Captive

“I lifted a finger to my own destruction. And I ain't sayin' that we don't all do that from time to time...I know we do...you hear what I'm sayin'? When I lifted my finger, it was big. Not just on account of me havin' these big, huge fingers, neither. When I does somethin', I does it right. You hear what I'm sayin'?”

The deliveryman, known to friend and enemy alike as “the Fleckster” simply nodded. He heard what the Cavorter was saying. He looked down at the Cavorter's fingers and indeed they were big, huge fingers, looking like pinkish-gray bratwurst. One of them had a gold band around its lower third, and each finger had small ripple-wrinkles on the fronts of the knuckles. The Cavorter lifted one hand to inspect a big, huge finger, and as it came before his eyes, the Cavorter smiled.

“I always had big old fingers. I thumped plenty a' melon in my day with these here fingers, and no one better forget that. When you thumps a melon, the sound don't never die down.”

“Him-ish, you done thumped that one cop that one time, didn't you now?” Fleckster called him by his pet name.

“But I didn't use no finger of my own, Fleckster. I used another.”

The Cavorter reached across his chest and rolled up one sleeve of his dirty gray t-shirt, and then reached across and did likewise on the opposite side. The dirty gray rolls reminded the Fleckster of his mother's nylon stockings, which she would roll down when she “meant business.”

“Do you mean business, Him-ish?” asked the Fleckster.

“I always mean business.”

“Wha-choo gonna' do?”

The Cavorter withdrew the “necessary equipment” from his moth-eaten satchel and polished one most heinous looking instrument on his pants leg. He rubbed it on the the top of his thigh until it was gleaming and reflected the empty light of the perfect vacuum.

“You see that?” asked the Cavorter, holding up the most heinous looking instrument.

“I most certainly do, Him-ish.”

“That is the light of a perfect vacuum.”

“Wha-choo gonna' do with that, Him-ish?”

“I gonna' put it in.”

The Cavorter grabbed a hold of the Fleckster and squeezed four bratwurst-looking fingers and a meaty thumb around his head. Hair and pale flesh squirted between his fingers, but there was frightfully little blood seeping from his eyes and nostrils.

The Cavorter put it in.

Hours later, as life-juice was returning to the Fleckster, the Cavorter whistled a merry tune and polished another piece of the “necessary equipment.” The Fleckster opened his misshapen mouth and squeaked a faint cry.

“You don't gotta' do no more of that, OK, Him-ish?”

“I done and gave you a new name. You're 'Plondie' now. Got it?”

“Aww...Him-ish. I don't need a new name.”

The Cavorter twiddled the instrument he was polishing. Reflected in his eyes was that same light, that empty light of the perfect vacuum, and all was still and all was quiet.

“Like I said before, I lifted a finger to my own destruction. You hear what I'm sayin'? When I lifted my finger, it was big. When I does somethin', I does it right. You hear what I'm sayin'?”

The Fleckster, now known as Plondie, nodded his rippled, wavy head.

“So I got to doin' the wrong things 'most 'cause I thought they was the right things.”

Plondie nodded again.

“And now I shall take your life, Plondie, but I shall let you keep it still.” The Cavorter returned the instrument to his moth-eaten satchel and crossed his legs.

“Him-ish?”

“Forever and a day. And you gonna' watch that empty light of the perfect vacuum all the time. And you ain't gonna' leave your room ever again. And I might let you yell at the maintenance man who comes around to fix the furnace when it gone bad. But you ain't goin' nowheres. Got it?”

Plondie rubbed his throbbing head and wiped a tiny spot of blood out of the corner of his bent eye. It could have been a tear.

“Don't cry, now, hear?”

“I hear you, Him-ish.”

“Good.”

The Cavorter wrestled the restraints out of his bulging pocket and quickly slipped them around Plondie's wrists and ankles. The nylon cut into Plondie's pale, tender flesh, but all was still and all was quiet. The Cavorter lifted Plondie's limp form in his arms and carried him to his room. The Cavorter laid Plondie on the sleeping mat.

“You gonna' stay there forever and a day. You hear what I'm sayin'?”

Plondie nodded.

The Cavorter closed the door behind him as he walked out of the room, and he took meaty strides to cross the lampish-lit parlor. All was still and all was quiet, and the Cavorter rubbed a tiny crumb of sleep-dust out of the corner of his greasy eye.

It could have been a tear.