The Hands Down Truth

My older brother Geoff screamed over the roaring sound of the train’s wheels rapidly clacking against the rail joints, “Run faster, Tommy!”  His blonde shag haircut blew across his face as he leaned from the boxcar’s entrance with an outstretched right arm, waving me toward him.  I wasn’t as athletic as him.  One year behind him in age and the lanky appendages of an eleven-year-young body left me at a detriment and I was struggling to catch his hand.

“You can do it, Tommy!  Just reach up!” he yelled as he pulsed his hand opened and closed.

I lifted my hand to within inches of his.  We both smiled as we realized how close to success we were.  My fingers had just tickled at the tips of his when the rubber toe of my converse high top caught the upper corner of a railroad tie.  I saw my brother’s face turn from joy to concern as I fell away from him, not just down onto the ties, but into the track.  I don’t remember much after that, but you can probably guess—I did not catch the train.

I woke up the next day in the Mensonge County Hospital.  I don’t remember a whole lot about my stay other than the fact that I was missing the lower half of my left arm.  Don’t feel sorry for me, it wasn’t all that bad.  If you have never lost an arm before, let me tell you—it means unlimited ice cream, the good kind in the small cup with a little wooden paddle for a spoon.  On top of that, I was being doted upon by the hospital’s prettiest nurses.  They each took turns sitting next to me, paddling the delicious vanilla treat into my mouth, giving the occasional pinch to my freckled cheeks.

I never really looked at my missing limb as a disability.  Sure, I always got funny looks from strangers, and kids were always asking, “How did you lose your arm?”  At first, I would retell the story, but even as fantastic as it was, both my brother and I soon tired of the actual truth.  So, we made up wild tales.

We spun web after web of deceit, and we enjoyed it.  It became our favorite pastime.  We loved to lure people in with our stories.  We told them accounts of attacks by bears, mountain lions, and even crocodiles.  Of course, Geoff was always the hero, pulling me from the snapping jaws of whatever beast we came up with.  We quickly learned that no matter how implausible the story, specific details were the main ingredient in creating a believable lie.

As we grew older our target audience narrowed; getting girls was our focus.  We worked our stories from one gullible teen girl to the next, until the day we met Penny Smith.

Penny’s family had fallen into our area from a tiny town up north called Ceil.  Her long locks of auburn hair and her deep emerald gaze bewitched us.  At every opportunity we would try to gain her attention, but none of our anecdotes worked.  She was impervious to our lies, or so we thought.

One day, after cornering her in Geppetto’s Malt Shop, she said, “You boys are funny. Why don’t you meet me later down at The Riverhouse.”  We were both shocked; first, because she talked to us, which she had not ever done, and second, because she wanted to go to The Riverhouse!

The Riverhouse was a speak easy from the prohibition days that rested in the tall grassed banks of the Connerie River.  It had remained derelict for years and was now a place that titillated teens went to paw each other.  So, of course both my brother and I had the same question, which one of us did she want to go to The Riverhouse with?

Geoff’s voice was shaking as he asked, “You want me to meet you there?”

Penny looked at him while spinning a strand of her hair with her finger and thumb, saying, “No silly.  Both of you.”  She giggled, then pushed her way between us, exiting the shop.

Geoff and I were speechless.  After waiting to make sure that Penny was out of sight, we both bolted out of the store, running for home.

We burst through our home’s door, scrambling to our shared bedroom, flinging our clothes off as we went.  Geoff turned a bottle of Old Spice cologne upside down and shook a pool into his palm.  He then moved his hand all over his body, mistakenly rubbing it over his private parts.  He howled as the cologne penetrated his sensitive skin.  I laughed at his pain, but only momentarily because I had made the same mistake with my choice, Brute 33.  I hid my suffering and began to shuffle through a pile of dirty clothes, sniffing to find something that didn’t stink.  We finished redressing and darted off to The Riverhouse.

We blazed through town, speed walking, trying not to sweat.  However, by the time we hit the red bricks of Escroc Street we both began sprinting in excitement.  As we rounded the street corner that pointed toward the river, I shoved Geoff into a deep ravine lining the road.

Geoff screamed, “You one-armed bastard!”

I laughed, raised my good arm into the air, and yelled back, “This one arm is going to be wrapped around Penny Smith!”

I ran to the side of The Riverhouse.  There, I paused, straightened my clothes and my hair, and coolly stepped around to the front.

Penny was standing, leaning against the warped wooden planks of the bar’s front wall.  She glanced up with a surprised look that sharply turned into disappointment.

She asked, “Where is the other one?”

I looked over my shoulder, seeing my brother running at full speed about fifty feet away, and I said, “Oh he couldn’t make it.”  The door was hanging by one hinge, and I struggled to open it with my one good arm, then announced, “After you.”

Geoff yelled from behind us, in between gasps of air, “Wait—I’m—here!”

Penny’s face perked back up and she bounced through the doorway.

Geoff followed her, punching me in the nub as he passed, whispering, “Asshole.”

I tried to step inside but ran into the back of my brother.  I pushed him to move, but he stood firm.  I raised up on my toes and peered over his shoulder.  A floral printed blanket was spread across the top of an old billiard table and upon it was Penny, on all fours, already shirtless.  Her breast dangled in her pink lacey bra.

She giggled and said, “Are you guys going to just stand there or what?”

We both immediately began disrobing, much like we had done at the house, but this was even more frantic.  I tripped over my pants allowing my brother to make it to Penny first.

As Geoff approached her, she put her arm out and said, “Easy— I’m going to have some fun with you first.”  She pointed to the corner pockets of the billiard table where ropes were strung, saying, “Geoff you’re first.”

Geoff leapt onto the table and eagerly spread his appendages to the corners.  Penny went to work, tying his feet first, then straddling him to tie his hands down.  Geoff nervously started to speak, but Penny shushed him by slowly drawing her index finger down his lips.  She looked over at me and commanded, “You—sit down in that chair.”

I plopped myself down into a chair to my right.  She then jumped off the table and seductively pranced toward me.  In her hands was a coiled length of rope.  She sat in my lap, facing me.

Penny uncoiled the rope and laughed as she said, “Guess I can’t tie your hands together.  I’ll have to improvise.”  She wrapped the rope around my neck and down my back.  She gently slithered down my body to the floor, fishing the rope end from under the seat and tying it to my feet.

She turned as she stood up, grabbed her shirt from the table, and put it back on.  Her sexual strut disappeared as she walked to the head of the billiard table and reached underneath the blanket.  When she pulled her hand out, it was wielding a stainless-steel meat cleaver.  She lined the cleaver up with my brother’s right elbow, then raised it high in the air yelling, “You guys like telling stories.  I’m giving you a great one—”

*** (Interrupting Tommy’s story) ***

 “Tommy, are you telling lies again?” a nurse shouted from the nurses’ station of the mental ward.

“Not me, Nurse Penny,” Tommy replied.

She then redirected her stare to the old man sitting beside Tommy and said, “Don’t believe a word that man says.”  The man scoffed at Tommy, then stood and walked away.  Tommy raised his nub, waved it, and said, “Bon Voyage.  It’s all in the details…”