Acid Man by Caroline Misner

* * * *

I always thought The Sink Hole was little more than a repository for the damned. A place where the dregs of the village, which even the mines coughed out like diseased phlegm, could waste their hours staring at the filth of the tavern. The clientele wasn’t much better, either.

The walls of The Sink Hole were shadowed with the amber stains of thrown drinks from long forgotten brawls and pocked with holes from the days when old posters decorated the bar in a cheerless effort to add some levity to the bleakness that filled the room like the stench of rancid beer. A few still remained: faded images of John Wayne and James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and various other obsolete icons kept vigil over the drunkards that filled the place every afternoon. Over the years patrons have added their own decorations to the posters: Marilyn Monroe now sports a moustache and a gap between her teeth, Elvis has a goatee and a pair of horn rimmed glasses. The drunk who drew it suffered a broken nose at the hands of an equally inebriated patron who felt justified in pummelling anyone who dared deface the King of Rock and Roll.

If not for those posters, I never would have heard of any of those people. I have been told by Doug Sluggard (we call him Doug the Slug, or just plain Slug) who owns the bar that they were celebrities once, years ago before the world overheated and dried out like a dehydrated piece of meat. People clamored to see their movies and listen to their music; women swooned and men fantasized. I stared at him when he told me this. I have never seen a movie in my life; the only music I have heard was the strumming of the badly tuned guitar that hung on a hook behind the bar and was available to anyone who fancied himself a musician and was brave enough to stand before the rabble of drunken miners and play. The performance usually ended in another brawl and Slug would have to force the guitar from the player’s hands before he used it to bash in the skull of his assailant.

“What’s a celebrity?” I asked him once as we waited for the deluge of miners from the afternoon shift to come pushing through the cracked revolving doors.

Slug stood behind the bar in a tin tub filled with ice. It was another scorching dry day and the heat radiated in through the windows like a living thing and baked the floorboards beneath my bare feet. He rubbed a handful of ice against the back of his rubbery neck and laughed.

“Man, you must be young if you don’t remember,” he said. “A celebrity is someone who’s famous. People who have made music or movies that everyone has heard about.”

I still didn’t understand, but I nodded as though he made perfect sense. He handed me a chunk of ice from the washtub and I slid it around the back of my own sweaty neck before pushing into my mouth. I bit hard and the ice shattered like broken glass. I had pinned my long hair up around the crown of my head to keep my neck cool and keep the patrons from having something handy to grab whenever they needed my attention. I wore my usual uniform of khaki shorts and a sweat-stained blouse under a beer-stained apron.

“Why would anyone want to have pictures of people they’ve never met?” I asked. “It would make more sense to keep pictures of people you love.”

“Celebrities were loved.” Slug began filling heavy glass mugs with foamy beer from the tap. “Some people could identify with them more than with their own families.”

I nodded, trying to understand. Somewhere in the distance the whistle trilled across the desert flats, signalling the end of another shift. I could feel the vibration of the company trucks through the floor as they rumbled toward the village, carrying their human cargo of exhausted miners. The Sink Hole was situated on the eastern edge of the village overlooking the boundless stretch of desert beyond. Gazing through the smudged window I saw pillows of dust surging up in clouds over the baking shimmering ground, obscuring the low grey mountains on the horizon as the trucks headed toward us like a stampeding herd of wild bulls. I picked up my tray and waited.

Five minutes later the first of the miners came stomping into the bar, tramping their work boots into the scarred floor and slapping their caps against their thighs to loosen the last of the desert grit from their company-issued coveralls. Everything about them was dry and dusty. Most days they were encrusted with so much sand that had been skimmed from the surface of the desert it clung to their faces like a grainy carapace, cracking around the corners of their eyes and around their mouths and noses. On bad days they were masked with so much grit I could barely distinguish their faces.

