I Will Rise Read online

  First Edition

  Published by:

  DarkFuse

  P.O. Box 338

  North Webster, IN 46555

  www.darkfuse.com

  I Will Rise © 2012, 2007 by Michael Louis Calvillo

  Cover Artwork © 2012 by Frank Walls

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copy Editor: Scott Alexander Jones

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Other Books by Author

  Bleed For You

  Lambs

  Visit the author's page at DarkFuse:

  www.darkfuse.com/michael-louis-calvillo/

  For my girl—I love you with all I’ve got

  Acknowledgements

  Friends, family, fans—keep dreaming those dreams...

  Chapter One

  I’ve Got the Whole World in My Hand

  Goddamn the pain!

  This time it hurts more than ever.

  No playing.

  My left hand, gimp fuckup-ruiner, arches and contorts wildly. Mind of its own that hand. Autonomous motor control. Spastic just to spite me, and in seconds I’m on my knees, left arm raised to the heavens, traitor palm up, fingers twitching this way and that. The world around me blurs, rainbow streaks, everything tangible to mushy, muddled trails of color.

  I crane for a better look at my upraised palm and carved within its surface I see a perfect, ravaged circle—bloodless but dark and deep. The backside of the hand, despite the apparent chasm, is intact, run through with vein trails and the inline of bone. I crane my neck for a second and look at the palm’s surface.

  Deep.

  Dark and endless.

  A vast, abysmal crater.

  Some illusion, I think, as I reexamine the unbroken backside. I try to pull my hand down, but as usual the little bastard refuses.

  * * *

  From day one, the very moment I came screaming into this world, the hand has been a problem. Doctors and doctors and more doctors scratched their collective heads as they labored over the x-rays. Dead center among the bones and muscles and tissues of my left hand sat an odd collection of nerves. Unidentifiable biology. Spindly. Wormy. An aberration. The hand itself, however, worked fine. It shouldn’t have, what with that abnormal clump gunking up the works, intertwining with and suffocating the hand’s innards, but it did, and for quite some time all was well.

  The first time I can remember my hand acting up was in kindergarten. It spazzed out and threw a cup of paint. I dropped to the floor convulsing in what was to be the first of many, many (we’re talking uncountable) seizures. In the beginning, my five-year-old brain didn’t know what to make of it. The doctors said the two—the seizures and my paroxysmal hand—were unrelated. Seizures were a neurological disorder and there was no way a spasmolytic hand such as mine could be the source. Even though I was an extremely stupid kid I still knew what was what with my body. The hand triggered the seizures. The doctors argued otherwise, they said my seizures were psychosomatic, anomalous. Regardless, the hand-seizure correlation could not be ignored and from that moment on I lived in fear of my hand—and my hand, embracing maniacal, body-shaking power, took full advantage.

  It fucked me up good over the years.

  It knew precisely when and where to strike.

  Running like clockwork on a day-to-day basis, performing menial, necessary tasks, it acted and functioned as any normal hand would. But, when one of those crucial, critical moments arrived—say the final, accurate cut on a woodshop project, or the behind-the-wheel driver’s test at the DMV, or worst of all, making good on that internal promise to approach a girl you think you like—it was all over. When one of those moments surfaced and begged for poise, for grace, for normality, well you could forget it because that little fucker was just waiting to screw things up.

  And so it goes, on and on and on, world without end, the hand would have its way.

  The disability affords little condolences of course. One can milk sympathy for all it’s worth. One can develop excuses. One can blame the world. Curse the heavens. Wish everyone dead in a crushing wave of despair.

  “It’s not that bad,” most could concede.

  “You’ll live,” most could concede.

  And they’re probably right. I will live. Things could be worse. I mean, I’m not retarded. I’m not missing the lower half of my body. I don’t have to walk around on my hands. Oh yeah, it could be worse, but I’m not without affliction. I’m not wholly sound.

