Closer to Bone
Spencer Wendleton
Brady Kerns memorized her father’s features in the casket. Her life flashed before her eyes and instead of clinging to it, she lingered over the dead. Somehow, his memory would live on no matter what the cost.
Julie, her older sister, never knew of the secret tithing her father sent to her every month. The family didn’t embrace Julie; her sexual excursions severed her from family ties. Her promiscuity burdened their mother up to her fatal stroke. In the confines of her apartment, Brady strayed from the light and sewed the day away, the only means to busy her from insanity alongside bargain liquor and cable television. The thought of having no one chilled the aspect of another tomorrow.
She tightened her shawl and bent closer to the coffin. “Don’t you realize I need you?”
Her glasses slipped off and landed under his chin. She hunched down to pick them up when Julie snuck behind her. “Why are you touching him?”
“I dropped my glasses.”
Brady studied her awkward body. Those huge blonde curls made her beanpole frame shrink to an emaciated stance. Her smooth and slender legs popped out of her black skirt, her cleavage obtrusive in the funeral hall-or any place at that matter. It was ironic that it took a death in the family to see Julie again. They were well into there forties and still hadn’t embraced sisterhood.
Julie pursed her lips and batted her eyes. “Is there any rich friends of Daddy’s here?” Brady didn’t answer. “How much is the ‘ol windbag worth? Really, do you know?”
Brady still didn’t answer. Julie nagged her even at a visitation.
“You better know,” she said, tightening her chin. “That’s the reason I came.” Brady hid her face into the comforts of her own hands. “Isn’t that why you came?”
“He’s worth everything to me, Julie.” Brady slid her glasses back on. “I miss him already.” “No, Brady. I’m speaking of money,” she lowered her voice, “stupid whore.”
“No money I know of,” Brady said, closing her eyes like her father’s. “His will gave it to several charities.” She bit her lip in the midst of a lie. She’d spent most of his money before he died on unpaid bills and her father’s estate taxes. “I’m sorry.”
Julie pulled out her lipstick and spread it over her lips. When she blinked, Brady was blinded by neon blue eye shadow. “I think I’ll stop by tomorrow after the funeral and figure this mess out with you, hey sis? Money or not.”
“But-”
“-I insist.” She glanced at him in the casket. Her eyes roamed over their father like a mortician would a corpse with no identity. Before she exited the foyer, she called out to her. “Tomorrow, don’t forget.”
The visitation ended several hours later. Brady never left her father’s side. Old family members came and went in blurs of suppressed memories. Her father was the only one she needed. She had to move on and find something else to live for. There were no options except to wallow and wait for the next bourbon with a twist. A tall, slender man lurched from the corner of the room. His back was hunched forward; the effect stooped his entire frame. His thin, metallic hair was tied into a ducktail and his face was scathed with acne scars. Those sockets grabbed her attention. The shadows made trenches of his eyes. When he spoke, his throat projected low from lack of use.
“The visitation’s over, mah’m.”
Brady glued her eyes back to her father’s face. The subtlety of his smile had suppressed tears until now. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” “Yes, you’re Charlie’s daughter.” His words worked with a friendly intonation. “I’m sorry for being rude. I’m Ivan.”
She shrugged him off. “Brady.”
Ivan squeezed her shoulder. Her flesh sprouted with prickly goose bumps. The sympathetic touch made her relax. A stranger’s hand was more comforting over the familiar. His mouth creaked open, a line of saliva stretched between his upper and lower lip.
“Your father was a good man.”
Brady perked up. “How’d you meet him?”
“Never had the honor.” He closed the head of the casket. She was about to make him open it back up, but he interrupted her. “But I know more than you think. More than you may ever know.”
Ivan dragged the casket into the back parlor and Brady followed. The room was lined with lime green tiles. Through the double doors were two gurneys. The opposite walls were stocked with embalming fluids and chemicals. The odor cleared her sinuses. He rolled the casket to the side of the room and opened it back up. He propped her father’s body up against the wall. He took off his suit and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Ivan smiled at the teeth-shaped bite mark.
“What is this?” Brady asked as though it were her body defiled. “What the hell is this?”
Ivan let his hair fall from the ponytail over his eyes. The silver deflected the orange from the light bulb. Brady marched right up to him. Normally she’d be afraid, but she couldn’t fear the unknown. She was too dense to interpret anything subtle.
