He’s a Natural Man
“There goes Joseph again,” Maureen mused, rolling her eyes. A loud thud sounded as a rock hit the side of the car in front of them. Up ahead on the side of the road, a naked man hurled miscellaneous objects at the cars that passed him while he shouted obscenities, his sagging, pale flesh jiggling with each movement.
“Maybe they’ll arrest him this time. I’m tired of his stunts. Do you realize this is the seventh time this month he’s done this?” I asked my friend in the passenger seat.
“Yup.” We drove past Joseph, averting our eyes from his stark lack of self-consciousness. Driving forward, I glimpsed the front of Joseph’s nude body, and the sight sent a disgusted shiver through my body. The heat of mid-July only accentuated his poor physique, making him look like a peeled potato, complete with lumps of uneven fat covered in a layer of sweat that reflected to sun. God, I hope I never look like that, I thought. Now that we were closer, I could see what he was doing. He pointed at each car, calling them out one by one for their materialistic ways and distributing his punishment as the passersby completely ignored his existence. Clumps of moss rebounded off of cars; I tried to look at those instead.
“Hey, where do you think all of that crap comes from? You know, all of the crap that he throws at the cars.” I paused for an answer; when I didn’t get one, I continued, “I mean, where does all of it come from?”
Considering this, Maureen replied, “Yeah, you know, it comes from somewhere. Yeah,somewhere.”
“Somewhere, huh?”
A strident screech as shrill as a banshee erupted in front of the car, followed by a gut-wrenching crunch of metal. I slammed on the brakes as Maureen, looking frantic, cried out, “What wasthat?” We ran up the street, leaving our car on the shoulder of the road, hazard lights flashing, as we sought the source of the disturbance. The traffic had ceased in both directions, creating a sea of fuming, filthy cars and incensed commuters. Weaving in and out of cars and crowds, Maureen and I craned our necks as we fought to see over the group of nosey interlopers who inspected the scene. As we grew closer to the intersection, Maureen’s frenzied footsteps abated to a slow walk.“Hey, I think we should just turn around and go home. Let’s get out of here.” Her voice quivered behind me, but I kept going.
Joseph’s rotund body sprawled across the intersection, surrounded by a gang of men who pummeled his exposed flesh to a mass of cascading blood. Indistinguishable from a distance, the men mercilessly pounded Joseph as each punch sent spatters of blood onto the pavement, painting a Jackson Pollock right in the middle of town. Seeing the spectacle before them, the drivers braked, and cars piled up on either side of the intersection, their bodies distorted and scarred from the accident. The drivers who had escaped injury gawked at the spectacle in the intersection; some cried, some jeered, but none helped. “Stop!” I cried. “Stop! I’ll call the police on you! Stop!”
As I ran to Joseph, Maureen yelled, “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Amongst the catcalls and insults of spectators, I hurried out to Joseph in the intersection, sending his attackers scurrying away like ants fleeing from a kid with a magnifying glass. When I got closer to Joseph, I could see his eyes flickering open, revealing such severe forest green eyes that I stumbled the last few steps I took towards him. He glared at me with the wilderness in his eyes and I knelt beside him, slowly reaching a shaking hand toward his own limp one.
He croaked, “You all call me a heathen, but look at what you did to me.”
It was then that I realized that he wasn’t really bleeding; he certainly didn’t bleed blood. Instead, thousands of minute maroon, scarlet, and burgundy flowers gushed out of his skull and back. Fascinated, I plucked on with tender fingers from behind his ear, desiring to examine the wonder before me. Just as my fingers grazed the flower, it melted in my hands, staining them with the blood of beautiful flowers.
I gazed at my hand in awe and the world around me fell silent even though I knew sirens screamed like teenage girls and spectators howled and Joseph’s paper breath heaved and rattled beside me. In this silence I heard a reticent melody, so hushed I could barely hear it. I tilted my head towards the flowers as they sobbed at my feet, flooding my head with their sorrowful song.
Behind me a gruff voice cut through the aria, chuckling, “It’s about time someone taught that freak a lesson.” The police had arrived, and he brushed past me to approach Joseph. He jabbed Joseph with his foot and shouted to the other officers behind him, “All right, let’s load him up. Time to book him.” The police rushed over me as if I was nothing more than a pebble in a stream, swarming around Joseph ravenously. They hoisted him to uncertain feet and shoved him into a cruiser like a child. All the while their boots crushed the flowers that mourned around the natural man’s head.
Bailey McInturff wants to change the world. Hailing from a small town in southern West Virginia, she decided from a young age that this world really needs her, even more than it realizes yet. She also decided there are infinite ways to change the world, and maybe this will do the trick.