The Lump

by George Mentis

            When he first saw her he really didn’t see her at all.   It appeared to him as a lump.   Simply a lump on the ground.   Dark with a bit of pattern.   Perhaps a pattern one would find on an oriental carpet or perhaps a hotel lobby curtain.

            But the lump rose up and revealed a face the color of the moon.   When my daughter asks me what color the moon is I tell her it’s the color of white and silver mixed.

            He jumped back.   He was expecting a lump not a mix of silver and white and dark very dark blue eyes that were dark eyes that meant to always be dark—not some special occasion dark—no.   These were born to look burnt.   He asked her if she was okay.   Because rising lumps to this gentleman meant that certainly things were not definitely not okay.   He was hiking.   He was standing erect and his forearms had plump veins and his skin was the color of a roasted chicken.   He was just fine.   But this lump.   This lump with a moon colored face and two eyes that looked completely charred...well, you asked these sorts of finds if they are okay.

            Well...as reasonable as his question was it pissed her off and the rising no longer lump told the just fine roasted man to fuck off.

            Jesus, I just wanted to know if you were okay.   But even as he said this his voice faded for he realized her fuck off was more like a ripple from some other thrown pebble and not his own presence.

            Help she said.

            Can you stand?

            She did not stand.   Instead, she rolled onto her side.   He was both relieved and horrified.   It seemed his mountain senses were not wrong—she was, in fact, rolled in a carpet.   She was completely naked underneath.   As she turned the stiff carpet buckled and could not cover a healthy strip of moon colored breast.   The man’s eyes, though, did not stay on the surprise of bare breast but rather froze on a torn up foot.

            Your foot.

            My foot?

            Then the man felt an overwhelming urge to faint.   It became quite clear that this carpet was hiding a great deal more than a bare bottom.

            The girl then fainted for him.

            He knelt down and scooped her up in his arms.   The heavy carpet made it nearly impossible for him to carry her steadily, but he could not remove it.   He could not take any more of this girl’s dignity.

            As he stumbled through the woods his body began to burn and sweat from the old wool carpet.   The crook in both his arms actually began to bleed from the intense friction.   The sun was teasing away it’s light and she was not waking up.   Ohhh don’t die on me.   He would moan.   Her head and one and a half feet bobbed as he muscled his way towards.   He was still quite far from his truck.   He had no intention on returning to his truck in one day.   He had intended on camping and thinking and maybe even catching his very own dinner.

            The sun, completely on time, completely without a care, hugged only the silhouette of the trees.   The sun now only wanted (but the sun just does just is) to blue up an otherwise colorless sky.   (did it want) could?   The man began—out of both darkness and fatigue—to stumble.   He had not fully fallen yet, but he could sense eminence.   He kept on feeling what it would feel like to fall.   He was so sincerely tired.   He had gone to woods to rest.   To rest because he was so worn out.   Now, his body burned in a way he never imagined it could and his heart pounding with exercise, fear, and intense sympathy felt as though it would surely fail if he did not pause.

            It was wholly dark when he draped her softly on the ground.   He didn’t know what to do.   He was so very thirsty so his dry mouth told him to find water.   He pulled a drought of water from the loud, black river that had talked to him the whole time he lumbered.   Normally, rivers yell or moan or bubble and always they spoke in river, but this time this river talked and took the time to speak in panic.

            Then, as if reason, or as if fear had finally leveled off the man tore off his shirt and began to tightly bound her bleeding foot.   (He had intended on being at a hospital by now but bringing limp, carpeted girls down mountains was not quite as easy as he thought.)   He pushed open the carpet and saw to his small horror and bigger relief that while she had been heavily scraped and beaten, nothing more appeared to be torn apart.   Because the foot was the worse he had ever seen.   He stiffened like a boy-child as he rummaged through his backpack looking for something to put on her.   He was almost frowning with purpose.   His lips were tightly pursed and his nostrils flared, but not too flared, his brain was flooding with the juice of must do.

            He had managed to put the girl in a flannel shirt and a pair of cotton boxers.   They were printed with playing cards and it made him hate his ex-girlfriend even more.   She had bought them for him and laughed when he opened the box on Christmas morning, and she had laughed when he first donned them.   Now, seeing them on this girl only made the other girl—the one who laughed—seem so ugly it made the man shudder.

