three fifty seven

 

Black and white: the comic strip, the film, and now this: a consolidate threnody all in monochrome to encompass that brief moment of each morning’s waking grace, where he has yet to place himself within the narrative of his own relentless grief.
deleted name: Lights, please?

               
 

THE MASKS THEMSELVES aka

 

First to step forward into the spotlight and speak, a young boy, perhaps eight years old, his attire a white polo shirt patterned with its horizontal black zigzag, black shorts and shoes.
cog (his voice both echoing from within and dampened by the paper bag covering his entire head): My name is Charlie Brown, though right now the kids call me Mr Sack, or even just Sack. That’s because of this grocery bag I’m wearing to cover a rash I have. It makes my head look like a baseball.
pause
cog (with uncharacteristic brightness): Actually it’s kind of working out for me.
peering from behind the bag’s eyeholes, each of which looking less crudely scissored than simply drawn on.
Next the light widens to encompass a mis-shapen creature, a man perhaps, the air immediate to him disturbed by the putrescent stench of his clothes and maybe indeed his actual person. His body is enclosed in a dark cloak which covers him to the ground, from beneath which protrude a pair of massive and shapeless slippers. Equally shapeless, a bag of grey flannel topped with a stitched-in peaked cap covering his similarly massive head, a single fissure permitting him his limited perspective upon the world. His breath sounds as a continual wheezing, like air passing through the rasping lungs of a deteriorated bellows, punctuating his speaking and decelerating his any ability to deliver the following words.
cog: [unintelligible]
the sounds emanating from within the hood wet as the boy’s voice had been dry, and who regards him with a sympathetic and silent confusion he inherently comprehends.
cog (again, struggling to enunciate): My name is Joseph Merrick, though there are those as call me John... an error on their part and yet in truth I do respond to either out of simple politeness... Both I find much preferable to that other moniker by which I have come to be known... The Elephant Man... this on account of my somewhat grotesque and frightening appearance... blighted as I find myself by strange growths and distortions to my limbs...
pause
cog (breathing deeply): I will expend my every best effort that you might understand me... well aware as I am that my speaking voice can often be rather difficult to comprehend... for which may I in advance apologise profusely.
He pauses again, clearly exhausted, patting at the lower half of the flannel covering to absorb whatever excess saliva has been expended in his monologue, darker patches appearing at his hand’s removal.
cog: This mask I wear to protect myself from others... as much as to protect them from me.
cog: Amen.
pause
When he suddenly finds himself included within the light’s widening diameter, Brother Skunk feels compelled to breach the ongoing uncomfortable blank, prompted just as equally by the absence of any voice else.
Skunk (clearing throat): Ehm, my name is… Brother Skunk and I am also
sighs
Skunk: I’d, I, I too would also like to apologise; I’ve been...
swallowing
Skunk: ..unwell, I’ve been quite unwell, I think I think it’s fair to say that, and
encompassing within a quick gesture the ruin of his scalp, its bald and scabbed patches where the hair has been wrenched from out, and then rolling up the sleeve of his Levi’s shirt
Skunk: and ehm, likewise I think it’s fair to say that I uh I, I have not exactly been kind to myself
the exposed flesh of his lacerated fore-arm appears to have been pulled together and rather coarsely stitched back into some semblance of its original contour.
cog (bewildered): You did this? To yourself? But
Skunk: Jesus Christ I thought at least with you guys I’d get a free pass.
his Uncle Jesus the sole ghost attendant.
cog: But we’re... You’re not wearing a mask. You lack
cog: Yeah where’s your mask?
Skunk (pointing to his face and its inherent agony): This is the mask.
Not recognising the finality with which Skunk wishes to imbue his riposte, Charlie Brown chirrups
cog: I guess I’m kind of like the Lone Ranger, incognito without the mask.
cog: You’ll forgive me if I don’t underst-
cog: My identity is, no, actually that’s not true. That’s not true at all.
cog: [unintelligible]

 
 

THE BREATH and its issue

 

Again they seem suspended in their moment, until this time it is Mr Sack’s paper bag as vibrates with words:
cog: It’s not so easy to breathe in here; I’m re-breathing my own breath.
Merrick manoeuvres the entire upper half of his body to bring Mr Sack within his single slit’s field of vision.
cog: [unintelligible]
and again
cog: At this very least you can remove that impediment to your breathing... My own respiratory issues are much less easily resolved... Every breath feels less passive reflex, more a conscious act of will on my part... in that if I didn’t breathe I would simply cease so to do... to be, indeed.
And thus he wheezes on, the passage of air audibly filtering in and out around those words he forms within his broken mouth.
Skunk: My breath... Jesus it is my actual breath... It’s like blood, or the heartbeat, so... it is that absolute.
pause
Skunk: Enough.

