Exile of the Mutilator : Chapter 1.32

I remember the man who turned me in to the authorities. My Judas. Huh, thats not a name you hear anymore. From my studies of ancient biblical text and many comporting articles descerning the cryptic meaning of the 'prophetic work' I have deduced (so don't quote me on this) that Judas was a necessity. Long have political philosophers dedicated portions of their lives to deciding a personal answer to the question of 'ends justifying the means', and, with the help of ancient christian documentation, I myself have an answer. The means and the ends justify each other, so long as they remain unbiased.

Judy, as I came to call him, sat before me hunched over his gut like a frightened mongrel protecting its genitals. Globs of perspiration stippled his nervous face leaving wet lines to streak down his pale features and collect in the reservoir of his cleft chin. He had been shaking fiendishly. His left hand hooked around his right, elbows tucked into his abdomen, and his right clutched tightly at a pair of scissors. 'Tight enough for his knuckles to go white', had it not been a proportionately small object, I do however recall a throbbing vein at the intersection of his elbow and forearm. His teeth were clenched, his cracked lips were pulled and quivering, his jawbone and cheek shook back and forth, grinding. I wasn't facing him, but I knew how he looked. I myself had looked like that.

People everywhere claim knowledge, they claim it through television programs, musical performances, fiction. Take a survey and ask people if they think they could fly a plane in an emergency, if they could handle the kick of a mini gun, if they could dislocate the joints in their arms to escape handcuffs. Its funny how much false we think we could handle. Does fear have a smell? Heavens, no. But it does have a look.

Judy was afraid, and staring into his own reflection through the small window of the scissors in his hands was making it worse.

We hadn't spoke yet, not a word had passed in that barren room, unless you count the drip drip drip of his sweat sizzling against the granite. Like all the others the room was made for easy clean up. A centralized drain, a stain resistant coating over solid rock floor, two chairs, a melodic ceiling fan whirring above (I set it to its slowest setting, mood music so to speak). And of course, me with my back to the subject, a pair of clean scissors dipped in an antiseptic agent, and a basin with fresh ice at the subjects feet.

'How...' his thoughts finally finding a voice, scratchy and unsure but still a voice. 'How do I do this?' he asked, each word falling hopelessly over the next.

'Friend,' I said patiently, calming (I thought), soothing (I thought). 'This isn't something that you accomplish,' I turned in my chair to face him and I heard his lungs leap into his throat. My eyes fluttered open revealing a ghastly blue iris surrounding a dark pupil, taking him in for the first time I came to know him terrified. My dark skin sags around my facial bones from the many self-induced scars that carve my face. My lips pulled taught by the many years of stretching at the corners, skin being lashed together by needle and thread blood and scab. My forehead sinks over my eyebrows. The unexpected appearance sprung out at Judy, making him shrink back.

'Heavens, no, not something accomplished at all,' I finished, closing my eyelids and revealing the scars that he too would soon be making. Twin cuts ran the length of my upper and lower lids, as they opened and closed you could hear the quiet scrape of the thread against my eye cavity. 'This is a reminder.'

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I could have dislocated my shoulders to slip the handcuffs under my feet like they do in the make-believe world, I could have picked the lock with a spare bobby pin, could have waited for the arresting law enforcement, pounced on him and taken him by suprise, stolen the nearest car, driven to the border (even though there aren't borders anymore). It's just the disorientation of the tear gas, the mysterious bloody nose, the partial loss of hearing in my right ear, it all held me back. I have flesh! That is the reason I couldn't escape.

I didn't want to either.

I found out Judy had been set up to blow the whistle, he had been wired. He was a professional. I found out that I must have fallen in shock as the world police burst through ever opening, flooding the place with nauseating gas. I found out that I must have hit my head on the concrete, thats why I can't hear in my right ear, thats why I have a bloody nose.

I found all this out from the helpful driver of the blue and white. Dan Whitter his badge had read. Good ol' Dan. Danny-boy.

If it weren't for the chuckle in his every word, if it weren't for the high pitched tenor of his explanation, if it wasn't for the fact that the blue and white smelled entirely of warm, fresh, sweet food (it was more of a mobile bakery than a criminal caddy). I might have credited his story. The truth is most likely one or two of the more aggressive officers had taken a few free hits.

I didn't really mind, I didn't much like my face either.

Danny-boy, on the other hand, seemed to take great pleasure in himself. He was balding, though I'm sure he thought it more of a receding hair-line (one that didn't stop at his scalp), he was plump, he was jovial. His lower lip caught crumbs, sticky sugary residue plated his chin. He loved himself. Excessively.

'You'll see,' he would say between labored breaths, 'they'll fix you up and set this whole mess right. Say, that's a funny face you've got there. Did you fall down a flight of stairs or something?' He chuckled again.

'No,' I sighed, dried blood had caked around the left corner of my mouth and had cracked painfully as I spoke. 'I didn't fall,' I said. He laughed spitefully.

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The precinct was wedged between several fast food stores, a porn shop, a conglomerate grocery store. A nondescript brown brick building fenced in by eight foot tall wrought iron bars and a squad of blue and whites. Its placement in the outside strip mall gave one a sense of community. I remember the lightly clouded sky, blue crisp light flooded the noon-day world, bathing it gently, like a child in a sink. I remember the bubbly white clouds, the shining sun, the wildlife chirruping off in the distance. I remember it because I'll never see it again.