“You’re father isn’t really dead,” he said, walking to a metal desk covered in puddles of water that dripped from the pipes above. In one of the drawers, he scavenged out a metal flask. “I know he’s a good man. He gave up everything so he could make a fortune and raise you right. He put you before any of the family.”
Brady wanted to speak, but her throat failed. How could he know such details about her father without meeting him? Maybe he was a conman or had been around so many dead people he created ludicrous stories to keep the living in his life. His needy eyes became a camera that memorized every feature. His interest never lifted.
Ivan opened the flask. A small flame shot out from the tip. It was a lighter. Ivan placed the neon-blue flame over Charlie’s forearm. His flesh didn’t burn, but turned white. Ivan’s eyebrows curved inward. Brady struggled to contain herself. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t burn the flesh. It justÉsoftens it.”
“Softens?”
He clicked off the lighter. “The incandescent flame makes the skin tender. A dead man’s flesh contains everything. I tasted him last night. I know so much of himÉand you. You’ve never had any friends, you love Dickinson’s poetry, you’re a virgin, Sinatra’s the only music you can stand, you’re an alcoholic-should I go on?” He absorbed her disbelieving stare. “Your father loved all your quirks. He doesn’t want to be forgotten. I’ve found the only way to hold onto the living. At least I’ve used it to hold onto forgotten strangers. Let me help you remember him.”
She thought her own secrets had spilled onto the floor. No one knew so much about her, not even Julie. Since her mother’s death, her father was the only one who could’ve known those details. The thought of eating her father’s flesh drove her to extremes, but what if she didn’t cede to her father’s wishes? How could she pass the chance to honor his memory? Why would Ivan wish to exploit her? She had nothing, money or inheritance. “I know what you’re going through. I learned this secret from my father who used to run this very funeral parlor. He taught me how to see the dead. That’s why he preferred to work alone. I’ve lived so many lives without stepping out of this place. Why live a mediocre life when it can be so much better? The dead don’t need their memories, so why not take a peek?” His eyes shook in their sockets and stemmed the flow of sentiment. “I’m a lonely creature.” He put his hand into hers. She didn’t resist the reassuring touch. “Just like you, Brady. I live through the dead just as you should live through your father. I think you deserve it. I think he’d approve.” Even though she loved her father, she was disconnected from him. He never told her why he loved her. Her reclusive personality divided her from that information. She couldn’t identify with him, but dreamed for the chance to be apart of him. If eating his flesh were the only way to be part of him, then so be it.
Ivan led her by the hand to the stool next to the casket. Ivan dragged out a little table, similar to a TV tray, and set it in between them to splay her father’s arm across. “Try it. You won’t regret it.” She watched his pale and hairy arm. A horrible sensation came over her at the thought of desecrating his body. She lifted out of the seat, but Ivan seized her by the neck. He sent her face into his arm.
“Eat!”
His fingers bent deeper into her neck, the pain forced her to bite down. The morsel melted on her tongue and slid down in a liquid stream. The blood on the sides of her mouth tasted sweet. The rush of flavor opened her thoughts back to when her father gave her, her first bike with training wheels. She raced to him and kissed his cheek. Brady felt his eyes go to her smile. Those dimples made his heart spin. Her father hugged her back and whispered how much he loved her. It warmed her heart to know her father cherished this memory. The scene fizzled away. Blood dried out her mouth. She was thrown back to herself and the arm she’d eaten. The bite mark was so deep, the bone poked through. Brady whimpered. Her cheeks soaked up tears. The fulfillment of a loved one’s thoughts compelled her to dig deeper. She bit down so far, her teeth clicked against bone. The next thoughts were of her father’s final days. The brain cancer that ate at his mind took shape. His senses were dulled, his vision grainy and tarnished. The walls of the hospital room were the colors of a black and white photograph. She entered the room with a vase heaped with purple tulips. Her father’s mind became immersed with joy. After she sat the flowers next to his bed, she bent down and kissed his forehead. His senses changed to brilliant colors, his retinas turned the room into multi-colored pixels. When her lips left his skin, his perception faded back to the grainy reality that locked him back to sickness. He wished to experience those epiphanies she evoked, but the cancer denied that wish.