 
 

THE REVELATION plural

 

Thus embarrassed and shamed, the boy now raises the paper grocery sack up off his head to leave revealed a plain face, the everyman: ecce puer.
cog: I’m ashamed twice over: ashamed to hide behind this disguise, and as ashamed again to show myself.
dropping the bag to the ground at his feet.
cog (arriving at his unhappy conclusion): I know I am nothing. I only became visible this once by my being invisible.
He looks up at both others, perhaps in expectance of consolation or that they might at least confirm otherwise, which neither do. Rather, he finds himself greatly disturbed by his inability to discern anything in that impenetrable and infinite abyss beyond the roughly-stitched eyehole framing Merrick’s vision, and within whose gaze he is certainly fettered, the damp cloth cover sucked in and out at the dictate of the ongoing audible breath.
cog: [unintelligible]
Perhaps himself thus prompted and using only his left hand, his good hand, Merrick now drags the combined cap and hood from off his head, the friction of which leaves his limited hair wildly askew, a kinetic disarray pulling from off the bloated tubers of his bulbous skull which itself has the appearance of an ill-inflated balloon, where thin patches in the otherwise uniform latex circumference have disproportionately swollen out, leaving one eye occluded by the cantilever of bone.
cog: Or you see pictures of explosions - big explosions - they always reminded me of these papillomatous growths on John Merrick’s body. They were like slow explosions, And they started erupting from the bone. I’m not sure what started the explosion, but even the bones were exploding, getting the same texture, and it would come out through the skin and make these growths that were slow explosions.*
cog: Bear witness to my self, if it is not too upsetting... and again I apologise for any discomfort attendant upon such viewing.
While speaking, he removes the cloak to reveal a three-piece suit of what appears to be a fine grey tweed.
Details: a patterned tie; a watch chain; a pale handkerchief tucked into the jacket pocket, unused, while in his hand now he clutches another, a greying rag with which he dabs repeatedly and of necessity at the slabber saturating his jaws.
The cloak he folds and lays across a newly-appeared nearby chair, on top of which he carefully places the hood, with implicit in their placement some sense that he might at any moment require their access, and quickly. Brother Skunk suddenly realises he is no longer inhaling the previous foetid air, as if from persistent exposure he has perhaps become desensitised, or as if in the removal of these layers the smell itself has been dispersed.
Turning back to the others, Merrick instinctively flinches from the unexpected and tentative hand Brother Skunk extends; his agitated breath audibly and momentarily accelerates and as suddenly settles, as the outstretched fingers alight so gently upon his flesh, itself stretched to contain the ongoing violence of his bones.
cog: [unintelligible]
Absent anything to remove, still Skunk must again insert himself amongst their words, an inherent tremor manifest in the withdrawal of his hand.
Skunk (unaware): I’ve not, I’ve, I mean I’m the, I’ve never known any different myself, and too
lifting his jeans from the ankle just enough to exhibit the birthmark, embossed dark grey upon the pallor of his ankle’s oblique aspect
Skunk: there is this.
though his words sound back with the sudden unique acoustic of an empty auditorium. Looking out upon what he now perceives as row upon row of vacant seats, and then back to his companions, Skunk comes to understand he is the only one of the three who has not prepared for the role, as unaware of those lines he is expected to deliver as he had been of their whole council being in rehearsal.
When the boy turns, seemingly unprompted and revealing to them both that rash crawling around the back of his head, Skunk is alarmed to see that it is not in fact an irritation to the scalp at all, but is in fact actual stitching with its own texture and dimension, the implicit tension of a skin so visibly knit together.
cog: [unintelligible]
cog: Good grief.
Skunk imagines himself to trace the curving arc patterned around the boy’s spherical head, only to find his fingertips actually following the coarse and irregular terrain of his own fore-arm, an action of which he is surprised to become conscious partway through its execution, ignorant its any relationship to himself until interrupted by Merrick who seems suddenly and conveniently fascinated by his walking cane.

 
 

“PLEASE DON’T LET ME FALL.”

 

cog: Your stick there, may I see it?
having first tucked his own support under the deadweight of his right arm, Merrick fetches Brother Skunk’s Bazooka cane up in his one good hand occupied still with its damp rag, and turns it this way, over and back, examining closely its printed letters while its owner rocks to and fro in attempt to re-establish some sense of balance absent his essential prop, one arm extended as if in presumption of the imminent arrival of whatever support as might be proffered,
Skunk (whispering): Christ on my left side. Chri-
cog (reading): “Bazooka bubble gum”, whatever does it mean?
Skunk: It’s a bran-, oh do you eh, do you mean bubble gum? It’s maybe after your time. It’s, it’s a little piece of...
eventually resigning himself to use of the same word
Skunk: gum, I, I have no idea what it’s actually made of, you put it in your mouth and chew on it.
cog: But to what end? Does it provide some manner of sustenance, or nutritional value?
Brother Skunk and Charlie Brown both laugh.
Skunk/cog (together): No!
Skunk: It’s like a sort of... your nearest equivalent might be chewing tobacco, maybe? It’s just... something to, something for your mouth to be doing. You chew it, thin it out in your mouth, shape it with your tongue and
miming
Skunk: blow air out into it to make a bubble.
Skunk recoils as Merrick suddenly and with an unexpected dexterity jabs the Bazooka cane at the imaginary bubble occupying that air immediate to his face
cog: [unintelligible]
before returning it, and mopping again fastidiously at the spilling drool.
Perhaps feeling he is become somehow surplus, the young boy interjects with lines spoken as if scripted, which in fact they are:
cog: Never let your outfielder blow bubbles on a windy day.
pause, and again
cog: And don’t ever suggest your baseball scout to write anything on it.
cog (ignoring him): As to my own requirement, I fell, as a child... Tripped and landed upon my hip when I was perhaps four years old, before...
pause
cog: It rendered me alien to the other children for I was unable to join in their play... and ever since then... ever since then...
drifting gently into a reverie from which he must forcibly and consciously disengage
cog: and also of course on account of needing an assist... to mitigate the encroaching imbalance of my... of my condition.
blotting again at his saliva, the while beneath such fine clothes his rotten and twisted spine ever writhing as if in attempt to extricate itself from itself.
cog: [unintelligible]
pause, and again
cog: I do recognise myself forever condemned to such external support.