  And thank God there are people who understand this. The Mother Teresa gene lives on. Plenty of times my hand goes ape-shit and a throng of compassion police close in. “Are you okay?” Concern. Something akin to love. And it feels good. And fuck it, I deserve it. I need it, as wrong as my life has gone. So who can blame me if I lay it on thick? Who can blame me if I’m prone to faking it? It has happened so many times over my thirty-three years that the world owes me.

  Me.

  I’m not cool. I’m not rich or hip. I’m not some wink-wink-nod-nod antihero all cold and crazy on the outside but hyper-attuned within. I’m not a disaffected youth. I’m not a John Hughes movie gone wrong. I’m not made of ink or dreams, stepping down from the pages of the subversively penned literature you used to think was cool when you were young and angry. I’m not nice. I hate life. I hate you and most likely you hate me. I’m ugly, potbellied, acne scarred, and media twisted. I’m real and I’m fundamentally fucked up. I’m real and I really need.

  So forgive me for making you feel uncomfortable or for tugging at your heartstrings. Forgive my shameless attempts at winning your empathy. Forgive my twisting, crying body as it writhes before you. Besides, it’s not like when I’m faking a freak-out I get money or friendship or anything of value. I don’t. People care, but they don’t care that much. All I generally get are kind words, a little human contact, a hug or a pat on the back, and that’s fine by me. That’s enough. A little fleeting surge of unconditional love every now and again really picks me up.

  * * *

  Right now, however, it’s the real thing.

  No playing.

  The worst by far.

  Here I am in the public library on my knees waiting for my hand to relent and by God I am starting to worry.

  It has never gone on for this long.

  It has never been this intense.

  The world is still a blur and everything still hurts. Weak illumination pours upward in a thin, steady stream from the dark pit in my palm. I follow the stream of light with my eyes and it blends with the smudgy coloration that entombs me. The light begins to deepen and the stream thickens. My eyeballs burn, as though they are wilting.

  Suddenly, in a flash of brownish red, countless tendrils, branches, black and brittle, explode from my palm. They launch skyward and spin slow, mesmerizing revolutions within the beam of light.

  A shower of dirt comes next.

  Then a river.

  Then millions upon billions of long, leafy vines.

  And then the bones. Every variety in every state: decrepit to the point of crumbling, fresh, and slick with fat, sweating life—dust to death.

  And then the flesh. The flesh hungry for the flesh. A riot of color and smell, texture and taste, racing from the hollow in my palm.

  My eyes are beyond dry. They feel ashen. And my body feels as if it is being turned inside out, pulled through itself and pumped out of my palm.

  The world through my palm.

  I collapse, but my hand remains fixed. I dangle and lull from side to side and pray for the end.

  And then the sun. B
ig as life. Bright as death. An atom bomb of light. I see it climbing my arm, passing my wrist and breaching the palm. The burning planet ascends, melting me down, and finally the blur begins to let up.

  An outline of familiar gestures. I’ve seen it a million times. The moment I fall and freak, one or more concerned souls rush over. I can’t hear just yet, but I know exactly what the outline is saying. Are you all right? Or some variation thereof.

  Sound returns.

  “Are you okay?”

  See, I’m close.

  And at last it’s over.

  “Charles?”

  I look up and the world has resumed its shape. I’m back in the library, laid out fetal, covered by a pile of musty books. Apparently I pulled a good-size stack down with me. Bringing my left palm level with my eye, I have look. Nothing. A little redness from all of that gesticulating and contorting, but no hole, no pit.

  “Charlie?”

  Looking up I expect to see Bidge, the bird-nosed librarian. She’s always giving me the stink eye and huffing at me and shit. It’s not her fault, I’m ugly (did I mention I was ugly?) and this tends to draw out the worst in people. Anyhow, I go a little flush with surprise when I lock eyes with a young woman I’ve never seen before.

  “Charlie?”

