Touched by Wyatt Tremblay

Alex McKenzie was the sort of man whose sheer, unnatural size made you pause and stare open mouthed at him. Though, you didn’t dare for long. If he happened to feel your eyes upon him and return your look, a cold shiver would play at the back of your neck and you’d quickly realize that he could snap that neck if he so desired. Mick, or Mick the Crusher, as he was known on the street and among his friends – friends you might be hesitant to label as the friendly type – carried his impressive mass with an aggressive self-assurance that was partly encouraged by his gargantuan stature, but mainly it was because he’d never encountered anyone larger or meaner than himself. He’d been ducking his head through doorways since he was fourteen, about the same time he realized he’d found a certain, manic pleasure in breaking things.

His hands were the size of footballs, his feet size 15, and his shoulders and arms so massive he had clothing tailored to fit. These were purchased or sometimes stolen from a quaint little shop over on 57th Street, run by a Jamaican immigrant named Mel. Mick revelled in his own physical prowess, enjoyed making everyone feel uncomfortable with his imposing bulk, and never wasted an opportunity to employ it to obtain whatever his callous heart desired. So, it came as quite a surprise not only to his petite girlfriend, his third in seven months, but also to his closest associates, when he was found late one night hunched over halfway up 51st Street, in a dark and garbage-strewn dead-end alley usually frequented by prostitutes and their clients. He was sobbing uncontrollably – like a frightened little child.

Officer Milton Twigge, who was summoned to the scene by an anonymous caller, found Mick in this pathetic and unbecoming condition. Twigge knew the hulking man personally from the many times he had arrested him; well, as personal as one can get on the receiving end of Mick’s signature lightning-fast right hook. It took Twigge and three other policemen and two conscripted and disgruntled pedestrians to remove Mick from the alley. He kicked, sobbed terribly, hollered great unspeakable obscenities and cast anxious and, as one observer said,“terror-filled glances” toward the dark alley where he had been found.

When they finally managed to coerce his brutish weight into the paddy wagon, it was only then that he ceased thrashing like one who had seen the very face of the Grim Reaper himself. Even then, with the doors locked shut and the fume-spewing vehicle speeding off into the night, he cowered in the farthest, darkest corner of the wagon. Officer Twigge said later that it appeared as if Mick the Crusher was grateful to have had his meaty hands chained to his enormous feet.

A court-appointed psychiatrist labelled Mick as psychotic and suffering from an acute neurosis exacerbated by an obviously palpable fear of… well, they weren’t quite sure what had frightened Mick, as he wasn’t saying. In fact, he refused to say anything to anyone, not even to Macy, his girlfriend. Witnesses say they observed her hurried departure from the police station the next afternoon. There were rivers of tears pouring down her face. She packed her belongings the following day, her friends said, and moved back to Moose Jaw to care for her ailing mother.

The cops, whom he had pummelled for a decade or more, called the loss of Mick’s particular version of sanity, karma, a fortuitous, cosmic revenge. Shop owners and decent folk whom he had terrorized sighed great sighs of relief. His friends, acquaintances, and associates shook their heads in disbelief. His sudden bout of insanity was a loss to the kinship of criminals … well, for about a day and a half. A turf war erupted over who would replace Mick as the toughest, most vicious thug to be called “King” of the streets.

And Mick? Something happened to the Crusher that night. Some say he was touched in his head. Crazy.

A year to the date after the “incident,” Mick was released from the psych ward of Belmont Hospital, and soon after that he could be seen, in his trademark dark trench coat, wandering the impoverished streets of his old haunts. He was still the same outsized, imposing man he had always been. One might even feel that old tickle of fear at the back of the neck upon first glance, but something was decidedly different. He was smiling. Not that he hadn’t smiled before, especially while crushing the arms or legs of one of his victims or while shoving the barrel of his favourite weapon, a stainless steel Smith & Wesson .45, in the face of some poor, trembling store clerk. No, this smile was different. It was a happy thing… a joyous grin even. It was disturbing. His old friends saw this transformation and scratched their heads, wondering what odd scam the Crusher was up to and how much cash he was going to haul in. His many enemies peered cautiously at him, as if they were about to meet the terrible old right hook. However, he would pass them all by, still smiling, sometimes whistling. And, the Crusher began doing strange things, very strange things. He took to picking up garbage, and…  began helping people. He carried an old man in his arms, with a heavy bag of groceries, up three flights of stairs in an old ramshackle tenement building. He broke up a squabble between a warring gang of youths, taking their knives and clubs and giving them a basketball. A basketball? A basketball. Mick, who had never been short on words, especially if he were angry, was now rarely heard to speak above a whisper. And, even more out of character, he didn’t curse at all anymore. This was so unusual for the Crusher that it only confirmed to his acquaintances that he had indeed lost his mind. Whatever he was doing and wherever he was going, a smile graced his street-worn face. It was very troubling.

