The Arm and Flanagan Page 10

Jimmy got back in his car and sped out of the apartment building’s parking lot.

  He didn’t know what time it was. He refused to look at the watch the arm was wearing, and the clock on his dashboard never had worked properly. The sun was only a bit above the mountains to the west, and he knew his parents would be expecting him home for dinner, but he lacked the stomach for the home front at the moment.

  He reached the Interstate and headed west, out of town, into the mountains. There was still enough light to see, and there would be more light when he got higher up. Traffic was light on the westbound side of the highway.

  This is what I need, he thought. Rest my eyes, see some scenery, get away.

  Tomorrow he would call Terrie and apologize. “I’ll apologize for what you did, you bastard,” he said to the arm.

  Its hand was on the wheel, at the top, next to his real hand.

  He muttered, “Fuck,” but left the hand there. It was a good idea, he knew, to use both hands for this stretch.

  He left the Interstate and took the old US highway, the scenic route.

  The highway curved smoothly around the north face of a mountain as it rose. For this part of the drive, the road surface was dark. The mountainside was a looming shadow to the left. To Jimmy’s right, he knew, was a long drop-off, guarded by a low concrete wall. He switched on his headlights and reduced his speed.

  The highway rounded the mountain onto its west face. Here, the sun was still shining, and the road was in full daylight. The road ahead was almost straight, going south for a long distance before it turned west again.

  The mountainside to Jimmy’s left was lit brilliantly, the sun reflecting from the huge rocks sticking out of the bare soil. On his right, the shoulder sloped away gently to a drop-off down to the valley floor a thousand feet below. Here and there, he could see big chunks of concrete sticking out of the shoulder, some of them with rebar poking out into space, remnants of an even older road that the US highway had replaced.

  “I’m back in the light again,” Jimmy said. He glanced at the arm’s hand hanging onto the steering wheel. “You bastard,” he added.

  I’ll go back to the hospital and have them take the arm off, he thought. “If they won’t take you off,” he said, “I’ll chop you off myself. I don’t care about pain and blood. I’ll do it. And then I’ll chop you into pieces.”

  What if he couldn’t get it off him? It wouldn’t age, would it? He’d age, but the arm would remain a mechanical version of a young man’s arm. When he finally died, a withered old man, would he have a young, firm, muscular arm still hanging from his left side? He shivered at the image.

  “Wait, that’s even better!” he said. “I’ll make sure that you’re buried with me. How would you like that? Trapped in a coffin forever with a decaying corpse. Hey, arm, I like that. That would make it worth spending the rest of my life attached to you. Just you and me and Terrie, huh?”

  Ahead, there was a deep fold in the mountain. Following the contour of the mountain’s face, the road curved sharply to the left and then back out again before continuing straight. Jimmy took his foot off the accelerator and let the car slow down. The highway was well banked, and the low concrete wall separated the roadway from the sloping shoulder, but this spot had always made him nervous.

  Jimmy turned the wheel to the left as he entered the curve. Rather, he tried to. The arm had chosen the worst moment to stop operating again. It was frozen in place and resisted his efforts to turn the wheel with his right hand.

  The car was heading straight for the concrete barrier. Jimmy jammed his foot down on the brake. He kept trying to turn the wheel, but the arm made it impossible.

  The car had slowed to five or ten miles per hour when it hit the barrier. The front wheels bounced over the barrier and landed on the far side. Jimmy kept pressing down on the brake as hard as he could. He held his breath, hoping that the car had slowed enough so that the rear wheels would be stopped by the concrete.

  The rear wheels hit. In what seemed to him like slow motion, they climbed the barrier and dropped onto the soft dirt on the far side.

  The car stopped moving. Jimmy sat shaking, his foot jammed on the brake, the engine running, the car still.

  Ahead of Jimmy, the shoulder sloped gently downward for about ten feet. Beyond that was empty air. Right behind his wheels was the concrete barrier.

  A car roared by behind him but didn’t stop to help.

