The Assembler of Parts: A Novel by Raoul Wientzen Read Free Book Online

tongue darted over and around the fingers like a crazy puppy, I curled the fingers of my left hand around the thumb of the hand holding me, and squeezed. He took my eyes again then, and smiled. “You don’t miss nothin’ with them eyes of yours. See what I’m sayin’?” He blinked away the last trace of tears.
    I saw.
    “Such a big box they put him in. I always thought it would have been better if they coulda put him in with his ma. You know, tucked up against her like he’d just fallen asleep after takin’ a feed. It was like he was lost in there, alone in that big box. But Father Larrie wouldn’t have it. Too much pomp. Two people in one casket. Not ‘conventional,’ he said. Borders on heresy, he said. Heresy for a ma ta love a baby son, is it? I ask. Joseph, the ass replies ta me, you just don’t know all the rules. Rules? Love is the rule!” He paused for a few breaths and his eyes looked far away, old and far away. “But you showed him today. You did.” He sipped his drink and swallowed. My hand came out of my mouth. He looked at the glistening fingers. He studied the spot missing the thumb. He looked to the room’s entrance to be sure we were alone, stood, placed his drink on the coffee table, and lowered my slick hand into his whiskey, withdrew it, and put it to my lips. “In memory of little Joey and Rose Mary Cassidy,” he whispered. “A toast ta them.” He drank from his glass as I inserted my liquored fingers into my mouth. The burn of the alcohol tamed my tongue’s wild thrusting. Instead, it slid slowly over the digits, one by one, tasting the toast a knuckle at a time.
    I hear his songs now* whenever I want. All I have to do is think his name and the music plays. That day, Charlie Warren asked for “My Wild Irish Rose.” Cassidy strummed his guitar to find his low key and began to croon. He walked to where Mother held me, and he sang right at me. I watched his words, easy words they were, so deliberately cadenced, and I could feel the thrum of his music in my bones. I kicked a little at this marrow harmonic, and Mother began to dance with me. Half across the carpet, Paddy Murphy took me from her and spun to the wall. His wife Peggy relieved him. She put me in burp position, high on her shoulder, so I could see the four corners of the room as we twirled. Children in conical party hats came onto the carpet and danced like chickens walking on hot coals. Peggy sang as she moved. I couldn’t see the words she sang as she held me hard and close, but I felt them rise like waves from her chest. I danced this sea of words with everyone that day, and everyone sang a marrow song, even Father, to the shivering notes off Cassidy’s fingers.
    The hours passed. Cassidy’s voice grew raspy, and his face was in desperate need of the bottom of his iced whiskey tumbler. When finally he put down his guitar, he held his left hand—the one that had dutifully fretted the strings without reprieve—in a tight claw. Paddy Murphy poured him a stiff one from the bottle on the table. Cassidy hoisted it in his right hand and drank it down in five gulps, each swallow accompanied by the miraculous incremental opening of the frozen hand. People clapped.
    You really don’t need thumbs to play guitar. Or clap. And four fingers of whiskey is plenty for me.
    *
    The more I watch the Assembler’s tapes of my life, the more I see my purpose. Cassidy, set free of the bonds of his sorrow by his love for me. My imperfection the key to his heart, my missing bones somehow whittled by the Assembler to fit precisely into the hole of his loss. Thumbs that are keys, bones that heal, give life, give love. Yes, I really begin to see now*. Cassidy unties my bonds with his hands, I unlock his heart with mine. My life, a life of purpose and intent to liberate the captive from the prison of his sorrow. Isaiah. The Assembler makes of my life Isaiah. I see it now*. But the films continue.
    The night of my baptism, Mother developed the