box_of_fire_2_first_moves raze [ box_of_fire_1_can_i_get_a_witness ] there's just one bar here. it doesn't have a name. people call it what it is. it's the bar. there's nothing special about it. it exists, you go there to exist inside its walls, and you drink to drown yourself. the first time i saw stickman, he was sitting in the back of the place, alone at a table, with a scotch on the rocks he wasn't drinking. he had the most intricate-looking hands i'd ever seen. he stared at his cuticles until his eyes glazed over. no discernible emotion passed across his face. he was a man without a voice, i'd been told. he communicated through touch. he could take your hand and show you anything, as vividly as his mind could paint it. he was six feet tall and rail thin. a shock of black hair made a wild carpet on his head. his facial features looked like they'd been etched in stone. not severe, but strong. pale. an intense face for a body that looked like it would crumble at the slightest touch. what goes on in the mind of someone who can never give voice to any of his thoughts? i'd been given orders to watch him. "this is a very interesting creature we have here," stephen told me, smiling, interlacing his fingers and letting them rise and fall like a strange silent metronome while i looked at the picture he'd handed me. it was printed on glossy paper. a grainy black & white image of a man with haunted eyes. stephen was always doing something with his hands. if he wasn't gesticulating, he was playing with a toothpick. scratching his scalp. shaking my hand. pointing at something. he was a short, fat, terminally grinning man. in another life, he would have made a good reptile. he didn't walk — he slithered. his tongue was long enough to catch flies. his sandy blonde hair was always tightly slicked back against his head. as overweight as he was, the skin on his face was pulled so taut, i could almost see the skull beneath it. each time he visited me, he was wearing a three-piece suit. he cleaned up well for a plump little lizard. he spoke in precise, clipped tones, as if he'd carefully studied the way each word might sound before he let any of them leave his lips. i never told him to his face, but i always thought he sounded like he was trying to pass himself off as being british, and failing in a spectacularly amusing way. he was my only contact. the one who gave me instructions. i never knew who was pulling his strings. it wasn't my business. the last time, i'd tried to make it my business. that didn't end well. "what do you want with a man who doesn't speak?" i asked, standing at the foot of the stairs, just inside my front door, sleep still in my eyes. "it's not me who wants anything," he said. "you know that. i'm just the messenger." "right. stephen the innocent. same as it ever was." "you know, you should consider cleaning up the place one of these days. you might surprise yourself and attract some...visitors. it's not healthy to live alone, with only the voices in your head to keep you company." my house was a run-down old shotgun shack that had been boarded up and abandoned long before i found it. you could almost make out that it had been painted white once, before the world beat it down and made it ugly. stephen was convinced the place was haunted. truth be told, that uneasy feeling was part of what drew me to it. "the voices in my head only have nice things to say to me," i said, crouching down on the floor, leaning my head back against the the stair railing. "they whisper sweet declarations of love when you're not here. i gotta say, though, they don't care for *you* much. they always stop talking when you come around." i dropped my voice to a whisper. "don't tell them i said this, but...they think you're a bit of a shit." stephen's smile grew wider. "at least get some furniture, will you? sleeping on the floor can't be good for your back, given the way you slouch." "i'll add that to my to-do list, right between the tortilla chips and spermicidal jelly." "funny," stephen said. he didn't laugh. his eyes drifted to the living room, empty apart from the royal_quiet_deluxe in the middle of the floor and a thick stack of paper next to it. "still hammering away on that old beast. without even a chair?" "i know what works for me. have you ever heard a single complaint about the quality of my work?" "touchy, touchy," stephen said, thrusting a finger at me to punctuate both repetitions of the word. "say, how are you sleeping these days?" i didn't say anything. i wasn't sleeping well at all. the panic attacks were kicking up dust again, and i wasn't dealing with it very well. but he didn't need to know any of that. better to let him think i was just as sharp as ever. "you know the drill," stephen said. "keep tabs on that man. you'll find him at the bar. i'll be back next month for your initial impressions. and stick to the script this time. you made my friends very unhappy, the way you handled that last assignment. you don't want to anger them again. you wouldn't enjoy the kind of discipline they mete out." "i'd like to meet your friends someday," i said, standing up to face him. "there's a few things i'd like to tell them." i handed the picture back to stephen. he didn't reach for it. "you keep it," he said, shaking his head. he stared at me a moment. the easy smile was still there, but something cold and hard had crept into his eyes. then it was gone. "oh, i've missed you! you know how i enjoy our talks. i'll be in touch." he walked out the door and left it swinging behind him. "hey!" i shouted after him. "you have to—" it slammed shut. "—be careful with that door. it has a mind of its own." 121220 ... raze i waited three weeks before stickman showed up. after the second week, i started to think stephen was just fucking with me. wouldn't have been the first time. didn't have much to do with myself while i sat around waiting for the thin man with haunted eyes. the nights crawl by in a funny way when you see the same nothingness no matter how far you try to look ahead. nothing but slow time, and you, and whatever's in your head. but there's a strange comfort in that sometimes. i started talking to one of the bartenders. to him, i