Not that it mattered very much. They were all the same to me. The most these guys could hope to attain in life was a transfer to one of the many oases scattered about the barren waste fields where government-operated collective farms provided employment for those with connections. The many that remained were left to toil in the mines and plants for meager salaries in exchange for lung diseases and shortened life spans. I was a step below them. I was the girl who served these masters. I was less than a serf but little more than a slave. I had no identity, no official paperwork as proof of my existence other than a license of employment and transfer, which was little more than a bill of sale. At least Slug was a decent man. Unlike some of my former owner/employers, he never touched me or tried to coerce me into providing special favours for the patrons of the bar. There were many other establishments in the village that provided those services. Instead Slug treated me like a feeble-minded child, almost like a daughter. I never knew my father, but I have often fantasized that he was just like Slug, a big burly man with heavy arms and frizzy hair that betrayed the soul of a gentle giant.

I unloaded my tray of beer mugs and returned to the bar for another round when I felt the flutter of tepid air against my back as another patron entered the room through the revolving door. I didn’t notice him at first. By the time I turned around again he had already found a seat at a wobbly bistro table in the furthest corner of the room beneath a faded poster of a character once known as Mickey Mouse. I meandered among the tables, serving drinks and collecting tarnished sticky coins and dodging the usual unwelcome slaps on my ass, when I noticed him sitting alone.

The first thing that struck me was the pallor of his skin. Although he didn’t look ill in any way, he looked more sallow than the other miners who sported sunburned ruddy complexions beneath their coating of desert dust. He wore the same blue coveralls as the others, but as I approached his table I noticed subtle differences. The fabric was stiff and crackled like sheet metal when he shifted positions in his chair; small creases at the shoulders and elbows exposed what appeared to be paint flaking off to reveal something metallic in the material. There was not a speck of dust on him. He was the cleanest miner I had ever seen; even his hair gleamed like burnished leather in the dim light of the bar. He sat with his hands folded neatly in his lap, hands that were smooth and uncalloused and scrupulously clean.

“Beer?” I offered and held up my tray.

“Please.” He smiled and squinted at the name tag pinned to my apron strap. “Thank you ... Lila.”

“You’re new,” I said and placed the mug of sloshing foam down on the table. I was impressed with his manners. None of the other miners had ever thanked me or even bothered to learn my name unless they were surreptitiously trying to get me into their bed.

“First day,” he replied and placed a polished coin on the table beside his beer.

“I can tell,” I said. “You don’t look like any of the others.”

“I have a different job at the mine,” he said.

“That must be it,” I replied and picked up the coin.

Something bit me in the palm and I gasped and almost dropped my tray. The coin fell out of my hand and clattered on the table.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I should have warned you not to touch it for a few minutes until it dries. Let me help.”

He picked up the coin and placed it on the small mound of money on my tray. It shone like a chip off a broken mirror.

“What was that?” I asked.

“There might be a little acid on it,” he replied. “From the mine, of course. It’s just a little bit. It won’t hurt you.”

“Warn me next time,” I said. I still felt the tingle against the skin on my palm and I rubbed it in my apron.

“I will.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, Lila.”

I brought the empty tray back to the bar and dumped the money into the strongbox beside the tap. Slug grunted and held the shiny coin to the light as though trying to see through it.

“So this is what money looks like when it’s not covered with crud,” he said and dropped it back into the strongbox. “Where’d you get it?”

“From the new guy over there,” I replied and pointed to the corner where he sat.

“Where’d he come from?”

“Who knows?” I shrugged and began placing more beer mugs on my tray.

“I don’t like the looks of him.” Slug scowled.

The man sat alone at his table with his hands folded in his lap. He frowned into the mug of beer before him, watching the layer of foam slowly dissipate. Every once in a while he picked it up and took a sip before placing back down on the table. I found that unusual; most of the miners sat with their dirty calloused hands protectively cradling their beer mugs as though I would snatch it away from them at any moment.

“He’s all right,” I said and turned with my loaded tray back to the tables. “He won’t cause any trouble.”

“He looks strange,” Slug said. “He’s too quiet and too clean. And what’s he doing sitting in the back by himself like that?”

“He’s new.” I shrugged and walked away. I had noticed that he was ostracized by the others. Some of the miners cast suspicious glances in his direction before turning to mutter among themselves behind cupped hands. A few snickered and shook their dusty heads. I had no doubt that by the end of the evening when they were all drunk, one of them would approach him and challenge him in some way until the evening ended up in another brawl.

“Would you like another?” I asked him as I approached his table.

