Young Writers Society

for cal's contest

Song: Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) (The Decemberists)

041. tragedy

--

They carry Cal into the tent. Inside, there is a stooped surgeon with a beard and an apron stained with blood. The man's face is drawn against his cheekbones and jaw, like a wasp's nest. His fingers are crusty with blood. His eyes are purple. Black smudges. Rooted beard, yellow teeth. The place smells of disinfectant and gunpowder and sweat and iron. The man's mouth folds over itself, brooding lips. Cal closes his eyes, bites his cheeks. His leg hurts like hell. Fingers of stubbly pain plucking at his nerves, the wound torn and bulging like an apple. His hair slicked up against his forehead. Shaking, shaking. Paleness creeping up his hands and toes, skin on his lips peeling back, restricted lungs.

– Set him on the table, says the surgeon.

The table is a plywood board on top of two rain barrels. They set him down. He prays. He prays through his teeth, praying to anyone that would listen. God, God. Please help me live, help me walk. God in heaven. Lord Almighty.

Light from the dying sun passes through the canvas of the tent, turns it sick, a sloppy gangerene. The men carrying Cal leave. They go to wait by the other men, lined up on the ground, bandaged up, cheeks huffing in and out like breathless accordions. There are dead screams from legless men before clinging to the canvas like slugs. He will hold it in. He will hold all his screams in, won't let em out. He has heard too many from other men who've passed through this tent. He will spare all the others the wheedling horror.

He thinks about Ester.

**

Flushed cheeks, shushed hands. Sitting under the peach tree, blossoms lidded like shy eyes. Barefoot, so close they were nearly touching. Promises under the prattle and fingertips. Creek nearby. Swollen and childless, drawling pools and kneecap stepping stones. She whispers in his ear and he holds back the nonsense that's been clotting up his heart. Her lips. Thinnest, modest things. Pink pupa. Lost words. He hates to tell her. He hates to bring her here and make her lips grow thin, white. He smiles, pressed, careful. He holds her hand. She knows something is wrong already. He feels her stiffen, her eyes grow empty as churches.

It's an honor, Ester.

It's my duty, Ester.

She looks away. Her hand is cold.

**

The saw. Toothy grin, the hardwood handle. He wipes it down with the hem of his apron. It smiles, smiles, like a negro. Surgeon spits into a glass jar, lifts up a brown bottle of medicine, scrub-topped and squat, holds it to the light. Shakes it, swears.

– Aint no more morphine, kid. And we haven't had whiskey since March.

He looks at Cal, chewing on his next words. Fingers arthritic, knobby and yellow as rooster talons. The thick mud of his tongue. Distressed lines and tired fleshless lids. He moves to another jar. It's full of mush-faced bullets and little pieces of shrapnel, rooted like baby teeth. Cal closes his eyes, winces. The surgeon pulls two bullets out of the jar, opens Cal's hand, and presses them in. They are heavy. He says,

– Put those in your mouth. Bite down when I start cutting, or you won't have a tongue anymore.

Cal puts them in his mouth, like lead pills. They taste of powder and blood. His hands are shaking, shaking. The surgeon lifts the saw and a piece of rope. Glances at the wound. Ties Cal's leg with the length of rope above the knee. Tight, so that the skin grows purple, and Cal feels the pump and measure of blood, sick filling and emptying. He can feel his toes go numb, like little widows. He lays back on the table.

**

Her last words infest his head like earwigs as he walks off of her porch. Mouth dry, tasteless. Hands sweaty, greasy. A baby, a baby. Thick, moon-eyed, lace-breathed baby. The swelling stomach, emerging like a white sail. Her hands had closed around her abdomen. Gentle lift and tide. Peaceful face, full and ripe as a cotton boll. The picking eyes. She had looked at him. She had smiled. The porch had creaked, the swing chain groaning, slaving links. The careless peach blossoms. Dusty, pale. His own hands white and transparent as squid. The lullabies and the milk breath already filling the air. A father. A father going to war. He had opened his mouth, closed it. Had held her hand. She looked off again. They had spent a few wordless moments, the speeches relayed and transmitted, their fingers picking up the telegraphed terrors, hopes, fears, desires.

He looks back.

She sits on the porch swing and waves.

**

There is a peach tree outside the tent.

The dainty blossoms leak from the scrawled, maternal branches like gossip. Their pink, pressed petals, stolen from their perches. Promiscuous, sticky skin. The heavy bees. Wind blows, the petals and the crushed blossoms blow into the tent. Swirl and dance.

Pink tears.

Wordless lips.

Cal whispers for Ester, but she is far away, across five borders with a tired face and swollen nipples. Not a sound, not a sound. So no one can hear him. He closes up his lungs, his voice. He takes a deep breath and sinks.

The surgeon rests the saw below Cal's knee.

– Bite down, he says

**

But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas

All the bellies and the bones and the bile

No, I lingered here with the blankets barren

And my own belly big with child

-- The Decemberists, Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)