Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
The air there, it reeked. Ripeness, singed hair, the stench of burnt flesh accosted me. I withdrew my mask and bandana rag, and spat sooty froth by my boots. The tart sting remained stuck to my tongue. I stopped before a large and gnarled tree, sprouted from the concrete square like some tremendous mutant weed. Knowing you, it was here first and you saved it, carefully preserved in the square’s paving. Ever the sentimentalist. They’d hung you from its lowest branch.
All above you dangling were your wise men. I recognized none of them personally. All I knew was from a hundred black and white photographs, all presenting unflattering, villainous angles. A couple, like yours, with faces purpled by pressure, blood massing, riots at the skin. Many more with bullet wounds, taken from executions elsewhere when the idea for this display had struck. Some were decorated with nooses properly tied, though many hung from limbs, and others still from hooks. No doubt from a nearby packing plant. Too far to have been the one your father worked. In the paper I’d read they celebrated this as the return of the Christmas tree, because the year prior that same paper said you’d banned Christmas.
I moved closer and grabbed what was left of your leg all at once: a strong breeze had shaken you and I couldn’t take the sight. Something primal in me suppressed all disgust. You reminded me of a flag. Perhaps that was what you were meant to be, why the clothes they dressed you in were at first white.
Remember when we last spoke? I was in your house. You brought me a tray of coffee and sugar. Your daughter listened to the radio, your son left to check the night. That was when they were calling you a despot for arresting your would-be assassins. There were daily papers scattered saying as much, your dog on the couch, a pistol empty on the cushion beside him. The moon swung by its black noose upside down over the house. Your windows had been open when I arrived, and I locked them when you went to the kitchen to fetch me a spoon. You hadn’t noticed, I think. We had dinner, rations mostly, a bag of dried peach halves for dessert, good wine you saved from our university days. We drank our inhibitions and spoke of how hard it was to govern. There was no end to your problems, and limited patience for my solutions. Eventually, I’d torn one of your many newspapers apart — this was the wine — and demanded you censor its lies. I spoke of the necessity of a Red Terror until you, my dear friend, seemed afraid.
I swept the dried peaches to the floor with my arm. I am tired of your fooling around, I’d said. As for the rights of anyone, of fascists, tell your people they can fuck themselves. Your dog sat up and barked. Your daughter stared. The moon had dug deep bright wells in her eyes. I was shamed into silence. The dried peach halves on the floor, listening to this, in the dark they looked like…
They removed your ears. On both sides of your head there is only hair that looks caught in the rain, wet. Any idiot can guess this brutal poetry. Retributive justice for an invented crime. Deafen the paranoiac organs of Big Brother. Finally, the snakes are free. Closer now, I see your self. Remembering what you were, piece by piece, becomes how I breathe through the stench. Once two whole wandering legs. Once ten poet’s fingers. Eyes warm as the earth. I see hanging you so low was not just symbolic — you’ve become a tree trunk for carving initials and complaints, nothing romantic. I cut the noose with a hunting knife I found in you. You nearly knock us both over. I lay you in the street. For now everyone is busy, preoccupied with a new, realer terror. Your supporters, the wretched of the earth, either shipped away to some barbed place or filled my nose with their stench. With the handkerchief you once gave me and then forgot, I massage the blood from your face. I do this slowly, while I hold your hand. You won’t be here alone. Now your favorite color, I return the cloth to your breast pocket. I kiss your swollen lips.
Beside us, the courthouse you so loved burns, casting strange shadows on your tired flesh. If I decide that the flickering of light over your face is the ghost of a smile, I’ll cremate you in that flame, I swear. I won’t tolerate satisfaction, or personal peace. I hope your soul was worth it, it’s Hell for the rest of us. At home, my new home, some of the papers are already calling you an inspiration. All the bastard scholars who never spoke of you while you lived now eulogize you. A nation where all the rebels are losers, they’ll grant sainthood to anyone who fails this spectacularly. Now that you are dead, you are safe for them to worship. I say I’ll burn you, but my face rains on you instead. I have enough fingers to shield yours remaining wholly from the night. Your hands vanish in mine like an infant’s. I wish you’d been half the monster they said you were.
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