“Please,” he replied and nudged his empty mug with its film of amber foam still clinging to the sides. Silvery coins were queued up on the table like polished moons.

“These are safe,” he said. “Just take one every time you bring me another beer.”

“You better be careful,” I said as I collected the money. “I don’t like the way those guys over there are looking at you. The owner of this place doesn’t like the looks of you either and he’s just looking for an excuse to kick you out.”

“I know.” He nodded. “Tell him I’ll be good. I won’t cause any trouble.”

“It’s not you,” I replied and cocked my head to the table behind me. “It’s them. They can get real mean when they’ve been drinking.”

“They’ve been riding me all day at the mine,” he said. “I’m used to it.”

“I just don’t want to see anything happen to you,” I replied.

“Thanks, Lila, but I can take care of myself.”

He returned my smile, revealing perfectly aligned alabaster teeth, so unlike the grey-green chalky teeth of the miners who more often than not had wide gaps in their crooked smiles.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Peter,” he replied.

“Take care, Peter,” I said and turned back toward the bar.

The major altercation I had predicted never came to pass. By the time the sun plunged below the horizon, casting the desert in hues of purple-pink and luminescent orange, the miners were inebriated and boisterous. A few staggered out the door to whatever grotto they dwelled in while the more clamorous rabble remained and grew increasingly rowdy. Peter remained in his solitary corner, waving me over each time he wanted another. It grew dark in the bar and Slug lit the few lamps he was permitted because The Sink Hole was designated a public house. Just before last call, one of the drunken miners, probably on a dare from his companions, rose from the table and weaved across the room toward Peter. I was standing at the bar unloading the last of the evening’s dirty mugs when I noticed him approach the little bistro table in the corner. He was a big man with wide hulking shoulders, whose facial scars revealed a penchant for brawling. I couldn’t hear what he said even though the pandemonium in the bar dwindled down to whispers as he leaned both calloused fists onto the surface of the table. Peter shook his head and said something back to him.

“Here we go.” Slug sighed and reached out to grab the iron crowbar that hung on the wall behind the bar.

The big man roared like an enraged bear. He grabbed the little table and threw it across the room where it smashed against the far wall, sending splinters of shattered glass and wood flying in all directions. Peter sat in his chair, nonplussed by the man’s reaction, his hands folded placidly in his lap.

“Get up!” the man roared.

He held both fists up at the ready. Behind him, the small clique of miners gathered around to either watch the show or lend their friend a helping hand. Not that he would need support; the big man must have outweighed Peter by at least fifty pounds. Slug leapt over the bar and stood ready for trouble with the crowbar held up before him.

“I don’t want to fight.” Peter shook his head and gazed up at his antagonist.

“You some kind of pussy?” the big man goaded him with a shove to the shoulder. “Get up you little faggot!”

“Don’t touch me!” Peter warned.

“Don’t like to be touched, eh?” Big Man smirked and shoved Peter hard enough to send him toppling out of his seat.

“I said I don’t want to fight,” Peter said from the floor. “Now don’t touch me!”

“Sissy white boy doesn’t like to be touched.” Big Man laughed with a chorus of chuckles from his companions.

Peter leapt to his feet and backed away until his back pressed into the poster of Mickey Mouse. The papery image began to smoke.

“Do something!” I pleaded to Slug. “This isn’t a fair fight. Peter can’t take them all on himself.”

“I’d love to see the little bastard get a beating,” Slug said, “but you’re right. It ain’t a fair fight.”

He pushed his way through the cluster of miners and held the crowbar over his head like a club. Big Man was determined to get at least one good punch in. Before Slug could stop him with a butt from the curved tip of the crowbar, he drew his fist back and smacked Peter across the jaw. Peter’s head snapped back and banged against the disintegrating poster with a muted thud.

“Ow!” Big Man hollered and covered his fist with the cup of his other hand.

Peter turned his head to look back at him, his expression blank and impassive. Big Man moaned and hunched over his injured hand. Slug shoved him back with the tip of his crowbar.

“Out!” he hollered. “We’re closing early today. Everybody out!”

He waved the crowbar over his head to emphasize his point. The group of miners stepped back and began to disperse; the show was over for the evening.

