Read Online Mercy by Alissa York - Free Book Online

CORPUS MEUM
(
for this is my body
)
    A fter his run-in with Saint Augustine, August grows mistrustful of the mind’s twilight, as rife with questionable stirrings as its mirror in the natural world. He confines his bedtime reading to the one book that still seems fitting after prayer.
    Quam speciosi pedes
, the Blessed Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans.
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace—
    August looks up from the page. The feet? Without thinking, he yanks at the cotton blanket, bunching it up to uncover his own. Toes the length of a child’s fingers, nails shiny, cut a little too close. He points his feet toward the door, then flexes them back, marvelling at their quiet strength. So many twigs and pebbles of bone. Down the end of the bed, his overlooked extremities seem suddenly miraculous. He sweeps them like windshield wipers, delighted by their synchronous grace.
    He lifts an eyelid to dancing sheers and a thundering, greenish sky. The air is terribly close. He’s on his belly, right arm skewed beneath him, his bottom rib damming itsblood. The hand’s asleep, nestled dead against the mass of his groin. It could be the hand of another, for all the sensation it affords.
    He presses dreamily against it, contracts his pelvis and presses again, feeling himself grow hard. A third tentative thrust and the hand stirs, shocking him awake all the way. It’s like walking in on somebody, catching them red-handed—only the hand in question is a sickly shade of blue.
    August rolls off the slab of his arm, feels life return torturously in a stream of needles and pins. The hand arches its back. He grabs it, braiding the fingers with those of its more sensible twin.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis
—” he mutters fiercely, burying himself in prayer.
BY-PRODUCTS: HEADCHEESE
    The hog’s thick snout and drooping ears are tough, so Thomas boils them with the dewclaws and toes, letting them soften a bit before adding the rest of the head, the heart and tongue, the loose, leftover skin tied up in a cheesecloth sack. When everything’s tender, he picks the hot meat from the bones and chops the larger chunks down to size.
    On the second boil he gives some thought to casing. He’s cleaned the hog’s paunch for a bag, but by the looks of things he’ll have a fair portion left over. Not enough to bother making links, though. He may as well pour it out in a pan.
    The thought pricks out a memory from his mind—seventh grade, the last year the old man tolerated him wasting his strong arms in school. They were doing art.Greasing their faces with petroleum jelly, sticking straws up their noses, tilting back for the papier mâché. Some of the kids didn’t like waiting for the moulds to dry. One undersized girl lost it, tore the whole mess from her face and ran bawling down the hall. Not Thomas. The mould felt cozy. He was sorry when it came time to lift it off.
    Pouring in the plaster, he felt an indescribable excitement, an all-over electrical itch, as though he’d never looked into a mirror and was about to confront himself for the very first time. The results were less than thrilling. When the mask came free, it was altogether too smooth, a pale whitish grey. It was the largest in the class, true, but otherwise just as unremarkable as the rest. He accidentally knocked it to the floor, where it cracked across the eyelids and lips. The mould was better anyhow. It held a more accurate impression of him in its hollow bowl.
    It was one of the few items he brought with him to Mercy, along with a yellowed photograph of his mother, his butchering book, a change of shorts and money in a brown paper sack. He keeps it in the top dresser drawer, right out in the open. He’d gladly tell Mathilda all about it, but she just folds his boxers and stacks them away beside the face of his youth, never once thinking to ask.
    Thomas legs it up the stairs, and in moments he’s back with the mould in hand. He