A New Man
Thursday was a bad day for Denny Kersey.
It was the third Thursday in January, a particularly cold day, when Denny Kersey, longtime longshoreman, became momentarily distracted while working the winch at the South Line discharge.
Why his mind wandered at the worst possible moment he couldn’t say.
His big right paw (familiar to many a drunken face during many a drunken ruckus), became caught in a cogwheel. In an oily haze of bloody severance, our doyen of the docks put pipe wrench to hoist crane. He ceased the bite of the beast, but it was too late, the desperate act of a fighter in a bout already been called.
The kill switch had failed. A part of Denny was killed instead.
He cursed himself. He cursed the job. He cursed the Big Fella up in the clouds indifferent to this sickening spectacle, detached from a poor man’s plight. Lastly, Denny cursed the smart men of industry for what they’d created, this mindless machine working against its own operator.
And that was that for Denny’s career in cargo distribution.
But it was worse still.
Denny was always bad with money, his wages alchemized regularly into whisky and bad bets. But now he was a righty without a right; unemployable. The trades literally placed beyond reach. Options were cut away, no pun intended, by a missing hand marking a momentary carelessness, this man branded by a single mistake. His infamous right cross had symbolically crossed him, laying him low.
The good news was he’d become more comfortable with his left. The bad? He used it strictly to raise up Johnny Walker.
“Cheers,” said Denny to his drinking companion and drowned another sorrow.
“May have a job for ya,” Millie said.
Denny’s skeptical side eye dismissed her.
“I’m serious.”
“If only ya used your evil for good, Millie.”
She glowered at him.
Historically, Millie’s helping hand could be dicey business. From racing tips to romantic matchmaking, she always meant well. But as someone once said, “Hell’s road is graded with good intention.” If so, Millie was a master bricklayer.
“This is different, Denny. Look, I’m workin’ part-time if you didn’t know — ”
“I knew.”
“Well. I split a shift, care-taking a doctor’s wife in Cheltonhurst. I overheard him on the phone yesterday, carrying on about his work and all.”
“Manny! Two more for the table,” Denny yelled past Millie, his words a slurry.
“Listen. Doctor Reed, that’s his name, he’s real frustrated, says he needs people to study, folks with…you know… missing parts.”
“Piss off! I ain’t a freak show!”
“He’s willing to pay, Denny.”
Denny stood up in wobbly defiance. “Forget the drinks Manny. I’m outta here. Someone point me to the door. I can’t see.”
“I’ll point ya to your wallet first, my boy,” Manny said. “Your tab’s due.”
Denny fished his empty pockets. “I need more friends with money,” he declared.
Millie took Denny’s remaining hand and wrapped his fingers around a torn bit of paper. The note read: Dr Reed 2582 Gilton
“And even though, as I said, I’m a man of science, I do believe in the notion of divine intervention. I think it brought you, Mr Kersey, to my doorstep this very day.”
“Actually, it’s the train what brung me. And I could barely afford it. That’s why I’m here.”
Dr. Reed smiled sharply. “You’ll be well compensated, of course.”
Reed placed his fingers over Denny’s dismemberment. “I’m not sure you can appreciate this, but the cogwheel that did this unfortunate damage may wind up putting you in a most enviable historical position: patient zero for the greatest advance in medicine since antibiotics.”
“Seems a long-shot bet, Doc,” Denny said, low-lidded with skepticism.
“Perhaps. But we’ll give it the old college try nonetheless, Mr. Kersey. At any rate, the study will be painless and last about two to three weeks. My hope is that before too long you’ll see regenerating tissue emerge from the amputated area.”
“Right. We went over this already and I didn’t buy it the first time. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Ok, then. Sooner we get started, sooner I can get back to the bar.”
“Very good,” said Reed.
The weeks passed quickly. Dr. Reed spent much of the time alternating between injecting Denny’s stump with a viscous variety of multi-hued solutions and conducting electrical stimuli through wires hitched to an old generator. Each session would end with the laying on of odd-smelling salves and tingling poultices. Frequently, Reed would take notes in a furious fashion, mouthing deep contemplations. Denny thought the man mad but toasted him each night in absentia at Manny’s, reflecting (as it were) on that day’s therapeutic particulars. It was, after all, Dr. Reed’s money buying Denny’s rounds.
