Blood Men

chapter thirty-three

New tax regulations were being standardized, Inland Revenue was desperate to take more money from those who were poor, rich, and everybody in between. There were seminars being run by enthusiastic men in suits, the kind of men you see on TV late at night selling home gyms and futuristic kitchen equipment. The fun part about the seminars was we all had to pay to go along and learn new skills so we could stay in line with the new tax laws-and of course the seminars were run by Inland Revenue staff-which was another way of them making money.

I was in a room of around a hundred people-you could look down the row you were sitting in and see that each person had about the same amount of boredom pinned to their faces, like we were all watching a twelve-hour mime show. I looked down the row and at the same time a woman was looking back. I offered one of those “weird, huh?” kind of smiles, and she offered a “this is bullshit but what are you going to do?” response. There was that awkward social mingling afterward, where we all stood around drinking orange juice and not touching the half-cooked sausage rolls. I think the food was deliberately inedible so it could be offered at the next seminar and the one after that-all cost-cutting measures. I introduced myself to the woman I’d made eye contact with. Her name was Jodie.

I was shy around women. I hadn’t really had much experience of them. I was afraid every woman I ever met was probably figuring I would try and cut them in half. Jodie didn’t seem to know anybody else-and I thought perhaps in her own way she was a little socially awkward too. All I knew was she was supercute and alone and her earlier smile had made me feel good about myself in some weird way. Before I knew it, I’d asked her out for dinner.

Our first date I spent in some nervous daze where I could hardly look her in the eye. Our second date we caught a movie and then sat in a café for hours-and again I have no idea what we talked about. All I knew was there was something about this woman that made me look forward to having a future.

Part of me thinks it’s happening right now-that first time I saw her, that first date, the first time we were in bed together. It’s a memory and a dream and at the same time it’s unwinding in front of me for the first time, all of it new and fresh and wonderful. Jodie is alive and in my world again and I want her to stay.

On our third date she’s different, but I can’t figure out how. Like when somebody wears glasses for the first time or gets their hair cut; it’s something subtle until they tell you, and then it becomes obvious.

Our fourth date-this one a lunch date-and again there’s a difference but I can’t get a read on it. She seems lighter, somehow. Not in the sense that she’s lost weight-but in another, hard-to-register kind of sense.

I’m reliving the fifth date when I realize what it is: she’s paler, almost translucent around the edges. On our sixth date the skin is grey under her eyes and the tips of her fingers have turned blue. By the next date her hair is messed up and her clothes wrinkled, and the skin on the back of her hands is baggy, it’s slipping, like she’s had her hands in hot water for ages. There are dark shapes beneath the surface of her face, bruise shapes that aren’t bruises, but something else. When we walk I put my hand on her back and it’s damp with blood. Her strides are awkward, her muscles are cramped, it’s as though she’s walking on heels for the first time. Her arms move stiffly.

Then, on a dinner date, she struggles to get the food into her mouth, and when she does she finds it impossible to chew. When she takes a sip of wine, it runs out of her mouth and down her chin, it pools onto the tablecloth and blossoms outward. Her skin is even greyer, and in some areas it’s coming away, revealing a darkness beneath. Dark spaghetti lines form in her features. We don’t go out much anymore after that one. We hardly even look at each other. And every time I touch her she is colder than before.

Then on our last date, a lunch date on a hot Friday afternoon ahead of a bank appointment, I realize the woman I’m with is dead. The skin has pulled back around her face, making her eyeballs bigger, drying out and cracking her lips, her nose a loose blister, and she smells of earth and worms and rot.

“You need to be careful, Eddie,” she says, and her mouth hardly moves when she speaks, her voice sounding like gravel has stuck in her throat. I can see her vocal cords moving behind the thin skin of her neck.

“What?”

“You have to choose what’s best for you.”

“I know.”

“And Sam.”

“I know.”

“Don’t let the monster choose for you.”

“What monster?”

She reaches across the table. I’m certain she’s trying to reach across from her world to my world, to come and get me. Her hand closes on mine, it’s cold and clammy, a loose glove of skin slipping back and forth. Her smile slips too, it drags her face down, widening her eyes, and there is something moving beneath the surface of them, something wormlike. When her lips part to carry on the conversation another hand tightens on my shoulder, another voice enters the mix, and the restaurant disappears, the menus fade to nothing. My wife clings to the moment for a few more seconds, the strain obvious in her decaying features. She is silhouetted against a perfect white background, like a glowing movie theater screen. Then she too disappears, fading into the light in a second.

I open my eyes. I’m still sitting in the car. A woman with grey hair pulled into a tight ponytail and a crisp white shirt with sharp edges is kneeling next to me applying pressure to my leg. A man has his hands on my shoulders, then he hooks me beneath my armpits, his fingers digging into me. The world shifts strangely as I’m lifted onto a gurney. I can see the man’s face and wonder if it’s the same paramedic who tried to save Jodie. More pressure is applied to my leg, and when I try to look down at my body I find I can’t. I can’t even lift my head without the urge to be sick. I stare up at the sky. Blue sky, no clouds, a perfect day to. . to what? To kill somebody? The two men who came after me certainly thought so.

I can feel the gurney moving but there’s no reference point in the sky so I can’t tell how fast we’re going, and the sensation is like dropping through the air on a roller coaster. The ambulance comes into view and I’m hoisted inside. An IV is punctured into my arm and more pressure is applied to the wound and people go to work. I close my eyes. The ambulance doors close and the sirens don’t come on.

Next time I open my eyes I’m in the hospital with the hallway lights whizzing by. There are two new faces above me. I’m wheeled into ER and stabbed a few times with needles and then my leg goes completely numb. My shoes are removed and my pants cut away. The blood is wiped off, revealing a deep gash, but the fact blood isn’t spraying out hopefully means no major arteries have been cut.

“Not as bad as it looks,” a doctor says, filling up a syringe. “We’ll have you up and about in no time. You’re not going to feel a thing,” he says, but he’s wrong. I mean, I can’t feel the needle and sutures pushing through my flesh, but I feel anger and fear and. . and something else.

Excitement.

No. I don’t think it’s that.

Yes it is. Stop lying to yourself. You’re excited because you took down one more man. Only five to go now. Put your hand up and be proud.

“Proud of what?” I mutter.

“What?” the doctor asks.

“Nothing.”

There’s no time to be proud.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the doctor asks, when I try to get up.

“I have to get out of here.”

“The hell you do,” he says. “Mate, I haven’t even begun sewing you back together here.”

“I need to. .”

“Lay back down or you’re going to keep bleeding, and if you don’t bleed out you’ll get infected, and then you’ll lose your leg. That what you want?”

It isn’t what I want. He goes back to work, and is about halfway done when Schroder walks into the room.