The Hand of a Grandchild

The Hand of a Grandchild

by Kelli Norris

“Scratch my back,” she whined, bending horizontally at the waist in front of her husband.

Jim looked at her rotund ass with disgust, and wondered how long he could get away with ignoring her. The answer was not long, but he would wait for now; let her suffer. He hated his wife with a passion and the thought of touching her made his skin crawl. I wouldn’t have married the fat bitch if I had known she was going to live this long, he thought. I don’t care if she does have more money than God. It’s not worth it.

He remembered a year ago when he was just the handsome but compassionate nurse -- how fragile and near death she appeared to him. He knew most patients with her heart condition alone didn’t live to age thirty (she was already fifty-five); add to that the high blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and you would think she would just give up at some point. Everyday he expected her to die. The most he could hope for if she knocked off then was a pittance left for him in her will. Now that she was Mrs. Laura Greathouse and he had cried insult at a prenuptial agreement; he would get everything.

“Please…,” she begged, bouncing up and down, her gelatinous buttocks shaking in frustration.

Jim fought back the urge to bash her head in with the antique crystal lamp on the coffee table, but the thought did bring a smile to his face. Laura looked back at his dark blue eyes, jet black hair, tanned face and immediately returned the smile. Her hazel eyes sparkled as she watched him shake his head and sigh. He felt repugnant thinking how much she looked like a cow waiting to be milked. Setting his book on the table he stood up, unable to put off the inevitable any longer.

He leaned forward, placing one hand on each of her shoulder blades above her shirt giving her a half-hearted run down the length of her back with his superbly manicured nails. Intending to repeat this procedure no more than two times, he positioned his hands for another run but was interrupted mid-range.

“Under my shirt please.” She squirmed. “And harder.”

Jim gritted his teeth and did as she requested, running his nails down her bare back. He resisted the urge to gag as he felt the oily skin-scum from her lotion accumulate under his nails. She rocked back and forth and side to side ineffectively trying to guide his scratching. She is going to start mooing now and I may kill her, he thought.

“Oooh baby, that feels so goooood,” she moaned. “Thank you sooo much.” She stretched leisurely to her full five feet and turned to take his hands in hers. She kissed them softly then wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him with all her might. The artificial strawberry smell of her shampoo enveloped him like a cloud. “I love you so much,” she cooed. “How about we go to Santa Cruz today? You can pick up that scuba gear you have your eye on and I can peruse the new age shops for something mystical.”

He disengaged from her embrace and used the eight hundred dollar Damascus pen knife she had bought him to clean his nails while he considered her plan. It’s true he did want that set of tanks but more importantly he wanted her dead. Maybe the physical exertion of cruising up the boardwalk would throw her into that long awaited cardiac arrest he had been dreaming of the last twelve months. Especially if you take into consideration he had been switching her potassium tablets with sugar pills.

“Sure babe that sounds like a great idea.” He smiled.

#

Jim found this store only slightly less irritating than the others. It had an Asian motif as opposed to the tie-dye, hippy motif of the last three. He took a deep breath and was surprised by the sweet smell of real cherry blossoms coming from the miniature trees. He walked the store feigning interest in the selection of herbal teas and tabletop garden features. Honestly, if you’ve seen one oriental fountain you’ve seen them all.

His real interest was his blissfully happy and still breathing wife. He thought she looked ridiculous in her peasant dress and shawl with her waist length red hair that was more grey than red. Who does she think she is, Stevie-fucking-Nicks? He threw mental daggers at her as she hobbled around the shop smelling the incense and fingering the Reiki stones. Wait a minute. When she stopped for a moment by the Bonsai trees he thought he noticed her face looked flushed.

He watched, hyper vigilant as a shark sensing blood. Her face was red and she was breathing hard. She leaned on a glass case to look at something but Jim could tell she was trying to catch her breath. This was good. Now all he had to do was keep her excited, not let her rest and sit back while nature took its course.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and was still startled to see a tall Japanese woman now talking to his wife.

“Konichiwa, may I help you?”

Laura appeared as startled by the woman’s presence as Jim had been but recovered quickly with an idiotic smile.

“Tell me about that,” she said, pointing to something in the case.

“Ah…,” said the lady, opening the case and handing his wife the item. “This is a magonote.”

Jim walked over to the women out of curiosity. Laura was holding a long white stick that was flat on one end and shaped like a left-hand on the other. The fingers of the hand wore jewel encrusted gold rings. There was Japanese calligraphy carved into the handle. It looked very old and very expensive.

“A mag-… what?” Laura asked.

“Mago-no-te,” she explained. “In Japan magonote means “hand of a grandchild.” Here you call them uh… scratch, no um… back scratcher!”

Laura perked up but Jim could see beads of sweat forming on her forehead and around her hairline. Her chest heaved with rapid shallow breaths and there was color in her cheeks. She was excited and Jim wanted to keep her that way.

“What does this writing say?” he asked. He hoped the answer might thrill his wife to the point of escalating her symptoms even more.

“It is an old Japanese saying, ‘reaching the hand out to itchy back,’ it means to solve a small but um…disturbing problem.”

Laura laughed with delight making Jim want to strangle her right there in the store. Be cool man, don’t blow it now. He gave her his most charming “I love you” smile and put his arm around her waist in what he hoped passed for a loving embrace.

“I think it’s divine,” Laura replied. “How much is it?”

“Six hundred and seventy-five dollars…,”

Jim looked at the woman like a dog looking in a mirror. Laura stopped laughing and put the back scratcher on the counter as if it had burned her. She took a deep breath and started to speak but before she could Jim beat her to it.

“Six hundred and seventy-five dollars! It should be divine. For that price it better perform miracles not just solve small disturbing problems.”

