Uncle Hand

New fiction.

I hope everyone is having a good summer. Thank you for reading.

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I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my father, so the night before his burial I broke into the funeral home on the eastern end of Fallston, stole through the stale dark to the basement freezer, opened the great steel door, revealed his still and silent nakedness, and cut off his right hand. I used a saw to slice through pale, cold skin, then hard bone. His body shook as one great lifelessness while I worked. His eyelids troubled me the most. They possessed a finality, a kind of maw, far more real than any other part of him.

I thought about what he told me as we meandered the palatial shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in my childhood: that he always wanted to be buried in an arcade. The specifics shifted as I grew. Pour my ashes into the soda machine near the food court, he told me. No, actually, pulp my body, then print and distribute me in the form of 10,000 tickets. Years later, as he and I drove north to New Hampshire to celebrate his sixtieth birthday with a few slow rounds of skeeball, my father said he’d settle for a small plaque glued to the wall behind Battlezone, the vector-graphics tank-fight wonder he loved most of all.

I heard a loud dry crack, and then his hand clove free. I kissed his forehead and slid his body back inside the freezer.

&

The highway north was bare. My high-beams sliced the dark in search of deer. Beside me sat a cooler, full of truckstop ice, my father’s hand asleep inside. I planned to guess a route northeast, my phone forgotten all those miles behind. I’d hook east by Brattleboro, trundle through a dozen small New Hampshire towns in twilight. By sunrise, I’d lap the lakeside shore and find a proper spot to burn my father’s hand. With his ashes, I’d think of something. I wanted to see the arcade. See if my memory of him would guide me to a proper resting place.

The cooler shook as I crossed into Vermont. I pushed the lid open. My father’s hand, entombed inside a plastic bag, squirmed against its bed of ice.

I screamed, banged the brakes, shrieked the wheels into a stop. The headlights tore the trees. Slowly, trembling, I opened the bag and watched as my father’s hand crawled, squeezed and flexed its fingers, popped each knuckle as it freed itself.

Jesus, said my father’s hand. That’s a lot fuckin’ better.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, Sorry.

For what? said my father’s hand.

I don’t know.

Never apologize for nothing. Take it from me. I’m your dad’s hand. His best hand, by the way.

Then it said, I’m sorry, by the way. For your loss. He was a good man.

What?

Your dad. The one who died.

But you’re dead, too.

My father’s hand twisted, wrist stump dug into the ice, and flipped me off.

I look dead to you, asshole? asked my father’s hand.

My father’s hand crawled out of the cooler. As I watched, I wondered if I inhaled something at the funeral home. Vapours of embalming fluid. Formaldehyde. Maybe I’d died, there in the mortuary, and I was lost in some limbo. Haunted by my final act.

White light blushed my rearview mirror. I unbraked, started moving, and let some silence fill the car between my father’s hand and me. After a few minutes, my father’s hand crept toward the radio. Turned it on, fiddled with the dial. Slid past church radio, a country station promising “purely human tunes,” a BBC monologue about the war.

Garbage, said my father’s hand.

How can you hear that? I asked.

Beats me, said my father’s hand. You’re the one with the brain.

I laughed, and then my father’s hand was laughing, and we stayed that way as Brattleboro unfolded like a tin flower, all nose-bleed gas stations and too-high rents. Drove like a splinter through its gentrified heart. We crossed the Connecticut, lunged through Chesterfield, Keene, and traced the wide swings of the Franklin Pierce Highway. Towns I’ll never know. Ahead lay Concord in blink-eyed darkness. I wished I had coffee. Beside me, my father’s hand churned a piece of ice between its fingers.

It seemed to sense my observation, and then it said, Feels nice.

I looked back at the road. Squinted past my tiredness. I should have napped, I thought.

Where are we going? asked my father’s hand.

Laconia.

Why?

I said, Because I, and paused, and looked at my father’s hand, and then said, Because I’m going to burn you.

Oh, said my father’s hand. I don’t like the sound of that.

Sorry.

What are you gonna do with the ashes?

My dad, he, uh, wanted me to bring his ashes to the arcade there. Spread them somehow.

It is what he wanted, that’s for sure.

How do you know–well, never mind.

We should take a spin around the arcade. Maybe some of my old high scores are still there.

Yours?

Who do you think played so well? It wasn’t your dad’s brain, that’s for sure. Fuckin’ prick. It was all instinct. These perfect fingers, baby.

I can’t walk in there with some sliced-off hand. People would think I was crazy.

It’s a little late for that. Just throw on a sweatshirt or something and hold onto me. I’ll be your hand. Sort of, anyway.

As we spoke my father’s hand had climbed up on the dash. The pools of streetlight sliced it, orange gashes, slipped to shadow, then alight again.

&

We waited hours for the arcade to open. I found a musty long-sleeve shirt in the trunk, and though it hugged my middle far too tight, the sleeves were loose enough to grip the wrist of my father’s hand. I napped, my father’s hand sealed inside the cooler, floating in its bed of slush and water. When I stirred, a few cars dotted the parking lot. I reached and shook the cooler. Grumbles, sloshing, answered me.

