Wishtank

overpass illustration by Phil Wassell

The Man with Death in his Eyes

by: Kyle Tierce (aka Dr. Quandary)

It was a cold day in January, probably on the weekend, though I can’t really be sure anymore, and Eddie and I had joined our associate Miguel Esposito for a business-related visit. I had met Miguel when I was working for Luis the Fish, and he too had found himself out of work after the boss’ “untimely” death, forced back into the realm of manual labor and other more legitimate means of making money. We sat on the edge of a warehouse roof in the Hughes’ Petrol Company complex, turning our backs on the black city if only for a moment. The sky was fathomless that day, broken only by a clock tower, as well as a massive overpass, in itself impressive if only for its incredible size. I almost swore I could see the point where the sky curved with the atmosphere and met space, spiraling off into the infinite brightness of the sun, which glowed with a dull, grey winter radiance. I drew a Lucky from the pack in my breast pocket, placing it between my lips, and lit it with a few deft flips of a battered matchbook.

“So what’s up, Miguel?” I spoke smokily. Miguel sighed, adjusting the Styrofoam cup in his hand and taking a sip of the coffee within.

“They’re gonna tear down the expressway, man,” he replied after a moment of contemplation, gesturing to the sight that lay before us. “It’s gonna be weird.. I’ve lived in this neighborhood forever, and it’s always just.. been there. For as long as I can remember.” He halted, a hand raised in question, as if searching for his next words. “It’s, like, my sky, man. They’re tearing down my sky.”

Eddie nodded. I blew a smoke ring.

“It’s just.. the impermanence of things, you know?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “life is just one death after another.”

I rolled my eyes skyward in the privacy of my sunglasses. Sylvia Plath would love this kind of shit.

“It’s been over three months since they offed the Fish, man,” Miguel continued, scratching his head. “I know it ain’t safe yet, but all I want is to get back out there again . . . this frustration is fuckin’ killing me.”

“Ya know, Migs, as a culture and society today, we have no legitimate output for all of that stupid quasi-emotional crap,” I said. “No . . . becoming, no rite of passage.”

He considered that for a second. “Yeah, well, I guess that was the idea behind the Boy Scouts, originally.”

I shook my head. “No, no, man, I mean something more spiritual, more primal, you know? I mean, in ancient cultures, you had to trip on hallucinogens and survive in the forest alone for a week, like, wrestling stags to the ground. See, I’ve never done any of that, so when did I become a man?”

“God damn, Randal. You’re right . . .”

Eddie chuckled. “You should definitely hang out with us tonight.”

Six hours later, Eddie and I were tucked away in a corner of Desporte’s warehouse, listening to the crowd roar and rumble at the spectacle before us. I realized as I sipped my Sapporo Ichiban that we had picked the wrong night to recruit Miguel; the other new guy was in the midst of giving him a thorough thrashing. I knew this guy, or rather I’d heard stories: his name was Zero, and down South he was legendary, said to have dominance in every underground and amateur circuit from New Orleans to Raleigh. What really stood out about this kid, however, was his hair, which shone a brilliant blue, the kind of blue you only see in those artificially flavored blue raspberry junkfoods. I had heard it had never been dyed; he had been born with that hair. Just then, Miguel hit the floor with a sickening thud. I narrowed my eyes.

A demon.

Zero illustration by Phil WassellZero illustration by Phil Wassell

“The winner, by total knockout, is Ferris Orlan!” Amos called through his bullhorn. I saw the kid’s left eye twitch at the mention of his given name.

“Actually, it’s Zero,” he strained.

Eddie and a few others dragged Migs over to one of the recovery cots, and the crowd raged with energy; bets won, bets lost, excitement, disgust. I was focusing on the kid, though. He was lithe, agile, with ghostly pale skin and intense, viridian eyes, dark rings surrounding them. He was cracking his knuckles, his face expressionless despite the chaos of the crowd, his black shirt proclaiming the name “ERESHKIGAL” in red.

“Babylonian queen of the underworld, eh? Cocky punk,” I mused to myself. I stood, then, casting my jacket over a pile of crates and rolling my sleeves up to my elbows. As I stepped forward through the sea of onlookers, I raised my hand and whistled through my teeth to get Amos’ attention.

“Yo, Amos!” I yelled, and the room went silent. I looked around the ring, smirking at my audience for a moment. Here, my words and punches were golden; they were a gas station, and I was a match. Amos waited patiently for the sentence he knew was coming.

“I’ll take a crack at him.”

The swell of noise was deafening, filling my head with white television static. Zero regarded me calmly, one foot sliding forward, fists held at the ready to match my stance. The world fell away from us as we circled one another, everything fading into blackness and hysteria. I didn’t even know whether or not the fight had begun, but in an instant I felt the sensation of floating, weightlessness, then the force of the floor meeting my back. I shook off the shock with just enough time to roll out of the way of Zero’s descending foot, which left a deep rift in the solid cement foundation. Each attack met the resistance of a block, perfectly placed, and as we proved worthy opponents for one another, Zero and I made eye contact. There was something familiar there, something I recognized from my own reflection, a quality I saw every time I was faced with a mirror.

