Short Story: Taishokuten

[Note: this story is very personal... and, despite the ending, love CANNOT be cut (although it can be forgotten, dismissed, ignored, etc.)...]

"This eye looks with love
This eye looks with judgment
Free me, take the sight out of this eye."
-Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, "This Eye"

"I'm no friggin' monument to justice! I lost my hand! ... You want me to take my heartache, put it away and forget?"
-Ronny Cammareri, from "Moonstruck"

"Full moon," comments the EMT sardonically as he grabs Randy beneath the shoulders.

"It was an accident," objects Lynn, the girlfriend. "He's no lunatic."

"You're right, ma'am," reassures the other EMT, flashing a look at his associate as he holds the boy's ankles. "My partner here, well, it's been a busy night, he's just overworked."

"Overworked, underpaid," mutters the first EMT. Then, with a grunt, Randy is lifted carefully out the front door, to a waiting stretcher.

Whirling ambulance lights glide across early evening facades of Mililani houses, across curious faces of Mililani residents, like reflections off a red disco ball. Everyone's so damned nosy, Lynn thinks. But who can blame them? Nothing like this ever happens in suburbia. Sure, an occasional ambulance visit for the elderly (chest pains, usually). But this house? The unmarried bohemian couple? Something must have happened here. Something interesting.

"Can I- uh- please, I'd like to ride with him, if you don't mind." Lynn stands small, diminutive beside the open doors of the ambulance.

"We're busy, ma'am," mutters the first EMT.

"Eh, come on, Joe. Give her a break." The second EMT offers a hand to pull her up.

"Thank you."

Lynn is hoisted into the cramped confines of the ambulance. She focuses her eyes on Randy to keep herself calm. But she doesn't dare look at the bandaged stump where his left hand ought to be.

***

Randy's having a dream.

It's unusual, all sliced up in pieces, and out of order.

It begins kind of grainy and indistinct, not exactly in black and white, but overexposed, the colors all wrong. For some reason, it's of a game Randy used to play with his sister long ago, when they were still the best of friends, when they zigzagged the length and breadth of Mililani Town together like a young Bonnie and Clyde. It was a game he called "Guess."

He's hiding a Jolly Rancher in one hand, his left hand, holding both fists closed before her. He continually tries to bluff her, making his right hand seem bigger, adjusting it as though to keep something hidden inside of it. Finally, she chooses the empty hand. He opens it, laughs. "I was lying," he says, "Wrong hand." And the dream zooms in on the correct hand, the left hand, the hand that remains closed, zooms until it explodes out of focus...

***

Alone with Randy in the hospital room, Lynn suddenly feels mildly claustrophobic. She walks over to the window, pulls the blinds. The moon, dirty and yellow, glows low on the horizon, limning the clouds. Full, perfectly round, a jaundiced eyeball.

"Wow," Lynn whispers. Despite herself, she starts humming the tune to 'That's Amore.' And again, despite herself, she feels tears well up in her eyes.

"Taishokuten."

She hears Randy's voice distinctly from across the room, even if it is only a whisper. She rushes up to his bedside, inclines towards his barely parted lips.

"Randy? Are you awake?"

He doesn't open his eyes, doesn't appear to respond. Just as she is about to move away, he whispers:

"Taishokuten. Make it clean."

***

Lynn's away at work, and, with nothing better to do, Randy decides to take a quick run around the Mililani Mauka neighborhood, check out all the garish Christmas decorations. He's about midway through the run when all of a sudden, the gathered clouds start to thunder and rain, the wind picks up a biting edge. Soaked, chilled to the bone, Randy shivers his way over to his sister's house, which happens to be nearby. He gets to the door, rings the doorbell.

No one answers.

Perhaps everyone is upstairs, he thinks.

He tries the door handle. The front door is unlocked. He pulls the door slowly.

Immediately, he is assaulted by the smell of smoke. He sees six people in the living room, all strangers. Some whip their crack pipes into sofa mattresses when they see him, but most don't even seem to care.

"Kristine?" he shouts.