Her face and hands was slick with blood and saliva. Ivan had joined in, his face dirty as well. His silver hair was matted in crimson. She didn’t care. The feast brought jubilation. She’d never felt so ecstatic! The vibrant emotions were set alight. Her father loved her in return. Her dull life abstained from burning out. The truth formed an endless source that emptied into her heart. She continued to ingest the meat. Her last perception brought her sadness to full closure. After he was pronounced dead, she felt responsible for his suffering. His last thoughts surfaced into hers. She didn’t know he was watching before he died. She’d fallen asleep next to his bed. He watched and adored the luxury of his creation. His only trepidation in life was his lovely daughter, Brady.
Brady clutched onto her father’s arm, but there was nothing left. His arm was empty of meat, colored with red remains and gristle. Ivan splashed water into his face in a sink across the room. When he came back, he offered her a warm towel. She wiped her face clean, the heat replaced her father’s cold blood.
“Thank you, Ivan,” she said with wet eyes. “I know my father in a new light. How can I ever repay you?”
“You let me share this experience with you,” he said, locking arms with hers and leading her out of the room. “You’re father is in good hands. I welcome you back anytime. The sooner the better, Brady. His funeral is tomorrow, but you’ll never have to let him go.” His eyes squinted as he smiled. His pleasure mimicked her own.
“Very soon, Ivan.” She smiled so hard it strained the muscles of her face. “Very soon.”
The next morning the casket was buried. Her world was hidden under six feet of earth. There was nothing left to piece together her father’s life despite last night’s events. The suffering that was healed was reopened at the sight of his grave. She wanted to be the one in the ground.
Last night she didn’t sleep. His thoughts survived in her mind. The wound was driven deeper. Her need was unfulfilled. There was no moving on. She’d drift in the past and wish for the things she never found from the living. Her family didn’t understand. Their lives continued despite the dead.
She left the funeral and drove back to her apartment. She poured herself a glass of Bourbon. The mouthful of spirits burnt her tongue, the aftertaste of her father’s flesh backwashed from her throat.
The evening gave way to nothing. The afghan she’d knit kept the unrest at bay for the time being. She couldn’t stop thinking about Ivan. He lived by dead memories. Brady wanted to live through anyone’s but her own. The pound at the door shook her from thought. It was Julie. Brady kept quiet and hoped she’d leave. She pounded again, the knocks more adamant. When the doorknob twisted, Brady cursed herself for not bolting it. Julie meandered inside. The unwelcome guest didn’t care about intrusions. She wore tattered blue jeans and a white shirt cut low to show off her belly button ring. “Why didn’t you answer the door?” Her sedated eyes remained insistent. “Huh?”
Brady cleared her throat. The stomach acids that tasted of her father returned. She swallowed it down in the hope it would come back up later. “Don’t feel like guests, I suppose.”
Julie’s olive eyes widened at Brady’s lack of interest. “You know what I want.” She waltzed to the kitchen and stared dumbly at the blender on the counter. “Well?”
“I have nothing. I haven’t seen you in years, how dare you accuse me of taking money without sharing it with you. Is that all you care about? What about Dad?”
Julie opened the freezer and pulled out the margarita mix. “You and the alcohol. Unhappy little woman, aren’t yah?”
“Fuck off.”
“Not until I see some money. Even if it’s not Daddy’s, I still want it.”
Julie fumbled with the blender to figure out how it worked. She was so empty-headed she couldn’t even work a blender! There wasn’t anything funny about this moment. There was no money and she couldn’t get rid of her. Both of them were broke and desperate. Julie put her hand in the blender and played with the blades at the bottom. A smirk broke across Julie’s face. “Daddy always loved me more,” Julie said, trying to cover resentment. She bit her lip and spat out a line of chapped skin. “At least he gave you a check once in awhile.” The childish tone demurred to jealousy. “I didn’t get a damn thing! I want some of that money. I’ll move in if I have to.”
“Let me show you how to work that thing,” Brady said, noticing it was unplugged. “I needÉa drink.” Julie shoved her hand deeper in the blender just as Brady plugged it in. The blender wined and churned apart her fingers. Julie screamed, unable to interpret the pain. Her fingers cracked against the spinning blades, her flesh liquefied before her eyes. Julie struggled to lift her hand out, but Brady shoved it back in and let the bones crunch even more. Julie unplugged it and escaped with a mottled and dripping hand. Ridges of broken bone and twisted flesh splashed on the floor as she waved it in horror. The end snapped off at the wrist.
Brady didn’t resist the urge. She clamped her mouth over her arm. The cut veins unloaded their contents onto her tongue and flooded down her esophagus. Julie screamed as Brady ground her teeth around the bones and wrung out the telltale blood.