It was death. The man had death in his eyes.

And it clicked. Despite our enmity, our conflict, this was a kindred spirit, a comrade. This was another who had been killed years before but left physically alive to walk the earth, a living man with the eyes of a corpse, growing stronger with every blow, with every jeer of the crowd.

“What was that poem?” I thought. “ ‘One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead boys came out to fight’…”

Suddenly, I felt a sharp crack behind me, and the world fell into muffled, ringing silence. Zero had slammed me against a wall and now had me pinned, one hand wrapped tightly around my forehead. His eyes met mine, and he saw the same thing I had seen. He was grinning.

I tried to say something, to open my mouth and let a simple word escape, but to no avail. Zero pulled me forward and then thrust me into the wall, and I felt the foot of reinforced concrete crumble around me as I fell to rest in a pile of rubble. The dark, grey ceiling gave way to a dark, grey sky, the mass of swirling clouds overhead casting rain down upon me. I slowly dragged myself to my feet, stumbling to catch my balance on the slick, rotten dock. My head rang, and I pressed two fingers against the sticky warmth at the base of my skull, only to check my hand and find it covered in blood. Zero approached me slowly, stepping through the gaping wound I had left in a wall and I squinted against the rain, but my vision blurred and his figure danced in and out of focus.

“The great Randal Everett,” he scoffed, spitting at my feet. “I come all the way up here for a challenge only to find you, pathetic and weak.” He laughed. “How ironic.”

I could feel my hatred swelling, a great ember in my breast, and I could no longer see Zero, gone into the blackness and replaced with me, my mirror image. Then he was back, the edges of everything burning brightly like an overdeveloped photograph. The ember grew to a flame, the flame to an inferno, ripping across my inner-forest and leaving ashes. I clenched my fist so tightly that my nails drew blood from my palm. Zero was upon me again, his speed blinding, but to me he seemed to move with lazy fluidity, molasses against my sudden waterfall. His fist flashed towards me, and I ducked, letting it sail over my head, then pivoted, knocking him aside with a kick. I heard something snap as his body folded under the momentum of my leg and he drifted for a moment, like a plastic bag caught in the breeze, then lighted briefly on one palm and rolled to his feet. His right arm, the arm I had hit, hung limp and lifeless at his side.

And he was grinning.

He paused to say something as I had, but I allowed him no more courtesy than he had offered me. I remained relentless, bombarding him with a hail of blows, everything falling blank. As he reeled backwards from a punch to the face, I caught him by the collar of his shirt, which tore violently under the strain, and thrust him into an intact portion of the wall.

I was once again faced with a mirror; his battered features, his broken form, his loose grasp of consciousness, and I froze, my fist poised in the air behind me, lurking, ready to shatter his skull and send thousands of bone shards burrowing into his frontal lobe.

And he was grinning.

“Do it,” he barked, splattering my face with droplets of blood. “Deliver me . . . save me from all of this . . . from this!” He used his good arm to make a stifled, sweeping gesture towards the city, a lumbering giant in the background with many luminous eyes.

The overwhelming brightness burned out then, and my readied fist lolled a moment then dropped to my side. I loosened my grip on Zero’s shirt and let him slip to the ground. The ember within me died and left the world spinning in its wake.

“No,” I said, and it all went black.

outer-body illustration by Phil Wassellouter-body illustration by Phil Wassell

When I came to, I was propped up against Eddie’s shoulder, being helped into the car. My ribs hurt, my head was throbbing and my arm and torso were wrapped in some sort of makeshift sling. The world was a blur of bright lights and dark swatches, unaided by the mix of rainwater and blood that ran into my eye. It was hard to keep conscious.

“E-Eddie..”

“Shh, Randal.. you’re not in any condition to talk. Shut up.” He fastened my seatbelt with a comforting click, and I was a child again, fighting to keep my eyes open on a long trip, to stay focused. Eddie hastily rounded the front of the car and climbed in, shutting the door firmly behind him. He reached for the keys in his jacket pocket but found nothing, and went about muttering profanities as he searched his person. Once found, he inserted the key in the ignition and turned, bringing the engine to life with a steady rumble. Rain pattered lightly against the windshield, lulling me towards the darkness.

“Eddie, did I . . . did I do it?”

“Did you do what?”

“Did I.. did I kill him..?”

Eddie sighed and looked at me for a moment. “No,” he said, pausing to shake his head. “No, you didn’t.”

I smiled to myself, letting my eyes drift shut, letting the black unconsciousness sweep back over me.

This time, I was truly victorious.  •

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