To The Earth We Return

A.J. Hayes

So, the boss lady buried her kid

beneath the plum tree in her backyard

last week. Cancer got him. Only forty-eight

and he didn't go easy. She feels closer to him there,

his ashes spun around and through the deep wrought roots.

She'll see him, she says, in pink spring blossoms

and dark barked curve of winter branches.

She takes comfort in that so I don't say much.

But, she makes jars of jam from those plums

every summer. Makes me wonder what I'll do next July

when she hands me mine.

The Gift

by

AJ Hayes

When I opened the door, he was sitting by the window, watching the midnight rain. He didn't turn, just watched the streetlamps pushing out tarnished light against the winter darkness.

“Hello, Father,” I said.

“Hello, my son.”

His voice was the same; soft and weighted with too many confessions, too much pain.

A blinking ruby light at the end of the narrow room drew me like a moth. I gently parted the filmy curtains and looked at the small figure in the big white bed.

“What's her name?”

His Roman collar gleamed in the dim hospital light.

“Her name's Susan. Just a girl. Eighteen.”

I moved my eyes over the wreckage of her face; the symmetry of modifications he'd done to her.

“Evidently he likes clowns,” I said.

He didn't answer. Only the dry rasp of his rosary.

“I don't know if I can do this, Father. I've been away a long time.”

As always, he stared straight into my soul.

“No modesty, Seamus.” 

“I'll need time.”

He smiled his gentle smile.

#

The ancient church murmured to itself as I waited. After a while, the confessional door opened. When the candlelight played softly across her face, I blinked. She was beautiful, perfect. But, as they sat beside me in the worn wooden pew, I saw a kind of vacancy, an absence of light, in her moss-green eyes.

“Susan,” the old priest said, “this is Seamus.”

She glanced at me slant-wise, then quickly away.

“You were there that night . . . in the hospital.”

“Yes.”

“You saw me. What he did to me.”

“Yes. You look better now. ”

Again the slanting glance. The empty eyes darting away.

“Do I? I don't know. I don't look in mirrors anymore.”

The priest shifted his weight, touched the girl's shoulder.

“Tell him why, child.”

“Because I'm afraid. Afraid if I look in a mirror, I'll see him. Behind me. Right behind me. Closer than breathing. Closer than—”

The old man touched her arm again.

“Tell him what he said when he left you on the hospital lawn.”

“He said—” Her voice broke in two. “He said . . . ‘I'll see you again.’ ”

He nodded, face hidden in shadow.

“Seamus has something for you,” he said.

She took the tight-grained cedar box from me.

“What is it?”

“A gift.”

I left them there in the old murmuring church, outlined by candlelight, in the soft darkness.

#

I'd worked very hard to make it the best I could. I'd searched the fabric shops for days looking for just the right weight and color of velvet for the box lining. It had taken a week to shape the cedar properly. I'd had a hard time finding the exact ink to freshen and preserve the tattoo and an equally tough search acquiring the exact shade of dye for his mustache and eyebrows . I won't even go into the long, long hours I spent tanning his leather, working it thin and smooth. In the end, though, it was worth it. The eyeholes, thanks to the infinite ebony of the velvet backing, were black as the rivers of hell. The eyebrows and mustache blonde as a surfer girl's hair. The thick lips collagen-pumped into lifelike cruelty. I'd even smoothed out the deep creases around his mouth from all the screaming he'd done. While he still could scream. Before I removed his face.

#

I was in the park when my cell rang. The summer was in full swing and sunlight washed over me like a warm tropic sea. I was sipping an espresso and watching a flock of crows badgering a hawk.

“Hello, Father,” I said. “Did she like my gift?”

“I don't know that ‘liked’ is the word for it, Seamus. But it healed the scar on her soul.”

“Yeah?” I said.

I could picture the smile on his deep-lined face.

“Yesterday she bought a mirror,” he said.

Working Christmas

by

AJ Hayes

My boots are letting ice water in, some snow has found its way down my collar and a bug of some kind keeps stinging me under my thermals. I stay still and take it.  Another fucking Christmas on the job.

Come on! I think. Open the damn curtains.

I've got the picture window framed perfectly in the scope. The butt of the fifty caliber Barrett M95 sniper rifle nestles into my shoulder like a coed's head. The scope shows me every detail sharp and clear, like I'm ten feet away instead of better than a half mile off.  