 
 

THE MOTHER

 

cog (to divert): Perhaps you would care to see my mother?
his left hand now working at the jacket’s inner right pocket, emerging with delicate in its fingers a tiny carboard facsimile framed portrait of a teenaged Priscilla Presley, her head wrapped in a pale scarf, which he places in Brother Skunk’s open palm with every degree of deliberation.
Skunk: She looks so sad.
cog (as if in sudden understanding): Yes... Yes, you are right, she does... She does.
Skunk (handing it back): Sad and determined.
cog: Yes, yes again yes.
pause, and then
cog (as if reassuring the tiny portrait retained in that one good hand before its replacement in his inner pocket): I am happy every hour of the day.
and to his companions
cog: She did not live to see me... She saw me, but she did not see me...
there are too many words for him to place in that order required for sense, his mother having died before so much of his life had happened to him, the fall, the falling, falling, and this subsequent and unexpected attainment of grace.
cog: I miss her terribly. Oh terribly.
weeping, his already sodden handkerchief now pressed hard upon his eyes
cog: [unintelligible] ..an elephant, an elephant...
cog: My mother is a housewife, always offstage, forever unseen.
He feels himself becoming lost, wonders at perhaps retrieving the modified grocery sack from off the floor if only to facilitate his re-appearance.
Skunk: My mother, my mother, Jesus, my mother...
long pause
Skunk: My own mother was insane, there towards the end. In fact, she was always insane, to an extent. And now...
sighs
Skunk: ..gone.
pause
Skunk: And the mother of my child, gone. The child itself, likewise.
he will not, cannot name them, his voice in trying to command its words breaks to speak them, a distress so blatantly manifest as to move Merrick, who reaches to touch his arm
cog: Oh my boy, my dear, dear boy you mustn’t... you simply mustn’t.
his one visible eye further wetted with its own tears.
cog (in sympathy): My own brother died a child, an infant, almost five years old... and born into that time when I myself warred with my body, already being engulfed in its own fungus... William Arthur, God grant him peace... And I have a younger sister too, though as to what has become of her I know not.
Charlie Brown regards them both with something akin to silent trepidation, the way a child might suffer to watch a weeping parent, his any compulsion to mention his own little sister suppressed by an empathy in reading the scene as it plays out.
cog (kicking the grocery bag away from his feet, and quoting): “Little Sister Death”.
Brother Skunk’s stomach begins to gnaw upon itself.

 
 

and THE FATHER

 

cog (to distract): And your father, does he still live?
cog (interjecting): My dad’s a barber. He runs a barbershop. I guess I’m like a living commercial for his business.
Skunk (deflecting): How about you?
cog: My father? Oh I cannot... No. But he was not a bad man... He was not a bad man... He did what he could for me... but in truth there was little that could be done.
cog: I’m not sure he’d appreciate me hiding his handiwork under a grocery sack though.
pause
Skunk: My dad died a long time ago, when I was very young; he died in a car accident and I ehm, I know a little girl was also killed. My mum was pregnant at the time and she lost the baby, I think, I, looking back maybe it was the shock, just the shock of it all. My mum wouldn’t, she didn’t want to talk about it. And ehm... I understand that.
pause
Skunk: I understand that now.
pause
Skunk: And then after that it was just us, just the two of us, until...
pause
Skunk: And now, finally, just me, myself alone.
He inhales deeply before letting each breath go to his lungs’ extent, repeatedly wiping his fingers across his eyes, eventually looking up to understand his companions suddenly absent and the stage on which he stands alone now emptied of its props, the soundtrack bereft its desperate and conscious wheezing breath, the desolate theatre likewise itself become a vacuum, its absent air something he still continues to suck up into himself and exhale as putrescence, over and again, and over, and again.
Skunk: And so this is to be my testament, written upon the accumulant dust of us.
pause
Skunk: All of us.
long pause
deleted name: Lights out.
 
 

 
*-David Lynch
-Lynch on Lynch (revised edition)
-edited by Chris Rodley
-Faber and Faber, 2005