The contents of her life spilled into Brady’s, her body shuddered with an orgasmic awakening. She experienced the men she’d seduced, countless faces without names. The sensations were distinguished by tastes and pleasures: faint rubber, copper, blood, imported liquor, and a sudden soreness in her vagina. Julie’s seductions, once effective, were rendered useless with disease and overuse. The meat stuck in the back row of Brady’s teeth came down her throat. Images of her sister in a hotel room followed. Julie crouched on the floor and searched for her underwear waded up in the corner. Her lover was gone. Brady felt at ease with herself. Loneliness wasn’t as bad as being a free whore.
“You’re pathetic, sis.” Brady laughed, her vindication dribbled down her chin. “Stupid tramp.”
Julie tried to sneak away, but slipped in her own blood and crashed into the wall. Her weakened state kept her on the floor. The shock of blood loss brought convulsions. “Help me, Brady. I’m bleeding!” Her voice shot raspy and knotted. Her eyes beckoned Brady to give back the life she’d taken away. “Don’t let me die this way!”
Brady knew her neighbors would hear the screams through the thin walls. She couldn’t weigh the consequences in the flood of such powerful imagery. She had to finish her off before someone did show up at the door. She grabbed a skillet and beat it across her head until her screams ended. “Sorry, sis. I have nothing for you, but you gave me so much.” Julie’s eyes fluttered closed. A realization hit her. Ivan had said only dead flesh revealed a person’s memories, but Julie wasn’t dead. Maybe she’d discovered something he didn’t know! The dead weren’t the only ones who could give up their memories. She had to let him in on the secret. They could be together. How could he pass up such a revelation? She’d no longer have to be lonely.
She dragged Julie’s body into the closet and rushed out of the apartment. Julie would begin to stink, but maybe she’d never have to come back. Let the whore rot. The misty air, thick with an incoming storm, sprayed her face. She was still drenched in Julie’s blood.
The funeral parlor lights were off except for the back room. She followed the lime tiles inside. The light bulb flickered on its last hours of life, which made the double doors throb. Ivan carved up a naked corpse of an old man on a plastic stretcher. He used the bone saw from the ceiling that hung from a cord with a surgeon’s precision. He cut across his chest then looked at her like a child caught masturbating.
“I thought you’d be back sooner,” he said, looking at her stained clothes. “Busy?”
“I want to share something.” The anticipation dropped her into a spell of tears. “A secret.”
Ivan let the saw swing in the air and removed his gloves. “That’s sweet of you to give so willingly. What is your secret, dear?”
She wet her lips. Julie’s blood was lodged in the crevices of her tongue. “A person doesn’t have to be dead in order to see their memories. Just eat them period and everything is yours. My sister tasted of the kinds of pleasures you’d appreciate. I’ll take her body out of my closet and give her to you.”
He brushed his hand across her cheek. His eyes brightened with compassion. She embraced the affection like any recluse in the face of understanding. She was a part of him. They’d shared the one thing that meant the most to her: her father, Charlie. “You showed it all to me, but why?”
Ivan’s face tightened. His retina’s revealed a passion within those dark, diluted eyes. “When I tasted your father, I could tell there was so much he wanted you to know. I had to let you in on the secret. Maybe it was irresponsible, but how could I let such a somber child suffer?”
Brady extended her arm. “Taste.”
Ivan released his soft hold and punched her square in the nose. The clean snap inspired blood, the stream so thick it drained down her throat. The pain blurred her sight into blotches of color. “What have you done?” His face withered into bitterness. “There’s a reason why I don’t eat from the living. Those are bodies unaccounted for! The dead don’t attract police. The cops will find the body and I’ll be connected to you. Your mistake will ruin everything. They’ll find my bodies. They’ll shut this place down. It’ll be the end of me.”
“I’m sorry, Ivan.” Brady cried, burning with guilt. “Please let me make it better. I’ll never tell them about you. I promise.”
“I’d rather you make promises when you’re dead!” He reached for her with those massive hands. “I’ll kill you, ignorant bitch! You can’t repay the damage you’ve caused.” Brady’s sense of survival flared with unlimited resolve. Betrayal and shock spun her legs past her attacker to a rusty-orange door. The hinges squeaked open. A chill coiled itself around her after she threw herself inside. She bolted it locked at the same time his body collided into the door. His vocal cords resounded malicious. “Show yourself! You shouldn’t have gone in there, Brady-BRADY!”