A curl of smoke lazes from the chimney of the red brick house.

Great, I think, the stockings are hung, the fire's started. Just pull the fucking curtains! The big bad wolf wants to see your ass.

Just like Santa heard my wish, the drapes pull apart and the target is framed full on in the window.  Wearing a bright red bathrobe, yet. Thank you, Mr. Claus.

I slowly take up the slack in the trigger, steady my breathing and slow my heart rate. Only a quarter ounce more pressure and the big dog barks. Easy, I think. Easy does it. Only another gram of trigger pull and . . .

Fuck!

Unless he's grown another couple of heads, he's holding two kids in his arms. Young ones, maybe three or four years old. The target smiles at them. Kisses their foreheads. Grins like a goon. I swing the scope up, get a gander at the rest of the room. Shit. Shit. Shit. The whole damn family's there: young men and women, lots of kids, a couple of infants. All laughing and happy. All watching Grandpa.

Boss didn't say he'd have family there.

I picture the carnage. Picture his head exploding. Bone, blood, and brains scattering across the room. Spattering everybody's faces with little bits of Grandpa. Soaking them with his blood. That would be a picture all of them would see in their dreams as long as they lived. Every Christmas card, every tree, every fucking strip mall Santa would bring back the old man standing there with no head.

I ease off the trigger and lower the Barrett. I can't do it. I can't put that into all their lives forever. Not on Christmas Day, for fuck's sake! Any other day, sure. But not this day. I slide the weapon back in its case, slip down the reverse slope to the van where my field kit is and spend some time improvising.

All of the morning and most of the afternoon is gone before I pull the van up in front of the house. I grab the package I'd found when I folded the dead postal worker into the back of his truck and trudge up the driveway. It's spitting snow again, twilight's falling thick and hard to see through.

When I ring the doorbell, one of the kids answers it. She's pretty. About twelve with black hair and intense blue eyes. One of those Irish complexions that run to milk-white skin and a thousand freckles. I touch my cap with my index finger.

"Hello, Miss," I say. "Is there an adult here?"

She nods and runs into the living room.

The old man's got a drink in his hand. Double something over ice in an old-fashioned glass. His cheeks have the glow that whiskey and happiness bring.

"Hello," he says. "Merry Christmas, son."

"Good evening, sir," I say, looking at the mailing label. "Are you Arthur Franchetti?"

A couple or three of the mouse-sized kids are crowding up behind him, all talking at once.

"Who's it from, Grampa?"

"Yeah, who?"

"Boy! That's a really big box."

"Who sent it, Grampa?"

The old guy chuckles and studies the label.

"Why it appears to be from F.A.O. Schwartz, the world's largest toy store all the way back in New York City."

He winks at me.

"And," he says to the kids. "It seems to be from . . ." He squints at the label, wiggling his eyebrows. "From Santa!"

All of them go nuts, yelling, squealing, and tugging at the old guy's robe.

"Can we open it?"

"Yeah, can we open it now?"

"Please, Grampa."

"Please!"

"Sure we can, kids," he says. "Just let me sign for it so it will be legal." He hands them the package and they grunt and woof as they carry it into the room."

"Don't open it until I get there," the old guys yells after them. He turns back to me and signs the postal receipt.

"Thank you, sir," I say and hand him his copy. "Merry Christmas."

He reaches into the pocket of his robe and hands me a couple of twenties. "Thank you for giving up your Christmas to deliver this. Hell, gimme those back."

I hand him back the twenties and he replaces them with a couple of fifties.

"There," he says. "That's better. It's Christmas, fer chri'sake."

I touch the brim of my postal cap.

"Just part of the job, sir." I say. "But thank you."

He closes the door and I walk back to the stolen truck. I give it a few seconds to allow time for the family to cluster close around the surprise present then I press the detonator.

The house shudders. A few bricks fly out of the wall and all the windows shoot white-hot flame ten feet outside. The brick structure absorbs most of the flames and all of the concussion wave. The Three Pigs were right. Bricks are a shitload stronger than most other materials.