  Jimmy lowered the driver–side window all the way and leaned over to look down at the ground. It looked like loose gravel. Just beyond the door was one of the old blocks of concrete. A foot–long piece of rusted rebar projected from it.

  Get the rear wheels back over the concrete barrier, Jimmy thought, and I’ll be safe.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “Here we go.”

  He put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. He could feel the rear wheels beginning to climb the concrete barrier.

  And then he felt the loose gravel under the front wheels giving way. He jammed down on the gas pedal. The rear wheels, still spinning furiously in reverse, slipped off the concrete. The car began to slide toward the drop-off.

  In one fluid movement, Jimmy released his seatbelt, opened the driver door, and threw himself out. For a moment, the arm held stubbornly onto the steering wheel. Then it let go, and Jimmy was free of the car.

  The surface was loose under his shoes. He grabbed for the rebar rod with his right hand. The metal was hot from the sun, but it was as steady as the highway itself, and the ribbed surface gave him a good grip. The gravel slipped out from under his feet and he fell on his face, holding onto the bar with all his strength.

  He turned his head to his left and saw his car rotating away from him, gravel shooting out from under the spinning rear wheels. The car slid sideways down the slope and disappeared over the edge.

  For a few seconds, Jimmy heard crashing sounds as the car hit projecting rocks on its way down. Then there was silence. Finally, there was a faint crash from far below.

  He closed his eyes and pressed himself against the gravel. Convulsively, he tried to grip the dirt with the fake arm’s hand, but he gripped only a handful of small, sharp rocks.

  He heard cars pass by from time to time. He opened his eyes and raised his head. The roadway was above eye level. He couldn’t see the cars, and he was sure that the people in them couldn’t see him.

  The next time he heard a car approaching, Jimmy yelled. His voice sounded weak and insubstantial in his ears. It was drowned out by the noise of the car’s tires on the road and the wind rushing over the car.

  He tried to stand, but the gravel was too loose underfoot. He tried to pull himself up, back to the roadway, but his right hand and arm weren’t strong enough for that. He would have to trust the machine. The thing on his left side would have the strength.

  But he couldn’t rely on it to hold onto the metal bar. It was too unpredictable. It might suddenly go limp or decide to do its self–testing routine again. Only his real hand would hold on reliably. Yet his real hand would give way eventually. It would weaken. It was only human.

  He couldn’t pull himself up. He couldn’t stand up. There was one thing he could do with the fake arm, and that was wave. He was still in sunlight. If he could raise the arm enough, then maybe its hand would be visible to a passing car.

  He rolled carefully onto his right side. When he heard a car coming, he raised the arm straight up into the air. He waved it frantically from side to side.

  Jimmy heard the car squeal to a stop. He heard doors open and close and then the sound of running feet.

  He heard someone say, “There’s a man down there! Hold on, mister. We’ve got some rope in the car. We’ll get you up!”

  The arm kept waving, more wildly now. “Stop, now,” Jimmy begged it. “Stop, damn you.” He tried to make it stop, but he had no control over it.

  It waved still more wildly. It hit the gravel in front of him and rose in the air again, and then its fist sl
ammed into his right forearm just below his wrist with stunning force. He felt and heard the bone snap.

  The pain shot down through Jimmy’s body and up into his hand. He screamed. His right hand was numb. He could see the fingers relaxing, letting go. He couldn’t make them hold on. He screamed again.

  Above him, a man shouted, “Hold on!”

  Jimmy tried to grab the metal bar with the fake arm’s hand, but the arm was limp and unresponsive again. It lay on the gravel beside his right arm. Just as limp and unresponsive, his right hand slipped away from the metal bar.

  Jimmy slid down the slope with increasing speed, screaming. Gravel bounced into his open mouth.

  He shot over the edge, out into space, and then down. He fell a thousand feet, screaming all the way, down to the rock of the valley floor, where the screams and everything else ended abruptly and forever.

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