"Uncle Randy!" It's Kathy, his three year old niece. She runs into the living room, hugs his knees.

Randy bends down to eye-level. "Kathy," he says softly, "where's mommy and daddy?"

Kathy shakes her head, looks down at the floor.

"Kathy, let's get something warm, okay? You can come hang out with me at my house. Okay?"

Kathy nods. "Can I wear my Dora boots?" she asks excitedly.

"Sure."

As Kathy leads Randy through the house to gather her stuff, he passes more and more strangers, all disheveled, wild-eyed. And children. Some older, some Kathy's age, some even younger, all unkempty, unwashed, unfed, left to fend for themselves.

He grips Kathy's hand tightly.

By the time he's gotten Kathy dressed and ready, the smoke's getting to him, his eyes and throat are dry, itchy. He lifts Kathy in his arms, dodges the stranges, rushes to the front door.

"Wait!" Kathy cries. "What about mommy and daddy?"

Randy pauses. "We have to leave mommy and daddy for a little while," he says slowly, "But I'll take care of you, okay?"

Kathy nods, folds into him.

And with that, they run out into the storm.

***

Kathy rushes into the room ahead of Randy's parents.

"Uncle Randy!" she cries, rushing towards the hospital bed.

Lynn springs from her bedside seat to intercept her. "Kathy, stop," she hisses.

"Why?"

"Uncle Randy's- not well," Lynn whispers. She glances meaningfully up at Randy's parents.

"Look," Kathy says, holding up a piece of paper. "I drew a picture."

Lynn smiles tenderly. "How pretty," she says. "What is it?"

"This is Uncle Randy tickling me," Kathy says.

"I'll hang it up for him, okay?" Lynn says softly. "But in the meantime, you've got to let him rest."

"Okay."

Kathy walks dejectedly back to Randy's parents.

Her parents.

***

Randy is driving his mother back home after their visit to the prison. He is on auto-pilot, barely registering the cars he passes, how fast he is going. So many things he'd needed to tell his sister, but couldn't. How could he, after hearing the "good news?"

"Slow down!" his mother commands.

Randy eases his foot off the gas, watches the needle drop from 30 to 10 over the limit. "Sorry," he mutters.

"Kris told me aomething when we were alone," she says.

"What?"

"She said you taught her how to lie."

"What!?"

"When you were little, did you guys play some kind of game?"

"A game?"

"She said you called it, 'Guess.'"

Time seems to slow down, stop. Randy feels as though he were an involuntary sword swallower; someone has plunged the point deep into the recesses of his heart, groped about with its tip, left jagged half tears, riddled ancient childhood memories with questions.

A car horn jerks Randy back to the present.

"Randy! What are you doing!?"

He steps on the gas, accelerates back to cruising speed. "Sorry," he mutters. "I don't- know what she's talking about. I- don't remember."

***

As soon as Randy's father takes Kathy down to the hospital cafeteria, his mother peppers Lynn with questions. "What happened?" she asks, distraught, "Were you two having an argument?"

Lynn swallows indignation. After all, with Kristine in jail, Randy's mother is going through what George W. Bush would call "a double whammy." There's no need to throw salt in her wounds, even if it's in self-defense. "No," she says quietly, "He did seem- distracted- after visiting Kristine. But nothing would have made me think this would happen." She catches her voice trailing off, adds, quickly, "It was an accident after all."

Randy's mother walks over to her son's bedside, her fingertips approach, recoil from, the bandaged stump. "Oh my god," she whispers, "Oh my god." She spins around to Lynn, struggling between wanting to cry and wanting to fight, to lay blame. Miraculously, she settles somewhere entirely different, her voice and affect flattening. "Can they- sew it back on?"

Lynn exhales, closes her eyes to hold back tears. "There- wasn't enough to salvage," she says, beginning to sob.

For a moment, Randy's mother recognizes in Lynn the same raw pain. She takes an awkward step forward to comfort the small girl. But before she knows it, she too is overwhelmed, feels herself buckle with sadness.

So the two women weep separate and alone, like two edges of an unmendable wound.