The shop keeper ignored his outburst as if she hadn’t heard and handed the stick back to Laura before she continued. “This particular magonote is over two hundred years old and reported to have been owned by a Shinto priest. It is made of the finest ivory with almost a full carat of precious gems set in the real gold rings.”

“It really is lovely,” Laura mused.

Jim could see her adrenaline levels returning to normal once she resolved not to buy it. We can’t have that, he thought. We need to keep that old rusty heart pumping just as fast as it can.

“You know what baby?” He smiled. “If you like it that darn much you should buy it.”

Laura’s face brightened but she shook her head. “I shouldn’t Jim, that’s a lot of money for a trinket.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Laura. I just spent more than that on my scuba tanks. Are you trying to make me feel bad? Besides you need a back scratcher for when I’m not handy.” Turning to the merchant he said, “Wrap it up. We’ll take it.”

#

It was the best day of Jim’s life. Laura had died. Jim was rich. And there were not one… not two… but three naked whores in his bed. He grabbed the bottle of champagne from the bucket and killed it with relish. A whore, he thought it was number three but it could have been number one, held her hand out for something -- probably a drink -- while keeping her head buried beneath her pillow. Jim gave her fingers a painful twist and slapped her hard on the bare ass for good measure.

“Fuck you!” the whore cried, burrowing deeper into the bedding.

Aaah, itchy! He scratched his head vigorously, then his neck, working his way down his back and eventually ending with a nice satisfying scrotum rub. Clack… scr-iiiiii-tch… What the hell? Jim sat up scanning the room for the source of the sound. He leaned over the bed and searched the floor for any sign of a disturbance but found nothing. Clack… scri-iiiiii-tch... He jumped out of bed throwing off the covers and disturbing the prostitutes.

“Did you hear that?” he demanded, scratching his ear, then his nose.

“W-what…,” she asked rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t….”

“Shut up bitch! Listen.” He paused, tearing at his arm with his nails.

All three women listened intently for some time before breaking the silence. This time it was the red-head that spoke up.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

Jim’s blood boiled and his face grew bright red. He grabbed “Red” by the shoulders and threw her from the bed to the floor. Then he shoved “Blondie” and “the other one” out of bed right behind her.

“Get out, you worthless whores! I‘m done and the party is over.”

The three women rose slowly, rubbing various parts of their bruised anatomies and gathering up their possessions. Red picked up a brassiere, examined it a second and handed it to the other one who slipped it on without ceremony.

“What about our money?” Blondie whined.

Jim snatched a money clip from off the dresser and threw a handful of hundreds on the floor in front of them. The women scrambled to scoop up the bills; cash took priority over clothes.

“Now get out,” he reiterated.

He watched them dress and walk out the door in unison. He dug his nails deep into his itching flesh. Clack… scr-iiiiii-tch…

Goddamn it! What is this itching? Then he saw it, there on the floor by the dresser. Yes!
With a crazed smile he picked up the little ivory hand. Now he could take care of this itch once and for all.

#

Detective Frank Hardison pulled a notebook out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket and scribbled down the date and time on a blank a page. Frank was old school when it came to taking notes and collecting data. He knew he could save time and increase efficiency if he would invest in one of those new smartphones but he liked writing things down. He remembered them better that way, plus his hand writing had the added bonus of auto-encryption since no one else on the planet was capable of reading his writing.

When he entered the bedroom, his first thought was it looked like a scene out of one of those “Hell’s Razors” movies or whatever they’re called. It was the one where the guy laid down on this bed and the next thing you know all these razor chains shoot out of the mattress to wrap around him and fillet him alive. That’s what this place looked like; only this time instead of just a big bloody stain left on the mattress, the body was still there.

Frank walked over to Dan Macnamere. The coroner was elbow deep -- literally -- in his examination of the remains. Frank bent down to get a closer look. He instantly regretted it. The noxious fumes from the mixture of fresh blood, urine and feces sent his stomach into summersaults. He pulled the linen handkerchief from his breast pocket and covered his nose and mouth before further inspection.

He had been a detective for thirty-three years. He solved numerous murders not to mention his years investigating traffic accidents with the highway patrol. He saw people shot, stabbed, bludgeoned and hung; even saw a couple burned to a crisp. He saw one kid splattered along a quarter mile stretch of road. He helped scrape the kid's guts up with a shovel. But he had never, in all that time, seen anything like what he saw now.

There was not an inch of skin anywhere on this -- guy? Who could tell? The body looked like one of those transparent plastic dummies where all the muscles and organs are visible and can be removed but the veins and arteries are painted on; the ones they use to teach anatomy to med students. Except on this one the veins and arteries were still seeping blood. All the muscles and organs were wet and sticky with it; in fact everything was sticky with blood. He placed two gloved fingers lightly on what must have been an arm to see if it was still warm. The arm shifted position and Frank watched in horror as it fell, causing the liver and intestines to come sloshing out onto the bed.

“Don’t worry about those. I was going to remove them anyway.” Dan smiled.

"Thanks. What the hell happened to this poor bastard?” he asked.

The doctor was currently inspecting the corpse’s face using magnification goggles and a head-band light to study the fine details. Dan took a container from his bag. He used a pair of large tweezers to pluck what appeared to be a piece of burst eyeball from the hamburger that was now this person’s face. He placed it inside the jar before returning it to his bag.

“I need to get this back to my lab to perform a full autopsy before I can confirm anything, but off the top of my head I would say this man was scratched to death,” he said.

“Scratched to death? How the hell can that be?” Frank asked in disbelief.

“I’m not really sure, Frank. It must have taken days, maybe longer. Honestly, I have never seen anything like it.”

"What's that thing in his hand?" Frank asked.

"It looks like a back scratcher."


(2491 words)