  She is one of those freaks. One of those whack jobs living in never-never land, forgetting how to grow up. Hit any major metropolis, search out any “hip,” “trendy,” “independent” record shop—or the same, only a bar-club-clothing-store—and bingo, there are millions of “individuals” that look just like her: bright red hair, out-of-control makeup, checked bondage pants and a ripped, faded baby tee.

  The slogan of the day, written in bold black letters across her ripped, faded baby tee reads Fuck you. Honest. All caps and everything. A small part of me wants to applaud. I’m all about anarchy. Fuck you. For sure. I can really relate. But these kids, these adults pretending to be kids, try much too hard and the effect isn’t rebellion, it’s nausea.

  Shaking my head, clearing up, I stand. The girl crosses her arms and makes a tsk sound. I look at her closer and wonder how and why she knows my name.

  She knows my name?

  This girl knows my name?

  I’m about to ask when it dawns on me that behind all of that jacked-up makeup she is really dazzling. Not dazzling as in beautiful, but dazzling in a weird, breathtaking sort of way. I’ve never seen her before, but she seems somehow familiar. Something awe-inspiring spirals about within her pupils.

  This woman knows my name?

  Everything inside shrivels and language dies in my throat. For a few seconds I stammer like the idiot I am. I freeze. I ignite.

  “Charlie?”

  Again with the name.

  Do I know her? I must. Why else would she be talking to me? But I have no idea who she is. I have no idea.

  The room is getting hot, too hot, so I bend and quickly root out the book I came for, The Many Dangers of Food Poisoning. Mumbling something like, “Good day,” I reclaim the book, rise, and push my way past her. She calls after me (yet another name check) but I pretend not to hear. Sweating and nervous, nervous, nervous, I rap my fingers on the countertop while bird-nose Bidge gives me a distasteful look and checks the book. On my way out the door I glance back, but the girl is gone.

  By the time I get home to my roach-infested studio, I have a raging erection and I am freaking out. I haven’t been aroused like this in over ten years and the panic amping through my bloodstream is only making things worse. I toss The Many Dangers of Food Poisoning onto the bed and strip away my clothing.

  God, I hope this still works.

  Standing before the mirrored closet door, I stare hard at my naked body. It doesn’t take long. Just like old times. My penis flops, shriveling in disgust, and I cry myself dry.

  And so it goes, on and on and on, world without end.

  I’m not a freak. There’s nothing superwrong with my body. It’s about forty pounds overweight, a little shorter than I’d like, sickly white, pimply, and kind of hairy. Unsightly details aside, it’s not that much different than that of your regular Joe American. The staring bit, followed by the subsequent de-arousal, has nothing to do with what’s on the outside (I see more. I’ve trained myself to do so). It’s all about the little trick I taught myself eons back.

  In case it’s not apparent, I’m a virgin.

  A true virgin.

  Not even masturbation.

  Not even impure thoughts if I can help it.

  Puberty and hormones hit me as hard as any budding young boy, and yes, like all teenage males, I wanted sex. I wanted to do it so bad it hurt, but when you’re ugly (did I mention I was ugly?) it’s not so easy to acquire a partner. I suppose I could have had an ugly chick, a physical equal, but where’s the excitement in that? In any case, during those formative years when I would have considered sleeping with someone, my personality just wasn’t strong enough to transcend my unsightly physical appearance. Besides, alongside the constant threat of my hand, God and religious doctrine had gummed up the insides of my skull with guilt and fear. Even if I had the opportunity, I might have backed out anyway.

  The sweat-inducing temptation to masturbate (all of my peers were doing it and advocated its healing wonders) surfaced from time to time, but again with the God issue. There was no way I was going to do that while our Heavenly Father who art in heaven was staring down at me. I had a tough enough time getting dressed and undressed, what with those celestial eyes glued to my every move.