***

Randy's mother monopolizes the conversation during the prison visit.

Randy, meanwhile, saunters off, feeling a restless knotting in his stomach. He finds a water fountain, wets lips that are suddenly dry. And then, he leans his back against the wall, studying his mother and sister from a safe distance. They look just like the twenty or so other paired inmates and visitors in the room, all normal-looking, chummy even. If it weren't for the prison uniforms and the guards, why, this gathering might be mistaken for a large family reunion or something.

But Randy knows better.

Surrounding each of the inmates is an invisible orbiting knife, a knife with a cruel edge, a knife that has already severed ties and gutted lives, a knife that is hungry for more action. Many wounds are being inflicted even now, even as the visits occur in apparent civility and cheer. Some of these wounds will be forgiven; some wounds, people will pretend never even happened, keloid scars hidden benath everyday clothes. But they will remain nevertheless. The thing about a cut is, it can be bandaged, sewn up, filled with connective tissue like landfill. But a cut can never be erased. Once a cut is made, well, you can't go back to how things were before.

Randy has come here today because he needs to tell his sister this, needs to make her painfully aware of the cuts she's inflicted upon the family. Mom and dad will never enjoy their hard-earned retirement; her own daughter Kathy will never really understand why she had to be raised by her grandparents; and as for himself, her older brother, he will always feel betrayed whenever he thinks of her. "You need to turn that knife of yours on yourself, sever yourself from your husband, from the crystal meth," he wants to say. "Make a clean cut of your life."

He silently rehearses the words, then walks back to his mother and sister.

As he nears, he can't help but eavesdrop, his footsteps slowing. He hears how bad things are for his sister in jail, how one of her friends got her face bashed in by some psycho girl with a combination lock in a pillow case, how she may be next in line, and- Randy feels his heart stop when he hears this- that she is pregnant again with her estranged husband's child, how they "conceived" just before she got arrested. And she begs my mother to do something, to make an appeal, something, anything, to get her out of here.

By the time he returns to his seat, he discovers he doesn't have the strength to utter one single word. He sits in heavy silence, helplessly studying his hands.

***

Randy's grandma hobbles in later that night, after Randy's parents leave. "How is he?" she asks, taking a seat beside Lynn.

"I- don't know," Lynn murmurs. "His left hand- it's gone. But that's not all. He- won't wake up. And once, in his sleep, he mentioned something about- Taishokuten. I know it has something to do with Tenrikyo, right?"

Randy's grandma, a Tenrikyo minister, eases her ponderous weight back, the leather seat sighing a complaint. She looks at Randy's bandaged left stump sadly. "There are ten divine providences. Each controls an aspect of nature. Taishokuten is divine providence of cutting, both the cutting of the umbilical cord at the start of life, and the cutting of the breath at the end." She sighs, shaking her head. "Taishokuten was always his favorite. All men and boys love the simplicity of cutting. They all want to be samurai. It's usually the women who have to contend with the aftermath, with the wounds." Randy's grandma sighs, looks sympathetically towards Lynn. "Must be hard for you."

"Yeah," Lynn murmurs simply, looking down.

"He's a one-piece Annie," Randy's grandma says. "Like all men. He can't handle complications. And his sister is one big complication. Maybe he wanted Taishokuten to simplify things." She strokes an arthritic hand through Randy's hair. "But providence never works the way we hope. Maybe he's realizing that now."

***

Randy's sitting cross-legged in the center of his sister's Las Vegas apartment, beside a tinted-glass coffee table. He is visibly exhausted from his early morning drive over from Los Angeles, where he had just finished his finals. On the other side of the table, sitting on a sofa, forehead in her hands, is his sister, Kristine.

"You have to go through with it," Randy says. The words are reprehensible; they leave a bad aftertaste. "You said so yourself. He's a loser, you're not sure if you love him, you don't know if you're going to get married. And right now, even together, you guys can't support yourselves. How could you expect to provide for-" He leaves the question unfinished, substitutes another. "What choice do you have?"