“My hand!” Big Man wailed. “What the hell did you do to my hand?”

“I don’t give a bug’s ass about your goddamn hand!” Slug shouted and held the crowbar over his head. “Everybody out!”

The miners filed out through the revolving doors; a few stopped to examine the injuries on Big Man’s hand and shook their heads in consternation when they saw the raw wound across the row of freckled knuckles, oozing and sizzling as something slowly ate away at the flesh; thin tendrils of smoke trailed behind.

“You too!” Slug held the crowbar toward Peter. “Out! I don’t want you in here if you’re going to be making that kind of trouble.”

“He didn’t do anything,” I shouted from the bar. “He never wanted to fight in the first place. He didn’t even punch the big guy back.”

“Don’t care!” Slug replied. “Out! We’re closing up.”

“I’m leaving,” Peter said and headed toward the door. Wafers of burnt paper fluttered behind him like mythological snowflakes.

I waved at him as he left, a feeble attempt at amiability, and shrugged when he smiled back as though to say sorry for the trouble. I turned back toward my work as Slug hung the crowbar back on its hook.

“Look at this,” I said and handed him one of the glass mugs that Peter had drunk from. “What do you make of that?”

Slug held the mug up to the yellow-orange light from one of the lamps and frowned. Shallow grooves had been chiselled into the handle where Peter had touched it as though his fingers had somehow bored into the handle.

“Don’t know,” Slug replied and handed it back to me. “Just wash it with the others. It’s still good.”

I finished washing the mugs and mopping the floor as Slug counted the evening’s haul. He kept no receipts or books of any kind. He kept his cash stashed away in an impenetrable vault in the rear office. Yawning, I finally bid Slug goodnight and stepped out into the cool night air.

The tavern was situated in a far corner of the main courtyard of the village. Few lights burned in the windows at that hour of the night. Most people were either toiling away the night shift at the mines or sleeping off whatever they had consumed at establishments like The Sink Hole. I felt sorry for those who worked the shift between dawn and dusk. The only light they ever saw outside the florescent tubes in the mine shafts was the light of the searing stars overhead. At least they had the solace of knowing they would probably outlive everyone else since their pallid complexions were never exposed to the lethal sun.

The gradual depletion of the topmost atmosphere had magnified the stars until they shone like infant suns. Slug once told me that when he was a child he could always distinguish the stars from the planets because stars twinkle and planets don’t. Fifty years later nothing twinkled in the night sky. Everything up there blazed like the headlights on those fabled super highways I had heard so much about but were now buried beneath a carpet of sand.

Peter stood in the centre of the courtyard. He was so still I thought I was looking at the silhouette of a mannequin or a statue someone had left out on a lark. Both hands were shoved into the pockets of his coveralls and his head was thrown back as he gazed heavenward, his long hair pooling on his shoulders like molten brown crystal.

“Hey there,” I called and flinched as my voice echoed off the stone walls of the surrounding buildings. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“Just looking at the sky,” Peter said without looking at me.

“Sorry about what happened in there,” I said. “I warned you those guys can get pretty mean if they get drunk.”

“That’s all right.” Peter smiled. “I’m used to it.”

He turned and finally looked at me, a small smile creasing his lips. His pale skin reflected the light of the stars and I was grateful it was a night of a new moon. A full moon would have illuminated him like a ghost.

“They only pick on you because you’re so different,” I said. “No offense, but you tend to stand out in a crowd.”

“I know,” he replied. “I’m the painted bird.”

“The what?”

“Nothing,” he said and looked back up at the sky. “It’s from a book I read once when I was young.”

“You like to read?” I asked.

“I used to,” he said. “Way back when I could still touch a book.”

We stood in awkward silence: Peter staring up at the sky and me staring back at his profile, waiting for him to say something else. I curled my toes and dug the nails into the sand until they scraped against the rough concrete underneath.

“I have to go now,” I said and turned to leave.

I headed toward the corroded three-wheeled trailer behind The Sink Hole that Slug had given me to sleep in. It was the only home I knew.

“Have you ever felt so deprived you feel as though you’re disappearing?” he asked.

I stopped in my tracks. I didn’t turn around but I knew he was still gazing up at the discuses of light pinned to the sky.