was just another guy in the bar. he had no idea what i was there for. for me, it was a way to kill some of that slow time. his name was jim. a burly man with a mop of red hair, he had a thick beard, a deep rumble of a voice, and green snake tattoos covering his arms. he looked like a mean bastard of a semi-reformed ex-biker. turned out he was a big teddy bear. we established an easy rapport built on good-natured ribbing, and for the first time in a long while, i found myself looking forward to something. every night i would stop in, have a few drinks, and chew the fat with my new friend. i couldn't remember the last time i'd even had a friend. the bar was a dimly-lit place. all clean black surfaces, and the garish silver sheen of skinny bar stool legs. you always felt like you were hiding there. it reminded me of a classier version of the first bar i ever drank at, when i was underage. changez was the name of that dump — with a z, for christ's sake. i always felt like i was hiding from someone there too. the past met the present, they did the horizontal mambo, and soon they're gonna have a little baby. what's it gonna grow up to be? or maybe this is a false memory. maybe that place never existed, and i just made it up in a dream to fill in one of the blanks in my fuzzed-out past. the night stickman finally came in, the crowd was thinner than usual. i watched him order his drink, walk to the table farthest from me, and then sit, and stare at his hands, and do nothing. i was sitting at the bar in what had become my usual spot, a little left of center, facing jim. "how do you know what that guy wants if he never says anything?" i asked jim. "i just know. bartenders are psychic. but you knew that already, right?" "how often does he come in here?" "once every three weeks, like clockwork. i give him his drink, he sits at that table, he doesn't drink it, and then, after a while, he leaves. he always leaves me a tip." "that's considerate of him. what happens if someone else is already sitting in his spot when he comes in?" all the colour left jim's face. "let's pray that never happens. he might not talk, but there's something...i don't know. he could deal some serious damage." i took a long look at the man i was supposed to watch. he was so frail, it was almost disconcerting. his long-sleeved black shirt fell against his body like a blanket. he was a glorified skeleton covered in skin. whatever his real name was, stickman (the word stephen had scrawled on the back of the picture with a black sharpie) fit him like a nylon glove. no man with a body like that could defend himself against anyone. "i'll have to agree to disagree with you here," i said, after finishing my jack & coke. "that guy pisses anyone off, he's getting the shit kicked out of him." "the words of an ignorant asshole," jim said, smiling. "you know me well, my limp-dicked friend. would you hit me again?" 121221 ... raze half an hour later, the place had come alive. more people. more voices. girls who looked like they were just out of high school. old men with gnarled hands, years of hard work and too little sleep worn into their faces. a handsome man in a suede coat with a pencil-thin mustache. a pretty woman with long dark hair, writing in a thick brown book. a group of six men who looked like over-the-hill frat brothers were holding court in the middle of the floor, commandeering one of the larger tables, doing all they could to get instantly blitzed. it took them two pictures of beer to start yelling and singing off-key. that's another thing about the bar — there's no music. never has been, as far as i can tell. our music this night was the dissonant shrieking of inebriated idiots. "just like a quiet night at home, huh?" i said to jim. "hey, brother...it is what it is. and it ain't cheese whiz." i watched the eyes of the largest, most muscular member of the group light up when he noticed stickman. i knew that look. the bully sizing up his prey. at first he just snickered to his friends and pointed. i hoped it would end there. but after being emboldened by a few shots and a few more pitchers of beer, he stood up and walked over to stickman's table. "i think we're about to see something ugly happen here," i said. jim sighed. the thug bent forward and stared straight into stickman's face. "hey skinny boy," he said. "you know you're sitting at my table?" stickman's eyes didn't move from his hands. "hey skinny boy. i'm talking to you!" nothing. the man raised one of his eyebrows. he gave stickman a hard shove in the chest. the back of his chair hit the wall halfway down, sending him sliding underneath the table. i felt sick. the bully's face. i knew that face. when i was in the third grade, two older kids at my bus stop would tell me about how they were going to break into my house one night while everyone was asleep. they would slit the throats of every member of my family, leaving me alive to find the bodies when i woke up. they thought it was funny. one of the kid's names was adam. i forget his last name. the other kid's name was carl lewis. that isn't a false memory. that's something real. carl wiped out one day while riding his bicycle. he skinned his knee, got an infection, and one way or another it gave way to necrotizing fasciitis. he spent his eleventh birthday in a hospital bed, exotoxins burning his skin and muscle away. he was wide awake while his body ate itself alive. after he died, they put a picture of him smiling on the front page of the yearbook. someone wrote a poem about tragedy and loss to go with it. his mother visited the school to talk with us. tears filled her eyes while she remembered what a kind, beautiful boy her son had been. they made an award in his name, to be given at the end of each school year to the student who most embodied carl's compassion. it's hazy now, but i remember there was something about all of this that didn't quite feel right. maybe carl's friend adam knew the score; i don't think i ever heard him say another word to anyone after that. and now this half-drunk bully was pushing around a skeletal man who couldn't speak. take away the baby fat, graft on some muscle, shave his head, add ten or twenty years, and it was