EDVARD TUSK without his face

A novel by Pablo D’Stair

Part 1

“On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.” Virginia Woolf

Restrooms in open-all-night diners, I always noted, are either single occupancy, locked door set-ups or else are—as was the case with this All Star All Night I was set to dine in, groggy from the more than a days’ worth of driving I’d put in—quite luxurious, multi-stalled, well maintained little miracles.

This one seemed far too large for the restaurant, even, as the approach to it was down a thin hallway beyond the door the wait staff used to move from kitchen to dining floor, giving one the idea it should be a squat afterthought.

If anything, hardly more than the mirrorless closets some gas stations I’d used in the past days had on offer to paying customers. And pristine, this one, as though better up kept than the tabletops or dishes.

Strange. Wonderful but strange.Such is where my thoughts were when I settled in front of the urinal—admittedly after entertaining the notion of using a stall, just to indulge in the lime fresh scent of it all and to have a seat whether or not my business truly necessitated it. I gave a casual glance to my side where another man was stationed, a vacant urinal between us.

It was a quick flit of my eyes in his direction, nothing more than a tick, and I also looked on past him to the sinks to make whatever eye contact might have happened seem excusably incidental.

Distress

This caution—silly, reflexive, and unavoidable to me as it might have been—turned out to be moot, as the fellow had his head tipped forward, letting out a sigh, his eyes closed to an expression of mild distress.

Due to this man’s presence, I made a true production out of washing my hands—three squirts of the green foam soap (perfect lime colour, complimenting the aroma from the deodorant cakes under the fans in the lavatory corners) rinse, hand flicks, one towel to dry, re-rinse, second towel to finish.

The grease on my face from the long drive, car heater on at least mildly for hundreds of miles, felt especially thick after these ablutions, so I wetted my hands again, bringing water to my face, rubbing my eyes, then roughing my hair with the still moist palms. Reaching for a third paper towel, I noticed the man was giving a look in my direction, eyes still closed, winced even, brow and forehead a furrow on a furrow.

I patted the rough paper against my face, bringing it away to find the fellow now taking a pair of beige tinted glasses from where he had set them on top of the urinal, noting, with an amused curiosity, his eyes were still closed, face still with an affect of pain or irritable concentration.

In the moment the lenses covered his eyes, his brow, I noticed, seemed to relax, smooth out immediately, and his head turned in the direction of the urinal flush which he pressed down, sucking an amount of phlegm he spat in to the cup of the fixture.

I ordered coffee I knew would do nothing to keep me awake, an omelet and some strips of bacon I asked to be brought out first, then tried to occupy myself with the paperback I had for whatever reason brought in to the restaurant all the way from the room I’d checked in to only half hour earlier—the paperback I’d, for some even less decipherable reason, bought at a random filling station the day before—opening to a page I’d marked as my previous stopping off point, receipt slip from some motel stay used as bookmark.

None of the words meant a thing to me, the title unfamiliar, the description on the back as though I was reading it for the first time.

Grave robber

Had I even started this thing? I’d had in mind I was reading some run-of-the-mill police procedural, but this seemed to have to do with a grave robber, the setting Victorian, the cover art some vague woman, look of tepid horror or desire on her face. My bacon arrived and I set the book aside, determined to forget it there when I left.

About when my omelet was set down it occurred to me the patron sitting in the booth a few down, faced in my direction, was the same man from the toilet. This

I noticed not casually, but specifically because in the moment I focused on him he had his tinted glassed pushed up and was pinching at the bridge of his nose. His eyes were closed. Then he, seemingly offhand, set to whatever his thoughts were, spent what must have been twenty seconds—I was staring, knew it, didn’t care—clearing out first his left ear then his right with pinky fingers of either hand, face still scrunched, eyes still closed.

He coughed, straightened up stiffly, wiped the back of one hand this way and that under his nose while reaching for his coffee and bringing it to his mouth with the other, before relaxing, the motion of his sinking to the booth cushion causing the glasses to slip back over his still shutted eyes.

I stared at him for far too long, after, though if he was put off he made no indication, no sign he even noted me. I wanted to see if I could make out anything through the tint of his lenses. I couldn’t. They were mirrored in a dirty kind of way and due to where he was situated the one lens caught three spots of light, perfect little circles pasted to its oval, the other caught five, giving him an insect sort of appearance.

Or maybe just my looking so intently did that, because when I forced myself to look away and then, a full minute I counted off in my head later, looked back he had not moved, the spots of light still distinctly present, but now seeming incidental.

He, in fact, seemed incidental—less than that, seemed inconsequential, a particular non-entity. I kept staring, though, cutting my tasteless omelet with side of fork and taking bite after bite from rote movement, surprised to find how much was gone when I looked to see if there were still hash browns on the plate.

Sleep

If I slept, I got to thinking—more intently than I realised, my waiter having to give my shoulder a tap to snap me to it, ask if I was ready for my check—I’d not be on the road until next afternoon.

Sleep, when I passed out tonight, would be dreamless and absolute and no way would I be able to get myself out of bed right on waking, it’d be a struggle against wanting to take the entire day off before resuming the drive. Which meant, though she’d be asleep now, it was all the more obligatory to give Justine a call.

Why having to do this felt such a drag, just then, I knew I could not put down to the fatigue—the very use of the expression ‘having to do this’ was deep seeded, despite I had no logical reason for the snipe of venom in my thoughts toward her, this trip.

But I could use the call to beg off the next day’s drive, tell her I’d come down with something, paint some situation she’d have no choice but to sympathize with. Not that I needed her to sympathize. Not that I needed to be on the road at all.

I was again jostled out of my thoughts, this time the waiter setting down the check. I instinctually Gugthan letting me tend to the bill right then and there, but glancing down to the slip on the leather pad I found my credit card already there in the slot, final receipt showing the card had been run, awaiting my signature, a quick scribbled ‘Thank You!!’ with a smiling face drawn using the exclamation point dots for eyes above the waiter’s scrawled name on my copy. I gave a chuckle, now looking to make sure the waiter hadn’t seen my hard expression, ready to apologise if so.

The waiter was handing a bill pad to the patron in the tinted glasses, the man tendering the credit card he had at the ready, saying ‘No thanks’ to the question of having a box brought out for the food that remained on his plate.

And though the man was still in his glasses, he was facing me in profile and it was clear, my line of sight straight down to it, that at least his right eye was shut fast during the entire transaction. As the man coughed in to his hand, turning his head down, I saw no indication either eye, both now obscured to me by the beige lenses, had opened so much as a sliver.