Flesh of My Flesh Page 2

around here-"

  "You have children?" the face asked, his voice smooth and sweet.

  Isaac snorted uncontrollably. "It's none of your business-" he began.

  "No, we don't," Miriam cut in dreamily.

  "Miriam!"

  "Well we don't," Miriam spat, more like a thirteen-year-old girl than his wife.

  The face looked between them with glittering black eyes, seeming to understand.

  "I see you have your eye on the blue-angel flavor, pretty miss," he said, then suddenly whispered to Miriam, "Any woman as beautiful and full as you," he ran his eyes over her, "is of course as fertile as rabbit. He's the problem."

  Miriam looked suddenly to Isaac.

  "He-" she said, weakly.

  Isaac, who had been unable to hear the face's words, stepped forward to the window of the ice-cream truck.

  "Now look, you can't just-"

  "Just what?" the face interjected, splitting Isaac's complaint in half and silencing him. They glared at each other.

  The face leaned forward, pulling with it a pasty neck and black t-shirted shoulders. His wet eyes never left Isaac's for an instant.

  "Would you like some ice cream?"

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "I don't want any."

  "You don't? But it is so hot, so very steamy hot outside."

  It was hot. Isaac felt weak.

  The face turned back to Miriam, the hands scooping a sticky, blue clump into the sugar-cone, handing it to her with a small twist.

  "You are an innocent victim, pretty woman. Your husband is the problem."

  Isaac broke.

  "All right, fine," he said, attempting to normalize the event. "I'll take some ice-cream. Vanilla in a cup."

  The face grinned. "20 dollars."

  "What?"

  "I give to pretty women, I take from ugly men."

  Isaac fumed. "Keep your ice-cream, asshole."

  The ice-cream man only grinned wider, showing a set of tiny, bright teeth. He disappeared from the window and reappeared in the driver's seat.

  "Farewell, my sweets," the face cooed, though now it was a man, dressed all in black. "And ma'am," he said, growing serious, "Sometimes help comes from the most unlikely places, does it not?"

  Miriam turned white, but nodded slowly, lips stuck on the blue ice-cream. With a furious roar, the van started again, exiting the street in a cloud of hellish smoke.

  "What the hell did he mean by that?" Isaac asked under his breath.

  "I dunno," Miriam lied.

  The ice-cream man came every day after that. Isaac was horrified to find that Miriam had taken to sitting on the front step, waiting for the music, mesmerized by the fantastic appearance of a floating face. He wanted to confront her - in fact, rather strong emotions coursed through his chest, demanding a confrontation, and an explosive one - but whenever he mustered up the courage to do so, he was cowed by just how ridiculous the argument would be. What would he tell her? Not to eat free ice-cream? Not to speak with strange men? She was his wife, not his child. But he did try, timidly, to bring it up. Three days after music’s first arrival, he woke from sleep to find her at the end of their bedroom, shedding flustered, disquieted tears, and looking at a small, hideous statue of Mary the Mother of God that had been a wedding present.

  "Whatcha doin'?" he mumbled sleepily.

  The crying stopped instantly.

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" He sat up in the bed, holding his ankles. She did not face him, but turned her head to the side, her cheek mashed into her shoulder.

  "Nothing serious. Just looking for answers."

  "Answers to what?"

  "Well it doesn't matter now," Miriam snapped.

  "Was it about the man?" The moonlight from their window lit up a bloodless reflection on Miriam's cheek.

  "Isaac, don't be a fool," she said, and her voice was so soft and decided that Isaac wondered if she'd ever be happy with him again.

  So he took to sulking indoors while she went out, and glowering at her with an unspoken fury when she came back in. Miriam took to looking like she had a secret. And so it went. Every evening she left, clicking shut the front door. The van would come, the face would leer and Miriam would listen, hypnotized, licking an ice-cream cone thoughtfully. And at night they would lay next each other - having given up on sex entirely - each pretending to be asleep, and each pretending not to know the other was pretending.

  After two weeks of this routine, Isaac went for a walk around the Inferno to clear his head. If only I could give her a child, he thought, then she'd have no need to talk to the ice-cream man. What a worthless man am I, that a pale face can take the joy from my marriage. Though I suppose the joy left long before the van came careening down our street. The walk was miserable, hot, and bubbled with small children etching dark runes across the black with chalk; for once he was glad of it. The children - such sweet, beautiful things - gave him an excuse to wallow in self-pity. He let himself get lost in the neighborhood, taking new roads, peering wistfully at babes and toddlers, suffering the same old self-hate that gnawed at his guts.