carl lewis all grown up. the dead child reborn as a man in a bar with no name. whatever else this place takes away from you, you don't forget the face of someone who promised you would wake up in the middle of the night to find your family murdered, swimming in their own blood. the man i was sure was carl stood over the table, gloating. stickman rolled on his side, got to his feet, and lifted his chair, returning it to its proper place. he was calm. he took his time. he didn't look shaken at all. he walked toward carl, until their faces were an inch away. "do something," carl said. "see what happens." stickman reached out and took his hand. "hey, what are you..." he gripped it gently. carl flinched, but didn't pull away. his eyes grew wide. his mouth fell open slowly. then his whole face contorted. what first looked like shock gave way to a naked expression of fear. "no...i...i didn't mean nothing by it," carl stammered. "i didn't. i didn't." he flinched again, grimacing. it wasn't the look of someone experiencing pain. it was a look of abject terror. stickman let go of carl's hand, took a step back, and smiled a very small smile. carl stood frozen in place. he started whimpering. by now, it was the only sound anyone could hear. everything else had stopped. carl's friends looked like frightened animals. they didn't say a thing. they just wanted to get the hell out of there. they had to grab carl by the shoulders and push him like a broken shopping cart to get him out the door. "i didn't mean nothing by it," he kept saying on his way out, staring straight ahead. "i didn't mean nothing." then they were gone. someone coughed, and it sounded like a thunderclap. it felt like someone had taken the universal remote control to end them all, pointed it at everyone left here, and hit the pause button. "what the hell did we just see?" i asked jim. "damage dealt." 121221 ... raze corrects a typo ("pitchers" of beer, not "pictures"...yeesh) 121221 ... raze i shadowed stickman for the next seven days. i wanted to ask him to take my hand and show me what it was that had turned his assailant into a frightened child, but i wasn't brave enough. i got the impression it wasn't the sort of thing i would be able to put out of my mind. in some ways, the relationship between a witness and their subject isn't much different from any other. there's something of a feeling-out process. in most cases, the person you're following is pretty agreeable once they know who you are and what you're doing. there's a tacit agreement that passes between you. a kind of distant intimacy takes hold. forming any kind of emotional bond with a subject isn't strictly forbidden. it happens from time to time. it isn't encouraged, though. it rarely leads to anything positive. i can tell you that much from my own experience. i think i like those first moves the best. there's something about the rhythm. a pushing and pulling...no, a lazy dance. that's what it is. and it's all footwork. at the end of the seventh day, i made my way home, kicked off my shoes, grabbed a thick red candle from a kitchen cupboard, got down on my hands and knees in the living room, and fed a piece of paper into the typewriter. i set the candle down and lit a match, let the wick take hold of the flame, shook the match out, and started typing my first report while sitting cross-legged on the floor, hunched forward. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx PRELIMINARY WITNESS REPORT SUBJECT NO. 657 "STICKMAN" AGE: ??? HEIGHT: APPROX 6 FT. WEIGHT: ??? REAL NAME: ??? subject possesses unusual psychic and possible telekinetic abilities. my gut feeling is, he has far above average intelligence. lives alone in a handsome two-story home (address: 650 rosemary ave). no family or friends that i've been able to unearth. haven't found any personal documents that may help fill in the gaps here. subject has never consumed any food or liquid in my presence. doesn't seem to need any conventional fuel for his body. appears to be human, but clearly there's something more going on here. doesn't own a vehicle. doesn't use public transport. travels on foot. not sure what the cause is RE: inability to speak or make vocal sounds. birth defect? born with weak muscles in the throat? no larynx? medical records may shed some light on this, but again, no relevant information is at hand, for obvious reasons. my subjective impression: there's nothing "wrong" with him. he's something...other. i saw him subdue a much larger, physically stronger man by "showing" him something through touch. the man's reaction gave no indication of what he saw, but he was profoundly disturbed. subject may be capable of communicating in this way non-verbally, beyond simply conveying images. the initial information stephen gave me wasn't much to go on, as is usually the case. subject doesn't seem malevolent. keeps to himself. works with his hands, making a fascinating array of complex sculptures. i've seen some in his home. the craftsmanship is impressive. this seems to be a source of great joy for him. i imagine it also provides him with an income. my best guess: he has some sort of mail-order business. i've observed him behaving in a way toward animals demonstrating affection, for whatever that may be worth to you. he likes cats, dogs, and ducks. they seem to like him too. seems to wear the same clothes everyday; long-sleeved black shirt, tan slacks, nondescript black boots. the clothes are never dirty, and he has no detectable scent, though i've never seen evidence of him performing any personal hygiene-related activity. not much else to tell at this early stage. he keeps to himself (people tend to avoid him given his unusual appearance, but he doesn't appear to mind), visits the park on occasion, is a talented artist, and has only been seen to directly engage with another person when threatened. he also hasn't noticed me yet. will wait for further instruction. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx i took off my shirt and balled it up into a makeshift pillow. i blew out the candle. i set my head down and waited for sleep to come. 121221 ... next — box_of_fire_3_a_gift 121223 what's it to you? who go blather from