  Despite God or my homely countenance, fevered fantasies still spun X-rated cobwebs about the dream centers of my preteen mind. Blame the TV. Blame weakness. Whatever the case, I fought and fought, but still those naughty reveries surfaced. With no outlet, frustration mounted. Frustration hurt. Frustration incarnate and there was no escape from a world obsessed with sex. Selling sex. Buying sex. Breeding sex. Teaching sex. Lipstick and moaning, condom ads and innuendo everywhere, in everything. There was no escape. Or so I thought.

  Every time I got horny I closed my eyes and began to develop the trick.

  I began going deep.

  If it was flesh I craved, it was flesh I would have.

  At first I remained clothed and only imagined my naked body in my mind. A few years in, once I began to realize that God didn’t play such a personal role in my day-to-day life, I discovered that getting naked (not really necessary as I’ve used the trick hundreds of times in public) generally helped to speed up the process.

  What I do—did today for the first time in ages—is train my eyes upon my pocked, pimply, greasy derma, and travel inward. I stare and stare and stare and before long my pasty hide responds. Every pore yawns and maws, hungry like fleshy, little mouths, revealing rows upon rows of yellowish corpulence. Elastic to the point of rupture, clumps of fat falling away, splattering milky at my feet, wide, wider, widest, until skin is no longer skin but an army of thin, round frames showcasing the glorious bulk of red and white muscle beneath. The skin frames stretch to their limits and fall around my body, settling atop the already congealing pool of fat at my feet in a moist pink heap.

  The beauty of my musculature is almost counterproductive, and before disassembly begins I am able to take a split second and marvel at what I am minus the gross fat and oily skin. Hard. Rock solid. Lean. Like sculpture.

  For a moment I am attractive.

  Red-rimmed, slick, raw, and laid bare, I am the closest I have ever been to being exquisite.

  At this point my enemy, the erection, mounts a counterstrike. No chance though. The sudden rush of blood to groin is short lived. A last gasp, if you will, for piece by perfect piece my muscle groups begin dropping to the floor with wet, loud smacks.

  Then the real fun.

  Then the mess.

  Then the ultimate passion killers: organs.

  Every kind—real or imagined, slimier and more grotesque than need be—spews and wretches from my body. A bulbous, brownish stomach. A spongy set
of light, pink lungs. A blackened liver. Porous gray kidneys. A particularly disgusting, seeping, creamy gall bladder. A million, alien chunks of goop. I know nothing about biology or anatomy and I hope to God the things I see exploding from me do not exist. I hope, but for now they do and wouldn’t you know I’m no longer aroused. In fact I am sickened and tears are stinging my eyes and my genitalia is receding and here I am, there I am, returned and every bit as ugly, every bit as stupid, hunched over naked, nearly glowing white (boy do I need a tan), shivering and wanting nothing more than for the world to end.

  Though it took me nearly ten years to master, by the time I hit my early twenties I had eradicated every ounce of desire. All sexual impulse, instinctual or intentional, had been subdued. All I had to do was close my eyes or—if convenient—strip down.

  Over ten years without the teeniest, tiniest sexual inkling.

  And now today.

  What gives?

  Physicality disgusts me. Put a naked supermodel in front of me and I’m liable to barf, but goddamn there was something going on with that girl in the library. Something wrong. There I was fighting thoughts and imagery as if I were fourteen years old all over again. There was definitely something wrong going on and it scared me. This wasn’t sympathy attraction. This wasn’t a girl drawn to my dysfunction. She wasn’t making a pass at me; she was trying to tell me something. Something crucial no doubt, but why the arousal? I wasn’t attracted to her. I can’t get attracted anymore.

  And (okay, last time, I promise) how did she know my name?

  Fuck it. Best to just let it go and be thankful the trick still works. With any luck there was nothing to worry about, probably just a side effect from my hand’s bravo performance. Now, if the trick had failed, there would be some cause for alarm, but it didn’t, so again, fuck it. Put it to bed. And the girl? The girl nothing. Coincidental. Hand tricks.