Kristine lifts her head, her teary eyes looking askance. "Is that what Mom told you to tell me?"

Randy turns away. "Look, just promise me, alrgiht?" he asks. "For once in your life, do the right thing. If you have- it- done, mom promised to help you guys out. Maybe she'll even help get you guys a place back home, in Mililani." It's dirty to tag an incentive on such an inhuman thing. But his mother is desperate.

Kristine bows forward again. "Okay," she lies.

"I promise."

***

"Pray with me," commands Randy's grandma.

"But- I've never-"

"Now's a good time to start," Randy's grandma says crisply. "Just clap your hands and bow with me. Then, I'll perform the sazuke."

Somewhat reluctant, Lynn nods. "Okay."

Randy's grandma and Lynn clap their hands, bow forward. Then, grandma begins swift, punctuated gestures with her hands, accompanying them with fervent Japanese prayers: "Ashiki harai, Tasuke tamae, Tenri-o-no-mikoto. Sweeping away evils, save us, God the Parent."

Lynn waits until the end of the sazuke, after another bout of clapping. She bows down with Randy's grandma, silently whispers to God her own secret hope: "Please, God," she urges. "Wake him. Bring him back to me."

***

At the kitchen sink, Randy, his expression blank and zombie-like, dumps containers of old food from the refrigerator into the garbage disposal.

"So how did the visit go?" Lynn asks.

Randy doesn't respond immediately. "I- didn't tell her anything," he mutters dejectedly. "Maybe that's better. I- just want things to be the way they were. I just want us to be happy again, after all. Brother and sister."

Lynn tries to be sympathetic, but can't. "You're as much of an addict as she is," she says frankly. "You can't go back to the past. You can only take your share of responsibility for it, and move on."

Randy turns to Lynn, his eyes strangely dead. "You're right, of course," he says.

His half-closed eyes return to the sink to focus on the food, hunks of potato and carrots, white lumps of corn chowder, all once prepared lovingly by Lynn, all wasted on his lack of an appetite. He watches how they all mix together and clog the drain, an unidentifiable stew of unappreciated effort. His left hand pushes the large mound of food down, pushes until his hand is swallowed to the wrist. And then, almost as an after thought, he reaches his right hand over to the garbage disposal switch...

***

Randy wakes to the full moon, beaming through the bedroom window like a peeping tom. Squinting, he draws the blinds, collapses back into bed (his own bed, he notes). He hears Lynn's deep, even breathing beside him sounding like a distant shore break.

He lays a hand on her shoulder (left hand), gently shakes. "Lynn," he whispers, "I just had the weirdest dream."

"Oh," she mutters disinterestedly, and tries to roll away on her side.

Undaunted, Randy continues. "It was like, all cut and pasted together," he says, his eyes gazing into the vague shadows of the ceiling. "I think I had a sister in the dream, a sister I loved very much." He feels an echo of sadness, but that's all it is, an echo. "And I think- I actually cut my left hand off because of her." He opens his left hand in front of his face, a five pointed explosion of darkness.

"That's interesting," Lynn murmurs sleepily.

"I wonder what it meant," he muses. "It seemed so real, you know? So terribly real." And then, already, he starts drifting off on comfortable tangents, leaving the dream behind. "Have you ever noticed how many villains have one hand? Dr. No. The bad guy from 'Enter the Dragon.' Even Captain Hook."

Silence.

"Moonstruck," Lynn offers, long after Randy thinks she's sleeping.

"What?"

"Moonstruck. Nicholas Cage?"

Randy smiles. "Oh yeah. NOT a villain." He does his best impression: "Chrissy, get me the big knife!"

Drawn in despite being only half conscious, Lynn responds with a whine: "But I don't wanna!"

Randy laughs quietly. The bad dream sinks deeper and deeper into the recesses of his mind. "Lynn, you know, throughout the dream, you were-" He pauses. His memory of the dream ends in a broken thread. "What I mean is, Lynn, I love you."

Lynn, barely able to contain a sleepy chuckle, slaps Randy twice on the arm, does her best Cher.

"Snap out of it!"