“Who are you?” I said and twirled around to face him. I was suddenly angry, though I didn’t know why.

“I’m one of the acid men. From the mines,” he replied.

Peter turned and smiled at me. His features were nestled in shadows, revealing only half his face. I have never seen a more forlorn expression on anyone before or since. He was a stranger to me, but I felt an overwhelming urge to rush up and encase him in my arms, though I knew to do so would be fatal. I had heard of the acid men. Their bodies were slowly dissolving; every muscle and nerve, every gland and drop of sweat and saliva was mutating and fermenting into a corrosive organic substance more caustic than battery acid. No one knew why. It was a rare genetic anomaly; some scientists claimed it was the body’s response to the excessive radiation that poured down on us from a denuded sun; others insisted it was the human race’s next evolutionary step as our bodies adapted to an increasingly changing environment.

Whatever the cause, the individuals who suffered from it were herded into mines and factories where their body fluids were painfully extracted for their corrosive properties. They were the government’s cheapest source of raw acid.

“No!” Peter stepped back, holding both hands up before him when he saw me approach. “Don’t touch me. You saw what happened to that goon’s hand when he hit me.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at him. The sudden flash of anger evaporated and I was overwhelmed with a sense of pity and loss.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Does what hurt?”

“The changing,” I said. “Feeling your whole body transform into acid.”

“I don’t feel it,” he said. “All I feel is the burn whenever they pump me for my blood.”

“It must be pretty awful,” I said.

“It leaves me weak, but I’ve gotten used to it.” He shrugged.

“I don’t mean that,” I said. “I mean it must be pretty awful going through the rest of your life not being able to touch anything or anyone.”

“It’s lonely,” he admitted. “That’s why I waited out here for you. You’re the first person in a long time that has been kind to me. Everyone else treats me like a freak.”

I nodded sympathetically. I wasn’t a mutant, but I was an outsider just like him. I stepped toward him and looked into the shadowy sockets of his eyes. They blazed tawny gold in the dim light and I didn’t know if that was their natural colour brought about by his transformation or if they were reflecting the starlight from above. He didn’t flinch or move away this time.

“I’m sorry for what’s happening to you,” I said. “I can’t imagine what it must be like.”

“You’re the only person who’s ever said that to me.” He smiled.

“Would like to come to my trailer and spend the night?” I asked.

Peter hesitated.

“No one’s offered me that in a long time,” he said. “But I can’t. What would be the point? We can’t touch.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “We can just talk.”

“I’d like that.” He smiled.

I would have taken his hand, but I knew if I did the acid in his skin would burrow into my flesh like a branding iron. I touched his shoulder, clothed in stiff metallic fabric, and looped my arm through the crook of his elbow as I led him out of the courtyard.

* * * *

So here I am, the girl with deformed lips. Scar tissue has formed around my mouth, red and pouty like a blood clot. I find it difficult to smile; the tough fibrous skin pulls painfully against my jaw, but I try anyway. I also bear scars on my hands and arms and other places on my body that are not so discernable. Peter wears his gloves most of the time, but sometimes I just want to touch him and the risk be damned. I think I may have started a fad among the other girls in the village. Burns and scars are appearing on their faces and bodies also. More acid men are appearing out in public and they have never looked happier.

At first Slug was angry with me. He was afraid my disfigurement would scare the regular customers away. He can’t send me back to the market stalls. No one would buy a girl with a grotesquely malformed face, and he would lose his investment in me. I find it to be a blessing; it keeps the patrons’ greasy hands from grabbing at me when I’m serving them their beer. I notice them averting their eyes many times when they think I catch them staring at me or whispering about me behind my back. Now they ask me the usual question:

“What happened to your face?”

And I tell them the truth. I tell them in have no regrets. This deformity is worth each and every kiss I receive from my acid man.

* * * *

Caroline Misner was born in a country that at the time was called Czechoslovakia. She immigrated to Canada in 1969 and has been reading and writing and following her muse ever since, wherever it may take her. Her work has appeared in numerous journals throughout Canada, the USA and the UK. In 2004 her novella “Groghelm” received Honourable Mention in the prestigious L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Competition.