F: The hand

Chapter adult the hand

It's a hand, that much is clear. I found it when I went outside for the
last cigarette of the evening. Usually I wipe down the seat of my
favorite chair, check to make sure the ashtray isn't too full, then
lean back and watch the dark. Actually, it's not so much the dark,
because the street- and headlamps light up all the other houses and
trees and whatnot around me. But if I look between the telephone wires
and the neighbor's chimney, there's a dark spot, no stars or
reflections, just darkness. That's what I watch.

So. I went outside and there it was, on the dog's cushion. I might not
have noticed it at all except for the ring. It looked like a jewelry
commercial, really, glinting like it belonged in a glass case filled
with artificial light. I have been called a crow before because shiny
things in the street always attract my attention, but this was own
porch, on the dog's cushion, no less. Of course I went closer.

And there it was, a hand. Obviously it was female, with the painted
nails and the ring, but maybe that's not true. Once a hand is detached
from its owner, does it matter which sex it is? Or, rather, without the
secondary sex characteristics or buttons and hoses, would a hand retain
its maleness for femaleness?

It seems to me that a hand wouldn't care what sex it was attached to,
as long as it could grasp a pen, write a letter, carry a drinking glass
to a mouth. A hand has few needs and is a slave to its owner's desires,
but maybe it has feelings of its own. As a child I learned how to
intertwine my fingers, my palms cradling six digits while I recited,
"Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the door, and there's the
people." My index fingers were the steeple; they became people when I
pulled my palms apart. As for the thumbs, has anyone ever figured out
what to do with them?

At any rate, as a child, there I was with eight little people, eight
little brains twitching and stupidly wondering what was next. Nothing
was next, of course, but still. You're taught these things when you
don't know any better and naturally you anthropomorphize. A hand - or,
in most cases, hands - often acts independently. Surely that deserves
comparison to free will.

The hand on my porch, however, lightly sitting on the dog's cushion and
oozing what could only be blood, is beyond thinking on its own. It
isn't going to get up and demand food or the location of the bathroom.
It's just there, pale and palm down, right smack in the middle of the
cushion. It might be an offering on some sacrificial altar that
preferred paisley fabric. It's so centered, so firmly planted, that it
might be there on purpose, but I know that's ridiculous.

Anyway, this hand has nothing to do with sacrifices or divine
intervention. It's real, and I know why. Just an hour before I found
it, give or take a few minutes, two planes collided right over my
neighborhood. That's not supposed to happen but it did, just two blocks
away. Well, the collision happened two blocks away. The wreckage itself
spans four blocks to the east. It's on every channel; I checked. Lots
of reporters standing as close as they can to the mess, asking people
what they heard and what they think. The reporters aren't happy to be
taken away from their dinners and the citizens aren't either. I can
tell. "A nightmare," one said. "For whom?" I thought.

Now I know. The evidence is on my porch, pale and slight and wearing an
expensive ring, assuming the diamond is real. I'd like to think it's
real. The planes that crashed were small, the type of planes that rich
people take to avoid rush hour traffic while traveling to different
homes or friends' birthday parties. A woman traveling in such a
fashion, and wearing such a rosy pink nail polish, would wear the real
thing. It's a given.

Right now I'm standing just outside the door, which is open, wondering
what to do. The television has a number listed on the bottom of the
screen. I'm supposed to call it, if I've found any debris. I'm having
trouble calling the hand "debris." It's so much more than that, I
think, though maybe I'm exaggerating. I've already taken a closer look
at the smooth skin, the manicure, the absence of wrinkles. "Debris"
means trash, or twisted metal and the smell of sulfur. It means
something you don't want around.

This hand is so much more than that. It is, despite the stain it's
making on my dog's cushion. The dog seems to know that as well; she's
at my feet, whimpering and looking off past the railing. I hope she'll
use the cushion after this. They're very expensive.

I'm not calling anybody. In a minute I'm going to slip on one of the
rubber gloves I have left over from staining the dining room table.
Then I'm going to pick up the hand, wrap it (in what?) and put it in
the freezer. I'm a little worried about picking it up. If you held a
piece of wood against the wrist, it would look as normal as could be.
But I don't think it'll feel that way. I could be wrong. I hope I'm
wrong, but already I'm taking a lot of quick breaths, just to get
ready.

Maybe in a couple of months I'll take the hand out, announce my find.
It's the beginning of winter, after all. Who will know the difference?
Or care? I'm thinking I'll present the ring, which I will have removed
beforehand, to some spouse or son or daughter. Perhaps they'll play
"Death of a Princess" as the bulbs flash. Later, during replays, I'll
be shown in slow motion. There will be close-ups of crying faces, of
heads shaking in disbelief. I'll need to get a haircut.

Right now, though, there's something else. Before I came out on the
porch, before the reporters flocked, the planes collided. And in one
fleeting instant the hand sailed through the air, its perfect arc aimed
for the bull's-eye of my dog's cushion. There's a beauty in that: The
silence, the flow, the people below who didn't know better. That should
keep me going, for a while.