Some months after his release, Mick entered the clothing store of Mel the Jamaican. Mel was behind the short counter that separated him from his customers, and he glanced up when he heard the old brass bell above the door tinkle. Mel choked. He had never liked nor disliked Mick, but he was afraid of him. It was wise to be afraid of someone who was called the Crusher, but not with any measure of affection. As Mick stood in all his arresting presence, Mel slowly inched his left hand toward the side of the counter where he kept his illegal, but necessary, sawed-off 12 gauge. It was loaded. Both barrels.

Mick smiled, his face soft and unthreatening. Gentle.

Mel hesitated, frowned, and let his hand drop to his side. Something was different about Mick. He could sense it.

“Whatcha be up to, Mick?” Mel asked, trying his hardest to mask the terror he felt creeping up his spine.

Mick blinked but didn’t reply and just continued flashing that disturbingly unnatural grin.

Mel shuffled his feet and scratched the back of one hand. His skin was crawling with fearful uncertainty. Why was Mick smiling like that? Hadn’t he heard that the big thug had become touched in the head—lost his marbles? What did he want?

“You be needing some new clothes then, eh Mick?”

Mick, his look unchanging, slowly shook his head and let one hand slip into a large pocket of his long, dark coat. Mel’s life began to flash before his eyes. He knew his arthritic hand wasn’t fast enough to reach the shotgun under the counter, but he wondered why Mick the Crusher was here to kill him. He knew Mick had robbed him, more than a couple times for sure, but he had never gone to the police. He had always viewed the criminal element on the streets around him as an unavoidable and unalterable evil. You live with it, he had reasoned long ago. To fight against it meant certain trouble.

Mick’s hand lifted from his pocket. Mel quickly closed his eyes and waited, praying softly for his wife. She would miss him. They loved each other. Thirty-two years? No, thirty-three. It would be thirty-four in March.

There was a soft thud. Mel jammed his eyes even harder, expecting pain, expecting to feel the strength and life leave what he felt for sure was to be his soon-to-be bullet-riddled body. The bell jingled and Mel opened his eyes. Mick’s huge, muscled hand was on the door; his eyes, serious and steady, were on Mel.

“I’m sorry,” said Mick the Crusher, his voice almost too soft and quiet to be heard. But, Mel heard.

Mick’s face radiated its strange light, his eyes gleaming with something Mel had never thought he would see in them. The Crusher nodded and pushed his way out into the street, letting the door close behind him, the worn brass bell singing its song. Mel swallowed hard, his heart pounding dangerously hard in his heaving chest, and glanced down at the counter top. A roll of cash, bound by a thick rubber band, lay where the Crusher had placed it.

“Mother of God,” Mel whispered again and again as he counted out five-thousand dollars in twenties.

Halfway up 51st Street, between Fong’s Grocer, with the smoked ducks hanging in the grease-streaked windows, and Bernie’s Deli—which really isn’t a deli at all, but a donut shop—is the seedy alley where Officer Twigge found Mick the Crusher that dark night, over a year ago. Mick was there now. He had cleaned up the dead-end alley, removing the trash and discarded bits of furniture and rotting things that might have been living things at one time or another. In the barrenness of the alley that went nowhere, Mick had fashioned a graceful garden along the end wall. It was a beautiful oasis in a dreary part of the city, filling a third of the alley. At the centre of the garden, shaped somewhat like a walnut, he had built a rock-walled pond that he surrounded with pots and wooden boxes of ferns, and lupines, and daisies, and marigolds and all sorts of flowers—most with names he didn’t remember. He just knew they were beautiful. Rising out of the middle of the pond, a stylish fake-rock fountain trickled water gently down over its sides, filling the lifeless city air with a wonderful otherworldly sound and freshness. A dozen goldfish—gold and silver, and some with black spots—lazed in the pond, waiting to be fed. Mick was sitting cross-legged and shoe-less, in a space he had made in the midst of his garden, carefully pulling little weeds from among the flower pots and, just as carefully, placing them in a self-sealing plastic bag. A small yellow canary flitted from one of the pots to the top of the fountain and began to fluff and preen its feathers. Butterflies pranced among the flowers and bees buzzed and skittered among the petals, seeming unaware of the massive giant tending the lush garden that was out of place in the cavernous brick and grime-streaked walls of the alley.