  He stepped off a curb, and noticed the hair on the back of his neck bristling. He looked behind him, saw no one, and continued walking. He began to froth with nervous energy, fingers wiggling as they swayed by his side.

  "Hullo," he said to a little girl who was skipping rope in the road. The girl stopped and eyed him coldly.

  "Hi."

  Isaac coughed self-consciously. "How are you?" he asked, attempting to make himself feel worse by imagining her as his child. Miriam's child.

  "Oh, I'm okay," the girl answered, looking at her nails, painted red, pink and green.

  "Only okay?"

  "Well yes, not fan-tas-tic."

  Isaac ran a hand through his hair, feeling his stomach twist into a knot. "Why aren't you fantastic?" he asked the girl.

  "Mommy won't let me have any ice-cream. Says the ice-cream man is crazy."

  A pit formed in Isaac's throat.

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah," she nodded solemnly. Then she met Isaac's eyes, her mouth forming a painful whine: "But I'm so hot!"

  “Yeah?”

  "Oh yes. I want ice-cream right now!"

  "But the ice-cream man doesn't come until eight you, er, silly goose!" Isaac said, attempting what he thought would be a fatherly statement and tone.

  The girl merely stared.

  "I am not a goose," she stated, as if it were a reprimand she gave often. "And yes, usually he comes at 8, but can't you hear the music?"

  The music! That was what had put him on edge; it was floating in the air like smog, a colorless, odorless gas that kills before its presence is known. The realization struck him between the eyes, shattering him: He was half an hour away from his house, and the music, the music was coming! He began to run, legs like lumber, the road like a swamp.

  "Hey, bring me back some!" the little girl cried after him, skipping rope once more.

  When he arrived at the house he was dripping with sweat, eyes stinging and chest heaving, and the ice-cream truck was parked alongside the curb. A soft moan escaped his lips. He threw open the front door, and scaled the front stairs, two then three at a time. He was about to burst through the bedroom door - in fact, he looked for all the world like a man who might have kicked it down - but then he saw the note. It read, in shaky script:

  Isaac, you shouldn't be here, but if you're reading this, know that I'm only doing this because I love you and I NEED to have a child.

  - Miriam

  The carpeted floor rose to meet him and he collapsed, weeping softly. He heard voices, and moved his ear to the door.

  "Pretty, pretty pumpkin, I hope you're not having second thoughts."

  "Just wait!" he heard Miriam say, a little hysterical. "Let me think for a moment, okay?"

  "Think, my rabbit?" a sneer reverberated through the door and grated against Isaac's cheek. "Do you want a little, beautiful baby girl
who will love you, love you all your life and after, with pretty curls and dresses and tea parties?"

  "I -"

  "You what?"

  "I just didn't think it would work."

  A chilling chuckle from the male voice.

  "You didn't think what would work, my moldy peach? We haven't done anything yet."

  Isaac released a breath he didn't remember holding.

  "Oh don't play dumb. The prayer, I didn't think the prayer would work."

  A silence.

  "You are the answer, right? He did send you?"

  A longer silence.

  "Ah, yes."

  Isaac was absolutely confused. He silently willed his wife's resistance, the hesitation he heard vocalized through the wooden barrier, but he did nothing to interrupt. After all, maybe she was right, maybe -

  A soft knock on the front door. Isaac hesitated, caught between two tugs. The knock sounded again, louder this time, so he crept downstairs and opened the door. It was a priest. Isaac’s leg twitched.

  "No thank you, we don't need religion," he whispered, starting to shut the door. The priest laughed and stuck his foot in the crack.

  "I'm not here to sell you religion, son. I'm making the rounds."

  "The what?"

  The priest was a dumpy-looking creature, with a balding head and a round belly.

  "The rounds!" he said. "You put yourself down as Catholic and I'm here to invite you to Mass."

  Isaac glanced nervously upstairs.

  "Something wrong?" the priest asked, furrowing his brow and poking his belly into the door.

  "Yes. No! Look, we'll come, okay, okay. Sunday, right?"

  The priest frowned.

  "Now look son, what's on your mind? I'm a shepherd and a goatherd and all that, you can tell me."

  "Nothing."

  "Oh alright," the priest said, turning his head as if to go. Suddenly he pushed through the door and into the house. "Where's your wife?"

  Isaac's