            The man took one last deep breath and stood.   That foot had to go to the hospital and this girl, even after water was dribbled onto her face and lips, was not waking up.   He decided that his backpack had to be left behind, and this worried him for if he could not get her down the mountain in one go the backpack had survival in it.   But this girl needed to go now.   He pulled out his flashlight and swung the girl over his shoulder so he could maneuver the flashlight and distribute the girl’s weight better.   Never did he feel a deeper connection to a woman than he did the moment he wrapped his arm around her legs and buttocks.   It was as if this was the first time a woman was still enough to not flicker—still enough to actually be felt.

            The dark woods crunched with complete mystery underneath his possessed boots.   After an hour of plunging, the pain of numerous stumbles and scrapes faded, and the awkward weight of an unconscious woman fell into a rhythm.   The flashlight was now barely necessary.   The flashlight spotted countless trees.   Occasional animals.   Pine needle carpeted ground.   Her long hair brushed along the small of his back which would reveal itself when he would trip.

            What is your name?   He would say.   He would then say do you have one?  

            Almost fell there.   He would say.   He would then have this crazy sense of pride for not dropping her as he thundered down the black mountain that was not meant to be tackled in one day.

            I am so going to have a beer when I get down from this goddamn mountain.   He would say.   She suggested that I go.   She suggested that I get over her, and that this mountain was going to be good for me.   Then he whispered.   And this whisper was the saddest thing he ever bothered the unconscious girl with.   The truth is I never was into her...and that was what messed me up.

            When the heavy steel forester gate jumped into the hazy circle of flashlight light the man broke into a run.   He could smell the dawn (which smells a little more hopeful than wet) as he drew a line between his eyes and his ancient Bronco.   It was brown and white with bumperstickers instead of body work.

            He draped her gently in the back seat and then paused.   He did not want her so far from him.   He scooped her up and draped her in the front seat.   He then drove them with a speed that made his old beast vibrate.

            The town’s hospital was small, but strangely (at least it was strange enough for his mind to think of it) well appointed and modern.   Nurses and an Indian doctor buzzed and yelled around them.   Another female doctor pounced on them and pulled him and started to bark out questions.

            I found her near the top of the mountain.   No, she was conscious.   She passed out and has been out.   I’m okay.   Stitches?   Just a glass of water.   Is she okay?   Can I sit down for a moment?

            The girl, after almost frantic shouting was wheeled away.   He did not like her away.   But sitting and water and clear, bright florescent light felt intensely good so he was able to tune out a little and just sit in the emergency’s inner sitting bay.

            How is she?  He asked a grave nurse.

            The police are here.   She’s in surgery.   The foot and they will have to see what else.

            Near the top of the mountain.   Yes I can take you there.   She was.   No, I didn’t see anyone else on the mountain.   I followed the river down.  There was.   A carpet.   I had to leave it.   Yes, I can take you to it.   She was rolled in it.   At first yes, but then she passed out.   No, didn’t say anything...except fuck off...and help.   Fuck off.   Yes, but she was pretty already gone.   No, I didn’t look around.   I just grabbed her and ran her down the mountain.   For just a second to bind her foot.   Her foot was torn up.   And to get her out of the carpet.   No.   I had to put her in my shirt and some box...ers.   Pretty beaten.   Scrapes.   I didn’t though, look too close.   I.

            Is he well enough?   Nurse?

            I can take you now.   Saidtheman.

            They may be still up there.   Saidthecop.

            They?

            Someone had to have done this.

            Do you know who she is?

            We think so.   We found an abandoned car around ten miles from the base of the mountain with a flat and a purse open on the passenger-side seat.   Hang on.

            The police officer hung up his cell phone and hung his head.   They’ve got her husband here.   Said the officer with a wet, intense choke.

            The man rose to his feet as if someone had grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him up.   Never had it occurred to him that she would have a husband and now that she did.   He was feeling something, but it was so big and choking and terrifyingly neutral that all the man wanted to do is get back to the business of helping the police.   Get back up that mountain.   She had a husband, he, her husband would have to deal with the business of her being a nearly dead lump.

