where you from; born, grew-up, I mean?

Oh, born in one place, raised in dozen others. Don’t account for much; living’s not much different in Ohio as California. Neither is dyin’ for that matter.

Arkansas’s nice place to grow up. Little farm and all.

Why’d ya leave then?

Cause livin’ sure is different in California than Arkansas.

That so? I’ll be damned, not the way I’ve got it figured.

Well, it is, let me tell you.

As the miles added up, he liked her more. He almost thought to hell with his brother in Carolina, just stay with her in Arkansas. He started thinking about what Arkansas could be like. He thought, maybe she’s right, maybe Arkansas is different from California.

There was silence. She didn’t mind too much. He still looked worn and concerned. She didn’t care: she was tired. Her eyes glazed and she stared, watching the road pass by, with the retching of the old engine making a freakish rhythm like her old man playing music. That rhythm could put her to sleep. Like a baby.

She woke up when the motorbike cop pulled them over just west of Oklahoma City. It would have been wiser if he not stuck that little bottle of cognac under his seat in Flagstaff. After a few minutes, she saw more cops pull up in faded patrol cars with some guys in suits. He didn’t argue or struggle. Just answered their questions and nodded his head. They put him in a car and started heading back west. Odd thing was, when they hauled him off with the cuffs on, she thought he looked younger and more relaxed than ever before.

Way they told it, turns out California isn’t so different from Oklahoma. At least not as the Law’s concerned. Figures, if you kill a deputy in Barstow, the cops or Feds in Oklahoma kind of mind. Or at least somebody makes them mind. You’d almost expect that Arkansas isn’t too different from Oklahoma, and so California isn’t too unlike Arkansas; so she was wrong. Maybe that’s why she turned back west. There weren’t any cars going east, but she could have waited. She didn’t. She caught a ride from the first west-bound trucker that passed her by.

They were driving and the inside of the truck was hot. They had been driving for three hours now. He had picked her up just outside of Oklahoma City. When he picked her up he had thought she was sort of pretty. But it seemed that the longer they drove, the uglier she got.