She absorbed the room, a crawlspace with another door. Spinach-green mildew attacked the walls. Brady wondered what was behind the next door. Ivan quit banging. The sounds of his footsteps disappeared.
She didn’t know what he was talking about. He already knew about live flesh? Was he scheming against her the whole time?
The doorknob was slick with condensation. A cold draft threw her hair into her face. The room was larger than she expected, double the size of the funeral parlor. Rows of caskets filled the dark room. Hundreds of them lingered before her like an uprooted cemetery. The crisp and cool fog made it impossible to see. The metal walls made her reflection dance off the surface. A mirror mimicked her every move. Fans spun cool air. The room was refrigerated.
She braved the numerous coffins. The fog uncovered a never-ending mausoleum. The coffins were broken apart to show the brutalized contents that dangled free. The horrid spectacle raced through her mind. She froze at the sight of her father in a coffin across the room. Her stomach dropped to her legs and her mind burned with horror. Ivan had buried an empty casket at the funeral! All the coffins in the cemetery were empty.
“That sonofabitch.”
His eyelids were cut open. Those yellowed eyes watched her in desperation. He was stripped of clothing. The bones across his chest were broken apart, his heart stolen beneath the debris. She wanted to communicate with him without Ivan’s intrusion. She lifted a hunk of meat off his sternum and swallowed it, but her perception was unaltered. There was nothing left. Ivan stole it all.
She wept, the tears icy against the continuous draft. The bodies peered at her and burned responsibility for their demise. She cringed at the thought of giving herself to Ivan. The bastard wanted to make her a future corpse to strip of memories. Maybe some of the bodies still had some shred of life untaken. Ivan would pay for desecrating her father’s corpse. They watched and egged her on. Their glossy eyes begged her to partake of what they had to offer. Brady shrieked and raced to savor flesh. She broke open coffins with here bare hands and yanked them out. Her teeth stripped the last remnants of their memories. Her fingers, soft meat hooks capable of cutting into the dead, were thick and sodden with passion. The fruits of labor delivered her to a new plateau. The corpses came alive in her mind. Their last moments came to the surface. Contempt arrived into her image-ridden state. There were no happy memories left inside them. The wretched man sucked them all away.
Bitterness ensued digestion. She flung herself back onto the corpses and wrenched away more and more, her thirst never slaked in an unending stomach. The hatred for Ivan was inflamed with every spice and flavor. The taste would never sicken her. They were purer than she could ever be. She was no longer herself, but controlled by the dead. Her new mindset impelled her to carry out their final wishes.
She navigated through the fog back to the entrance. She tossed open the door with a power beyond her own. Ivan waited with the bone saw in his hands, his eyes demented and ready.
“You’re all mine!” He crowed. “Just like the rest of them. You’d be foolish to taste them.” He denied the truth. His face resisted what stood before him. “You’ll never find yourself again. You’ll be lost forever!” He studied Brady’s eyes and the dead stared back. “You didn’t taste them, did you?”
Brady’s voice hummed with satisfaction. “Yes. Now I’m going to take back the memories you’ve stolen.”
“Never! You’ll never see what is rightfully mine!”
He swung the bone saw, the blades drug across her stomach. Bits of skin showered the air with human dust. The warmth of body fluids empowered her along with their hatred. They fed her their last bit of strength. She seized his arm and squeezed it so tightly his bones cracked apart, his nerves sent in upheaval. He bawled and collapsed. The bone saw slipped from his hand and swung propelled by the cord connected to the ceiling.
Brady grabbed it and studied the rotating blades. She dug it across his throat. Brady moaned and watched his trachea split apart. She couldn’t resist a taste of what streamed out of the wide laceration. Happy memories flooded into the bitterness that lived inside her. Her limbs quivered and evolved into seizures. Her mouth came open and her stomach ejected its contents onto the lime-tiled floor. An unknown energy impelled her to force her teeth upon her own arm. She felt nothing as she ate into herself. Brady didn’t anticipate the obvious. Her only memory was a realization. She was a lonely retch. With all the flesh she’d eaten, she was still pathetic and depressed. But there was still so much to learn, so much to discover. The bone saw dripped. She was the only one who knew the secrets of the flesh. She picked up the bone saw and cut deeper into Ivan’s throat. The memories were potent closer to bone.