Unfortunately for the people inside the house, that means the explosion and fire are magnified ten times or more. With force and heat like that, there's literally no time. It's an instant. The space between tick and tock. One moment they're alive and happy. The next they're sleeping for eternity. No bad dreams of Grandpa with no head. No fucked-up lives full of tranquillizers and nervous breakdowns and night terrors and screwed-up marriages and suicide and drugs and abuse and all that shit. Just sleep, long and quiet. They came out okay, considering.

Me, too. No vengeful family members to look over my shoulder for.

Boss will be happy.  He wanted it messy. And he wanted it big. The fifty caliber head shot would have been messy all right—but nowhere near as big as blowing the whole damn family into flaming bits of bone.

Actually, I think I'll probably get a bonus for creativity. Boss likes creativity.

I drive away in the clearing snow. A few stars break through the clouds and shine down hard and bright. 

A pretty good Christmas all around, I think.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Baby Boy

by AJ Hayes

Little Willie was feeling pretty mellow despite the snow falling, heavy and gray, in the alley. It had gone pretty good. The quick half turn just as he passed the skinny, Santa-hatted ex-tweaker. The fast right cross with all of his three hundred pounds behind it knocked her skanky ass over backward. The chain suspending the small, black kettle from its tripod snapping just right. His escape to the dark at the edge of the parking lot. All that went just as planned. The only complication was when the doper bitch jumped to her feet and, screaming like a parrot from hell, chased him into the shadows. Only one choice then.

He had spun real fast and shoved his knife about six inches into her belly. That had stopped the screeching like flipping a light switch. It flipped her switch too, he reckoned. She had dropped limp and still, face down. He hoped she wasn't dead. That would mean a lot more shit in his life than petty theft and assault. Lot more cops. He hoped the bitch got up and walked away.

Didn't really matter, he thought, snuggling back against the rough bricks of the alley, wedged way back between the two rusted-out dumpsters. He'd made the get gone and caught up with his main man on the sidewalk. Five minutes later, he was holding and hidden. He'd been kind of surprised that it went down that easy. After all, he'd stiffed the guy on another deal just last week. But it was Christmas Eve and he had to get high.

Just like when his old man got shot.

Just like when his mama hit the big OD.

Just like when his baby sister got taken away

Just like when Connie dumped him for another woman.

Just like when he lost his job.

Just like when he'd got thumped out of the gang.

Just like when the Raiders lost.

Just like all the other just likes.

The cook up went smooth. Zippo flame melted it right down. He was about to draw the rich brown fluid into his rig when a shadow blocked the light. He looked up quickly.

It was the bell ringer, leaned up against the dumpster; head held funny, as though her neck was too weak to hold it up. The wet snow had plastered her stringy, black hair down over her face. She pulled herself down the edge of the trash bin, every small step costing her, and slid down the bricks to sit beside him.

"What you want, bitch?" he said.

"You ain't gonna stick me again, are you?”

"Nah. Don't look like you any danger. What you want?"

She tried to smile. It didn't work.

"I thought since you killed me . . ." She pulled her hand away from her ribcage and showed him the jetting pulse of a cut artery, "you might let me get a taste."

Willie eyed her, assaying the chance she was trying to con him. Decided not. Bitch was dying, all right. His nose told him she'd already shit her pants. She was checking out right while they were talking.

He remembered a movie his Mama took him to see once, back when she was clean. Something about second chances and treating people right. He remembered that the old guy in the film made out pretty good at the end.  Who knows? he thought. Man might need a solid on the books someday.

"Sure," he said. "One time only. It's Christmas."

He filled the spike, tapped the bubbles out. Fixed her in the chicken-bone thin arm she held out. She shuddered and leaned back against the bricks. Her eyes going deep and far away.

"Hoo, baby boy, that's good. Oh that's good," she said, slow and soft. "That's real good."

Willie's eyes widened. Baby Boy. She said it just like his mama did. He knew Mama was dead. Had held her in his arms while she died. But it felt so good to hear that name again. Said like that. He hurried to join her in the rush.

"Call me ‘Baby Boy’ again," he said.

She didn't say anything. Her hair had fallen all across her face.

"Come on," Willie said. "Call me ‘Baby Boy’ again, like you did just now. Please."

He put his arm around her. Felt the frail sticks of her shoulders.

Felt the hard second rush of the hot-shot hit him. Felt the fire run though his body.

"Mama," he breathed out soft. "Mama."

 Only the fast falling snow heard him.