The giant was smiling and humming and seemed altogether too happy to be someone known as the Crusher.

“Such beauty,” Mick said to no one in particular and to the one that would hear.

“Yes,” a voice answered, sounding all at once like a thousand golden chimes and the silence of a vast desert, “such beauty.”

A spark rose from the colourful flowers of the garden, tiny, brilliant, quick, and paused before Mick. He lifted his eyes to the fiery glow.

“May I?” he asked.

“Yes,” the voice sang brightly.

Mick placed the plastic bag of carefully picked weeds between his legs and brushed dirt from his hands, scrubbing at them as if any filth, any stain was completely intolerable. Then, he held out his right hand, palm up, and the light swiftly settled there. His hand began to glow, like a tremendous light had been switched on inside his flesh. The glow expanded, spreading from his fingers to his wrist, disappearing up the arm of his coat to erupt a moment later around his neck, enveloping his entire head. The alley was flooded with light, a brilliant white flame that poured from Mick’s head and hands and out from where his socks didn’t quite cover the flesh on his ankles. The whiteness bathed the alley, flooding every crack, chasing every dark shadow away, and Mick was laughing. Tears streamed down his face. His massive frame heaved and jerked with each ripple of joy. Then, slowly, like a dying ember, the light receded until it was just a bright glow again in his palm. The alley grew quiet.

Mick wiped the wetness from his face with his other hand. His fingers were trembling. He was trembling.

“Why do you not hate me?” he asked, his eyes upon the light floating over his hand. He had asked this before.

“It is not in my nature to hate.” The light replied without hesitation.

“But … I killed her.”

“Yes.”

“That was the worst moment of my life.” The giant sobbed.

“Yes. It was.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought she was a bug. I always killed bugs … I have always destroyed anything that was beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You are.”

“She was so beautiful.”

The light sputtered, “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” Mick wanted to say it a thousand times, a million times, until the pain melted away, until somehow she was no longer dead, crushed by his hatred; until she shone her radiance again; until he saw her tiny translucent wings beating in ecstatic rhythm to the striking symphony of her song. But no amount of apologies could undo what he had done—undo what he had done all his life—destroy things, crush things. Mick the Crusher.

He wept.

The little light danced, played, and skittered across his hand; across his contorted, pain-filled face; and the voice sang sweetly, harmoniously, like the song of spring.

“Alex. Alex. Be joyful Alex. There is beauty. The past is a dream. What is done is done. What is now is now.”

And, Alex—Mick—felt his heart lift with the forgiveness he did not deserve.

There was a sound behind them, someone clearing their throat. Mick turned his head and nodded. The light (he didn’t know what else to call it, and the concept of a name for itself had made no sense to it) flew from his hand and began to sweep in tight, excited circles around the visitor.

“Hello,” officer Milton Twigge said, removing his police hat as he laughed, letting the spark settle on his own hand. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Mick rose slowly to his feet. “No, Milton. Please join us.”

“Yes,” sang the light, its song vibrating with approval off the hard walls of the alley.

Officer Twigge and Mick the Crusher embraced each other—David and Goliath—and the light darted inbetween their arms and touched them, and they exploded with brilliance as if they were standing in the blaze of midday sunlight. The spark sang and danced and played songs upon the air, and Milton and Mick stepped back to watch, laughing, giddy, like little children. If seeing the Crusher smile with hidden joy was unnerving, this was even more so. The giant fist of Mick had now become the hand of friendship to the one who had arrested him more times then either felt necessary to recall.

“I heard what you did today … for Mel,” Milton said after a moment, speaking as if he were standing in a hallowed place.

“Yes.” Mick nodded, holding his hand out to the dancing light. It twirled between his outstretched fingers.

“Will you invite him here?” Twigge touched the arm of his friend, his old adversary, “like you did, me?”

“If he’d like that.”

Milton nodded and sighed. “I’m glad. It’s beautiful here … in this alley.”

“Yes,” the voice trilled with effervescent excitement, “Beauty.”

“Yes,” said Mick. “Beauty.”

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