Inside we found a few bleary-eyed workers sweeping floors. The Star Wars rail shooter stood with its guts exposed, a technician on their knees and squirming by its side. Rows of arcade games called to us like 8-bit sirens. I saw a flyer stapled to a bulletin board, in large black letters blaring PINBALL TOURNAMENT, 12 O’CLOCK NOON. I raised my father’s hand. It snapped and struck a gunshot pose.

There’s our ticket, said my father’s hand.

To pass the time we searched for Battlezone. OUT OF ORDER blared a piece of masking tape. The tape looked old, its edges frayed. Its death, however temporary, hit harder, somehow, than my father’s. As if, because a thing he loved might never be repaired, and just sit here dusty and forgotten, it meant my father, too, was dusty and forgotten. I realized that, as I stood there, my father’s coffin now lay beneath the earth, prayers said, dirt tossed and packed, and my family likely stood in some restaurant, toasting his name. I blinked away some tears. Didn’t know if I was even missed. Remembered. Scorned.

By noon, a nervous handful queued around the pinball games. Men middle-aged with heavy guts who sported special gloves, fanny packs, cushioned shoes that squeaked against the stained soft carpet floor. A worker too stoned for words gave me a machine styled after Ian Fleming’s Dr. No, inside which a cartoon Sean Connery grinned, pistol pointed just below a twisting habitrail. I placed my father’s hand near the button for the right-side bumper. Felt it twitch, as if electrified.

Just follow my lead, said my father’s hand.

My father’s hand tugged the shooter, launched the metal ball up the right-side lane. It danced around the bumpers, as if caught in some unseen gravity, points chiming on the board. As the ball descended my father’s hand flicked, nicked it with the bumper, as if tossing it to me. Now! hissed my father’s hand. I smashed the left-side flipper, hurled the ball along the left-side lane, lighting up a row of multi-colored bars. There you go, my father’s hand whispered. The ball swept past the bumpers, added points up by the score, ping ping ping. It tumbled south, slid against the right-side shield, right into another flipper smack from my father’s hand. I glanced down the row, saw avatars of sweat, frustration, game overs, the desperation of free balls, self-pity, rage, lost coins, and there we were, first ball glory like a coin flip stuck on never-ending wins. Eyes back on the playfield, we kept at it. Layups from my father’s hand. Flip, bounce, a silver streak, ping ping ping, around again. But even glory finds its end. The ball slid past our flippers. Bang, clunk, defeat. Our next ball catapulted, struck the top, shot south right past our flippers. Damn! my father’s hand despaired. Then it said, Last one. Take a breath. You got this. Around us bloomed a crowd, our game the last one going. The ball flew true, caught a bumper streak, ping ping ping, a bounce unyielding, like it was born to soar, and around us crowded all the men, who murmured their approval, smacked their hands, a gaming miracle here on Earth, until we remembered we were finite, our last ball fell, and the final score declared: we had won.

&

Outside, we stood against the sun, five twenty-dollar bills caressed inside my father’s fingertips.

Nice score, it said, and then it said, Damn nice score.

We bought ice cream down the road. Black raspberry, chocolate sprinkles, my father’s favorite. I pressed a glob against my father’s hand. Damn good stuff, it told me.

How do you feel? I asked.

Stiff, said my father’s hand. Tired.

Then it said, Ready.

I drew a breath, and then I said, How should we do it?

There’s a beach not far from here. Your dad swam there as a kid. He never got a chance to take you there. Something he thought about. Regretted.

And then?

I’ll leave that one to you.

My father’s hand, atop its dashboard perch, guided me down narrow roads beneath green and vibrant pine. It had become slower, inflexible, skin rumpled, a little green, fingernails chipped and gray. I parked a quarter-mile from a small beach scarred by stone, collected twigs and needles, and built a pyre just above the shore.

Think it’ll hurt? I asked.

No, said my father’s hand. It’ll be like going home.

Sweet pine smoke obscured the smell of burning flesh. I cried, first a little, until I bawled, then stooped to scoop the ashes, secure inside the plastic bag. Past the shore, men in speedboats leapt above the waves, the white-capped frantic chop, men resigned to earthly limits; don’t go too fast, keep your boats this far apart, smile ‘til your face grows fat and rich and burnt, forever bound. I shuddered, and fled back to my car.

I couldn’t choose a final spot, as I wandered all three arcade floors, the place now jammed with families, restless teens, rich and rowdy nerds, all here to flee some grim American truth for one hot summer day.

Instead, I chose them all. Each pinch of ash I thumbed against the arcade screens, me a priest of my father’s obsession. Still more for the coin slots, the joysticks, the air hockey pockets. Then, expulsion risked, I charged the length of a skeeball lane, scored fifty points with the last of his ashes, a goodbye big enough to win. I felt the hum and heard the chime of victory. A thread of tickets curled against the floor.