Misunderstood Monsters

Joe Zappa answered the door and gasped. “What do you want from me.” His voice trembled and he stumbled backward, arms wheeling franticly while he teetered on his heels. — Thump, he was down for the count.

When his eyes fluttered open, his granddaughter, Janet, was kneeling beside him. “Grandpa!” She breathed a sigh of relief and the lines in her forehead relaxed. “Just breathe. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“What? No, I’m fine, just taking a nap.” He grunted as he strained to sit up.

Janet looked up at her fiancée, Tom, looming over them. The couple had wanted to share the exciting news of their engagement with Janet’s grandfather ASAP and dashed over to his place once they had composed their own enthusiasm. But when they arrived at his townhouse, they found the door wide open, and Joe lying unconscious on the hardwood floor.

Tom extended a helping hand and Joe clutched his wrist. “Thanks doc,” he forced out as he wrestled onto his feet.

Janet assisted her grandfather into the well-worn, high-back winged chair, frowning at the sight of him wincing as he rested his head against the vinal upholstery. She demanded that he’d get checked out by a doctor, but Joe dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. Glancing over at Tom, he said, “You’re a doctor, Dr. Jones.”

Tom smirked, “I’m not a medical doctor,” he sidled next to Janet and took her hand in his.

“Psychology is a kind of medicine,” Joe said. His eyes drifted downward to the couple’s entwined hands, taking note of the sparkling bling on his granddaughter's finger. He addressed Tom again, “Hey, hey, welcome to the family doc.”

Janet smiled, letting the corners of her mouth droop as she glared at her grandfather; she wasn’t going to let him change the subject, not this time. Joe cupped her cheeks in his hands when he saw the familiar look of worry and concern behind her scowl.

“I heard a knock on the door,” his words were firm but steady, “and when I opened it — you know how the door sticks sometimes; I had to yank it open, and I was thrown off balance. — I'm fine, believe me, I've had worse conks to the old melon.”

“Did you see who was at the door,” Janet pressed.

“No — I mean yes. — Can we talk about this later?”

“Oh grandpa,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Tom is family now. Did you see the man without a mouth?”

“It was a different man. I was watching ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ I got spooked.”

Janet turned her head and eyeballed Joe's reflection on the blackened TV screen.

“I shut it off before answering the door.”

Janet squeezed Tom's fingers a little tighter, reiterating a prior incident at the supermarket. She told him that she left her father alone at the deli counter for a few minutes, and when she returned, he was acting hysterical and paranoid, barking about seeing a man without a mouth. He was practically accusing the man behind the deli counter of lying because he did not see the peculiar man as well. “Grandpa said that the strange man disappeared into one of the isles, but when I searched, he was gone.”

An awkward silence hovered throughout the room, then Tom spoke, “Maybe I can help you.”

Joe was outraged by what Tom was implying, he knew that no human could live without a mouth, he wasn’t crazy. “Ever hear of motion blur? — I glimpsed the man for only a few seconds as he rounded the corner, and he had plenty of time to leave the store before Janet got there,” he defensively stammered.

“If it were an isolated incident, I could accept that,” Janet said. “But tonight…

“Tonight, I was tipsy, started celebrating in anticipation of the good news. Grandfather-granddaughter telepathy and all that. — Look, discussion closed. I want to celebrate and bask in my granddaughter’s newfound future.” And so, the family celebrated.

Janet insisted on staying the night and although she and Tom had an apartment together, Tom was not surprised when Joe escorted him to the door and said goodnight.

The following afternoon, while Janet at work, Tom returned to Joe’s apartment to assert his opinion about the men without mouths. He suggested that the men were manifestations of Joe’s past.

Joe immediately got defensive. “What do you know about my past?”

“Come on Joe, anyone who knows how to use a computer can find out that you were on several suspect lists regarding men who have been killed after their dealings with the mafia.”

Joe was livid, if Tom wanted to be part of the family, he needed to show him respect by staying out of his business. He was about to throw the impudent little shit out but paused when he realized that he needed to know whatever Tom thought he knew about him. Janet could never know about his past and Joe had to make sure Tom agreed, so he took a breath.

“Go on.” He listened while Tom rationalized that his history as a hitman could be causing some feelings of guilt and fear.

“I want to stop you right there, I never feared no one.”

“Let me clarify,” Tom said. “The missing mouths may symbolize your worry of possible informants. He suggested that Joe confess to his crimes.

“Confess!?” Joe was not hearing this. “Janet can never know about what I've done.”

“Confess to yourself, Joe. Just talking about your actions out loud will help you make peace with the past." Tom handed Joe a small voice recorder. “Think about it Joe, — Janet never has to find out.” And with that, Tom left.

Were these visions he was seeing men from his past? Their mouths gone because he felt guilty about shutting them up permanently? As he pondered the conversation he just had with his future grandson, he decided that a confession was worth it if these men, ghosts, whatever, stayed away.

He spoke names from his past life into the small hand-held recorder, the victims whose lives he took. Lives he sometimes tortured, and always extinguished, not because they wronged him in any way, but because he was obeying an order. Afterward, he listened to his confession and, for the first time, felt regret for the things he had done.

[Ding] Distracted by the clothes dryer alarm, he neglected to make sure the recording had been erased. He dropped the device into a brown paper bag, before tossing the package in the drawer with his wallet and pistol.

Several days passed without incident. As Joe sat on a bar stool sipping his third whiskey, however, he glanced at the woman that was approaching to his left and gulped audibly. He began shaking, shouting for the individual to back off, repeating the words, “no mouth,” over and over again. He sprang off the bar stool and darted out of the establishment, stumbling into this street. The screeching of car wheels reverberated all around him.

~~~

Joe Zappa was drifting in and out of awareness, lights flickering like vintage movie reels as he lay on the gurney rolling through the noisy halls of Mercy Hospital. He wondered if this was what it meant to have your life flash before your eyes.

In the operating room, a trio of medical professionals, one male doctor and two nurses, one male and one female, dressed in gowns and surgical masks, surrounded his body. They labored diligently and efficiently, confident in a successful outcome. While they worked, Joe hovered above his unconscious form. He felt a tug, as if he were a kite at the end of a string, and he began to drift downward. But rather than seeing a masked surgical team of heroes saving his life, he observed ravenous monsters with no mouths mutilating him. He turned and soared to his certain death.

End