31 Dec I’ve Got Your Nose

I could almost smell trouble coming.

They knocked and I went to the large front window in the living room to see who it was.  I must have looked like the least possible threat ever with my little five-year-old feet in bunny rabbit slippers with whiskers at the toes.

He stood there, nose against the window glass, a man dressed in an optical illusion tie, its dizzying black-and-white pattern.  His face was acne-scarred.  He held up a Bible, mouthing for me to unhook the main door’s latch.

I went to the door, startled to see another man watching me through its tiny window.  He was perfectly bald and gave me a pleasant nod as I reached for the knob.  I tested to see if it was locked.  It was.  I stepped back and he frowned.  He thought I was going to open it.

“I’m not alone,” I said loud enough so he could hear through the glass.

“We’ve been watching you,” said the man.

The other came to the front door.  “You were playing video games and got some cheese from the refrigerator,” said the other.

“We’ve been watching,” said the man.

“We’ve got eyes,” said the bald one.

My body was on fire from all of the lights on in the house, and from the fast pace of my heart.  Outside, the entire place must have glowed.  I was afraid of the dark.  I believed in monsters, and they were in front of me now.

“You can’t come in,” I said.

“Oh, yes, we can,” said the voice through the door.

They took a rock from the yard and smashed in the front window.

I ran upstairs.  I had three rooms to choose from—two bedrooms and a bathroom.  I chose to hide in my bedroom, simply because I knew it well.  It was perhaps a bad choice.  They were in the doorway in seconds, like two great witches, shadows in a world of brightness.  I rushed to my window, opened it, and leaped.  I hovered there, choked by my shirt, suffocating in midair.  One of them had grabbed me. The other one’s hands seemed to run over the entirety of my body.  They thrust me into the room and threw me onto my magic-wand-and-stars bed sheets.

My feet were bound before I realized it, the tape so tight I felt sick, as if my circulation was stifled.  It was.

“Put your hands out,” said the man.

I pushed myself up and put my head on the pillow.

“He’s making himself comfortable.”

I noticed the knife.  It was our knife.  They took it from the kitchen.  I’d eaten hundreds of meals served to me from that knife.  It had cut almost every slab of meat.

“You should know,” I said, “that soon my Grandpa is going to be here.” He stabbed the knife into my bed.  The knife stood there, perfect posture, as if it was meant to be there all along, inches from my feet.

“You hear that?  His Grampa’s gonna be here,” said the man, “Well, how old’s your Grampa?” “I don’t know,” I said.

“Is he this old?” said the man, holding up all of his fingers.

“More,” I said.

“Is he in his nineties?” said the bald man.

“He has more hair than you,” I said.

“Well,” said the bald man, “I think we can handle ourselves with a mouthy little boy and a dying ninety-year-old.”

“He was in the war,” I said.

They laughed brutally, a slaughterhouse of laughter, something very pig-like and cadaverous about it.

I wondered what they’d do to me.

He withdrew the knife from the bed.

“That wasn’t nice,” said Grandpa from the hallway.

This frightened the both of them.  The one with the knife held it out, giving an empty swipe at the air.

My grandfather walked into the room and touched where the bed was bleeding feathers.

“Are you teasing my boy?” said Grandpa.

The ugly laughter returned, a conveyor belt of sniggering.

“How would you like if I were to tease you?” said Grandpa.

“We’re going to take every cent of money you have in the place,” said the bald man.  He smiled, a gummy smile.

“You mean like this?” said Grandpa and he reached to the man’s ear and, before he could react, pulled out a quarter.  He held it out for the man.

He knocked it out of Grandpa’s hand.

“Let me tell you something else, Grampa,” said the man, “We’re going to cut you and your little boy into microscopic pieces and scatter every one of your body parts all across the front lawn, for all the neighbors to see.”

“If they’re microscopic, the neighbors won’t be able to see,” said Grandpa.

He shoved Grandpa, causing him to fall into the hallway wall.  My view was partially blocked, but I saw Grandpa reach forward and grab at the man’s face, pinching his nose.