About a month later, just as Reed prophesied, new tissue began to sprout from Denny’s wrist. It was freaky as all hell so Denny hid the growing mass in a black glove. He removed it only at Reed’s lab where the good Doctor would make his notations.
More and more, the tissue began to take shape, stringy nerve endings entwining into meaty tendrils. “Yuck,” was Denny’s general disposition on the matter but he hoped Reed’s work would cure what ailed him.
Soon, Denny had regrown his severed hand. Success.
The last day of his treatment, Denny thanked Reed and pushed back tears of gratitude. “Honestly Doc, for the first time since the accident I’ve not the inclination for gettin’ wrecked.”
“Wonderful. This is very promising. I’m most pleased.”
Denny rubbed his new mitt and loosed a sigh of long-sought relief. Before exiting he turned back for a parting thought.
“Funny thing. Until last night I’d been having awful dreams. Horrific, befuddling. Giant spinning gears, big as barns, me small clutchin’ for dear life like a caterpillar. Dream always ends the same: Wheels turning into each other, spinnin’ long after I’m ground like granola. But last night, Goddamn, I slept like a new-born babe.”
“Sounds like losing your hand to the cogwheel cost you more than your livelihood, Denny. I think you lost your way. A broken cog in the wheel of life.”
“I don’t know about all that, Doc. I do know one thing though.”
“What’s that?”
“I feel like a new man!”
For the first time in a long time Denny was at ease.
He was still in limbo regarding the accident settlement (attorneys arguing who to blame, Denny or cogwheel) but payment from Reed’s experimental treatment was enough to make his rent, fill his fridge, and put a little coin on the greyhounds.
He ran into Millie on the street.
“Haven’t seen ya around,” she said. “Manny says hello. I’m workin’ for him now serving the drunk and disorderly.”
“Brilliant. Yer shift ends and yer already at the bar. Been busy myself. I’ll try’n stop by.”
“So how’s things with Doctor Reed?”
“Behold his handiwork,” Denny said and pulled a gloveless right from his coat pocket.
Millie was speechless.
That night, Denny decided he’d go back to the docks first thing in the morning, see about getting his job back.
But he woke in the midst of the dark eve to find his fingers had grown exceedingly long, doubling in length. By early morning, the finger ends had expanded outward, spreading into arms, new tissue reconstituting itself by the minute, skin and sinew formulating into a freaky replication of Denny’s body, bit by bit: the red hair, the fish white complexion, the double-jointed elbow.
His mind reeling, a chance glance in the mirror displayed his predicament from another angle. The being’s new arms were now connected to a heaving chest and stomach, the beginnings of a neck, chin. A mouth gasping for air.
Denny fainted.
Tap, tap, tap like water torture. Denny re-entered reality with a scream stuck in his throat.
A flesh replica of him, now fully formed, tapping on Denny’s forehead. “Thursssday,” it murmured.
“What,” Denny whispered.
“Thirsty! Could use a drink.”
Denny yelled and jumped to his feet, the doppelgänger following, its fingers conjoined to his like a paper chain person.
Denny ran into the garage. He grabbed a hatchet from the wall with his free left hand and brandished it at his double.
“Brilliant,” it said, and — to Denny’s surprise — forced their linked fingers up unto the work bench.
Dr. Reed, his theory now a proven test case, was ready to proceed.
He would begin application, finally, to cure his wife’s necrotising fasciitis. “It’s time my love,” he whispered to his sleeping wife and kissed her forehead.
The doorbell intervened, damn inconvenient. He hadn’t yet hired Millie’s replacement.
Reed opened the front door and was met by Denny’s infamous right cross.
Behind Denny, three more versions of him stood clapping, impressed. Denny turned and headed round for Manny’s, his clones following in tandem.
“Who’s buying?” Denny asked.