            It was not lost on the man as he climbed up the mountain that once again he was climbing a mountain for a woman.   Or rather.   Because of a woman.   Or even better.   He was interacting with a woman and now he was having to climb a mountain.   The morning sky was a matte gray.   Climbing underneath it with a half dozen police and a half dozen forest rangers felt better than when he was climbing it alone in the sun just the day before.   This preference disturbed the climbing, now thoroughly exhausted man.   The worse thought that floated across his mind was      finally     a woman that has pulled me into life.   This is so much life.    I have never lived this much life.    Finally not just waking up and working and taking the train.  

            The carpet was found.   Then they rose higher to where the lump was first roused.   Then they circled the area and found an iron stake hammered in the ground.   It was neatly (and with much grave calm) ascertained that the woman’s foot was impaled at that spot.   They must have staked her to the ground right there.   As the man and an older police looked at the bloodied stake a forest ranger was vomiting a little way off.   The worse thing that floated through the man’s mind was   wow   this is so intense and I can handle it all.   I was never sure if I could handle something like this and I can.   I’mnotthrowingup.

            Husbands are curious animals and the man would realize this when he came down off the mountain and returned to the hospital.   He was now almost tacitly attached to the older non vomiting police officer.   The older officer mumbled to the man as they walked down the hospital corridor that   this was the worse part.   I have been at this for a long time   but husbands

            This husband was cored.   And more scared than the man had ever seen another man.   The husband’s voice was soft and reserved.   He would run his worked hands through his thinning hair and he would take off his square glasses and rub the ridge of his nose.   He would hang onto one elbow then drop his arms and rock.   A doctor whisked him away before the husband could completely fall to the ground and beg god to take him and then beg god to let him take someone with him.   Husbands want their wives to live, but just as badly they want there wives’ attackers to die.   The old police officer knew this and could see the murder ahead.   There was no stopping them    Husbands.

            I want to see her thought the man.   This is her husband.   thought the man.   I want to see her alive.   Damn.   A husband.   I never thought that she would have a husband.   thought the man.   All the way home he thought of the girl and daydreamed and wondered what she was like.   Or would be like.   With him and then he would experiment with what she was like with her husband.   Many times he visualized what must have happened to her on the mountain.   However, these were only seen in dream form.   He only dreamt about her attack never did he daydream about it.   He only daydreamed about what she was like with her husband and then what she would be like with him.   Sadly or compassionately the man never remembered his dreams.   So, often   he felt odd and removed   that he did not think of the mountain   and the stake   and the lump with a torn up foot   and   how   it   all   happened.   He did.   And his extra drinking and him constantly missing his train stop were knowing this.   But his perfect work performance and charming first, second, and even third date with a charming special education teacher did not know this.

            When the phone call came the man was not home.   This was a lucky occurrence because it allowed the man to play the message of her voice over and over.   Um.   Oh boy this is reeeeaaaalllly weird.   I’m the girl you saved.   You found on Mount Jay.   The mountain you carried (long pause) I want to meet you.   I guess again   well you know awake.   I have a gift for you.   and   well   I think      then the machine beeped    Oh boy I’m a talker you’re probably thinking.   I’m real bad with these machines.   My number is *** *** ****.   This was played over and over.

            Her house or worse their house was set back in the woods.   Enough land was cleared for a humble blue colored house with a cinder-block chimney and rusty oil drums filled with cleared woods.   The walkway to the front door was a curious expression of optimism.   It had (it was) a fresh, winding brick walkway that led to a semi-hammered out cement stoop.   The man assumed that it too will become brick.   Some day.   And that was the best way to describe the house and the land.   Some day.   But the house also showed that things happen very bad things.   So some houses and some clearings are left for some day.

            He could smell his impending dinner before he knocked on the splintered wooden door that might have been painted red.   It smelled like something he might have had as a child.   A subtle burn of fat and smoke of bake.   A hover of sour   that   ran into   butter and onion.   The man had no saliva in his mouth and the idea of having to sit at some unknown table with some unknown family and eat a melange of all that this earth offered seemed like yet another impossibility in his life he was going to do anyway.   Silently do it anyway without much acknowledgment and without much duty.   He knocked on the door and found a surprised smile almost brutally pulled from his numb face.

            Two wildly giggling children swung the door open and laughed and screamed.   Momma the good man is here.   Momma!   Hi!   The children did not come close to him, but wanted to so they piled over and over each other.   It was a knot of blushing freckled child.

            The man could not help but chuckle.   And he did.   The good man.