“What’re you doing, you idiot?” said the man.

“I stole your nose,” said Grandpa.

This was a game he did with me.  He’d form a fist and make his thumb protrude between his middle and index finger, the thumb supposedly looking like you had the person’s nose.

The man said, “Well, I’m going to saw your nose off.” The bald man stopped in his tracks, staring at the man’s face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” asked the man.

“How’d you do that?” said the bald man.

“Do what?”

“Do you want me to put it back?” asked Grandpa.

“Yes!” begged the bald man.

Grandpa pushed his hand into the man’s face.

The man swiped the knife at Grandpa, who stepped out of its reach.

“How did you do that?” said the bald man again.

“Do what?” said the man.

“He took your nose off.”

“He didn’t take my nose off, you mumbling moron!  He just went like this—”  The man attempted to place his fingers like you do in the game.

“No,” said the bald man, “he took your nose completely off.” “Like this,” said Grandpa and he snatched at the man’s face again.

“There!” yelled the bald man.

“My nose is still—” but before the man could finish his sentence, the bald man pulled him to my bedroom mirror where it was indisputable that he no longer had a nose on his face.

The man patted at the nothingness that was there now.

“He must have put some sort of covering over it.”

“Can you smell?”

The man tried to smell but he had no nose.

Grandpa held out his hand.  An object like a nose was in his palm.

The man shoved the knife at Grandpa.

“You shouldn’t tease like that,” said Grandpa.

“I’ll tease you, all right.  I’ll cut the real nose off the both of your real faces.” “Put the knife down,” said Grandpa.

“Or you’ll do what?”

With that, Grandpa reached forward and took off the man’s arm.  He went to the window and threw the arm out.

“Do you want me to throw the rest of you out of the house as well?” said Grandpa.  “You must be more polite.  There are rules.”

The men looked flush with panic and confusion.

“Are you in on this with him?” said the bald man.

“It feels like my arm is actually gone,” said the man.

“You never told me you have a fake arm.”

“It’s called a prosthetic,” said Grandpa.

“I don’t have a fake arm!  I have a real arm!” said the man.

“Well, then how did he throw it out into the bushes?” “Give me my arm back,” said the man.

“Are you going to behave?”

“No, we’re not going to behave.  We’re gonna—”  The man didn’t know what to threaten us with.  He no longer had a knife.  That was outside in the bushes with the arm.

“What are you going to do?” said Grandpa.

The bald man reached to see if the man’s arm was there.  It wasn’t.  This seemed to anger him.

“Where’s the money?” said the bald man.

“What money?”

“The money in the house!  The jewelry!” said the bald man.

“Don’t raise your voice.”

“I’ll do anything I want,” said the bald man.

Grandpa leaned over and took off the man’s head.  He threw it out the window.  The head rolled onto the middle of the lawn.  We heard it yelling “Marty!”  Apparently it was the man’s name in the room.

Marty stared at the headless body of his friend.  A part of the man wanted to try to attack my grandfather, but a more intelligent part won out.  Timid, he said, “Could I please have my nose back, please.”

“Are you still going to kill me and kill my grandson?” said Grandpa.

“No, sir,” said the man, “I’m sorry about that, sir.”

“You’re sorry that you were planning on killing a family and stealing their money?” “Yes, sir.  I know it sounds horrible.”

“Sounds?” said Grandpa and he threw the nose out of the window.

The headless man’s body took a step forward.

Marty screamed and, gripping his Bible, ran out into the hall, down the steps, and out of the house.

We could hear the man below, searching for his nose.

The headless body just stood there.

“He’s very polite now,” I said.

“So quiet,” said Grandpa.

“Yes,” I said.

“Was he always this quiet?”

“No,” I said, “He was much more talkative when he had his head.”

“He probably misses it,” said Grandpa.

I hopped up.

Grandpa noticed my feet were still taped together.  He also noticed the tape on the floor.  He picked it up, sat on the bed, and bound his own feet.

“This is a good game,” said Grandpa.

He hopped around the room.

I joined in hopping with him.

The headless body stood there, unable to watch us.