            But then she came and the man almost, but never did he or ever would he, cried.   He did shut his eyes.   It was not a blink but a full closure.   She reached out and touched his wrist.   Come in she said softly.   Kids let the man through she said with forced humor.   The man opened his eyes and touched his wrist where she had touched it.   Wow   this is a little weird he finally said.

            She looked down and before another expression or word or interaction could happen the husband appeared and shook his hand with not much like in his eyes and said come on in.

            The men had a beer and the woman set the table.   They covered professions.   Both men felt ambiguous about their work so they were able to take each other in in big gulps.   The husband was taller and older.   The man was more handsome and less responsible.   She joined them for their third beer.   She personally drank a generic orange soda and kept on letting her children have generous sips off it.   Her clothes were old and out of fashion.   The man figured they were her same clothes from high school and the affect was both sad and erotic.   She was slim.   Slight with narrow hips.   But he knew all that.   She wore no make-up and her skin was the color of sand and a bruise mixed.   She had brown eyes that appeared freakishly big behind her thick plastic framed glasses.   Her hair was long and cottony with a river-like wave.   It was the exact shade of brown her eyes were.

            The husband should have been grateful but he could only feel hatred and shame in the presence of the man.  

            The man wanted desperately to have a moment alone with her.   But there was so much pot roast and children and sulking husband.   He knew by the time the homemade pie was served that this would be it.   He had hoped   prayed even   that a friendship could be forged.   His plan was to become friends with both so he could see her throughout.   But by the time he bit into his last bite of pie he looked up and he saw it all.   He looked up and saw the husband staring at him with two huge plates of water over his eyes and not a bite of pie taken.

            I better go said the man after he saw it all.

            But coffee she said.

            The man said he has to go.   Husband said.   Or rather barked for he was evaporating.   The husband was turning into steam which is a really bad thing in the woods anywhere else it is not good, but in the woods it is really bad.  

            The man stood up and walked to the door in such a way that he felt afraid just by the way he was finding himself walking.   Only a couple times, late night, in the city, had the man walked that way.   The whole friendship plan made the man feel more embarrassed than ever.

            Once again he found himself drawing a line with his eyes between him and his old Bronco and once again his life was weird because of this odd woman that he at first thought was a lump.

            He climbed in with a sigh.

            Wait!   was yelled she yelled.

            The man wanted to slam his head on the steering wheel.

            She was carrying something.   Don’t mind him.   she said.   Please.   Let me thank you.   I have a gift for you.   He don’t know how to handle all this.

            Do you?   hit back the man.   Then the man felt horrible.   Her children were standing on the jack-hammered porch and staring at their mother as if she really was the whole world.

            The woman nervously looked at the man then looked over her shoulder.   The children caught their momma’s eye.   Momma!   Momma!   Look!

            Painfully the woman addressed her children.   Yes?

            Look!

            What?   asked the woman.

            The moon!   they yelled.   What color is the moon momma?   Shouted the girl.

            The woman took her glasses off and rubbed a few tears off her eyes.   One of her tiny wrists was draped over the driver’s side window ledge of the man’s Bronco and this wrist was trembling.   Baby the moon?   she shot back with not a lot of voice.

            What color is it!   demanded the little girl in a desperate attempt to get her momma back to their world.

            Baby it’s silver and white mixed.   Sighed the woman.

            Here.   She said to the man with her glasses back on.   I made this for you.   And know that you will always   always   just know.   Just know.

            Momma!   yelled the little girl.

            I’m coming returned the woman.   The woman dropped the pile on top of the man’s lap and returned to her little somedayhome.

            The whole way home not once did he touch it barring his lap that had no choice.   He knew because he had to check his speed that it was a quilt.

            His home was dark.   He lived on the first floor of a big old house.   He entered and turned on one light.   He opened up the quilt and saw his flannel shirt and his playing-card boxers transformed into a pattern of utter sadness purity earth beauty innocence thewomanher romance tenderness life.   He moved to the center of his house wrapped his body tightly with the quilt and sunk to the floor.

            fuck off

            fuck off

            fuck off

            “Fuck off,”   he whispered.   In a dropping, chanted line just like I wrote.

            And of all the things that the man finally found connection that the man attached to understood   her telling him uponthatmountain to

             carry me down.

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             George Mentis currently resides in Index, WA a small town nestled in the Cascade Mountains. He lives alone with three cats and "a lot of memories".