The Bills’ quarterback launches a long one. Clarence’s eyes lift, burning with faith, reflecting the neon pink crucifix above the TV. He looks to the left, there hangs his framed service cross. He looks to the right, there hangs a photo of his beloved late wife, Jasmine. He looks above them all. “USELESS” is scrawled in somebody’s shit, probably his own.
The ball sails over the wide receiver. Clarence’s robotic left arm jerks, knocking his beer off the side table.
“Damn it.”

Well, it’s not really beer, it’s distilled water in a beer can so old it’s a historical object. Football, beer, and a wife. All from a time the world made sense.

The door buzzes.

“One minute,” Clarence calls out, unsure who this might be.

He rubs the lazyboy with affection and prepares a deep breath. Much of his left side, including his arm and leg, is now soil in Texas, having been blown off by a separatist’s shell. One day, maybe not long from now, his right side will return to the soil too, here in Buffalo.

His robotic side, on the other hand, will be taken apart and re-used for someone else. Sometimes, for fun, or when he feels the arm or leg getting a bit sluggish, he disassembles them, cleans and oils them, and reassembles them. The parts are modular, easy to connect and replace. He can even make minor repairs. The leg is easy, with two free hands, but he can do the arm too. The long fingers of his flesh hand are as agile and steady as they were back in the day.

Technicians visit to check and replace his parts, but not so often now. One showed up yesterday. Or was it last week. A new fellow. He was skilled and focused, with no small talk. He replaced the hydraulic pumps and pistons, tested and cleaned the circuitry. “Good luck,” he’d said with a mysterious finality, standing and inspecting his work.

Maybe they’re giving up on Clarence, but the new parts feel great. It will take time to recalibrate his 92-year-old flesh side with his refreshed robotic side. After the game he’ll do some pilates.

The door buzzes again, longer.

Rising from the chair, Clarence struggles to balance his sides, falters, and recovers. “Coming,” he shouts, pressing stop on the old VCR unit, shutting up the yammering commentators.

Clarence opens the door. There’s a young woman, maybe 60, wearing scrubs, a nurse badge, and a respirator.

“Doctor,” she says, “I need help with my twins.”

“Ah yes, hello. How are you?” He has no idea who this woman is.

“Wounded are coming in from the front,” she says. “It’s bad. I need to get to the hospital.”

Clarence turns his head slightly to better hear her through her respirator. He keeps an officer’s poise.

“Please can you help out,” she says.

It doesn’t sound like a question, but she has charming eyes. Here’s a nurse and she’s asking for help rather than doing something to him. He must be doing well today.

“Why yes, of course, well the game is on …” As charming as this woman seems, Clarence wants to clean up that spilled beer … err water, grab another from the fridge, and get back to the game.

“Game? … Oh, a recording,” she says.

“Um.” Clarence mumbles. Is it live or a recording?

“The twins need their pleasure therapy today,” she says. “For their anxiety. It’s urgent.”

Clarence has no idea what pleasure therapy is, but it feels so fresh to be needed. “Okay, what do I do?”

“They’ve been doing so well. We just had their fortieth. They’ll tell you how to do it. Here’s the fob.” She pushes an object into Clarence’s flesh hand.

“Thank you so much,” she says. The “so” is lengthened and infused with emotion. A hard drop on the “much” emphasizes the finality of the sentence.

She turns and sails down the hall to the exit.

“No problem,” Clarence calls after her.

She raises a hand to say thanks as she pushes out through the door.

Back inside his unit, Clarence holds the object up to the light of the crucifix. It’s an oblong polished steel egg flattened in one dimension, probably for ease of pocket carry. There are no numbers or markings on its surface.

“A key just like ours. They must be nearby.” She’s been gone for years, but Clarence still talks to Jasmine.

Having put on his shoe, Clarence stands in the hall in front of the first of the candidate units. There are four units on this floor. Are there other floors? He places the key to the reader. He’d used this trick before to find his own unit. No click. Jerking down the hall to the next door, he repeats the action. It clicks. He opens the door. A chime sounds through the unit announcing his arrival.

“Hello, Uncle Clarence,” calls a voice from down the hallway.

“Hello, Uncle Clarence,” calls a second voice.

Clarence doesn’t recognize the voices, but an officer must be polite.

“Hello there dears,” he calls back.

He works his way down the dim hallway toward the greetings and squints into the room. It’s lit aggressively by institutional lighting. Why don’t homes have windows anymore? The walls are white. There’s an array of medical equipment, a shelving unit with organized bins, and two surgical beds, with a body on each. These must be the twins. Above them, a banner hangs: “Happy 40th Left and Right.”

“Wow, forty. But you’ve got a ways to catch me,” Clarence jokes.

“We need the pleasure,” the one on the left says.

It’s missing its legs and its right arm. Clarence steps closer.



* * *
Clarence remembers Texas.

Broken and burned bodies are screaming. The floor is so slippery with blood the staff cannot rush, and move cautiously between stations. Shells pound ground, moving closer. Everything shakes. Clarence doesn’t flinch.

The interruptions are irrelevant. His hands are steady. There is nothing but the sawing, closer and closer to the kid’s bone.

The kid is a wounded soldier of 14. Five years ago, Clarence would have been morally troubled, now he helps enlist them into the “volunteer accelerated specialist corps.” The name helps everyone do their moral laundry. There’s nothing voluntary about it and the only specialization is an acceleration toward slaughter. In every time, in every culture, when the community’s existence is at stake our bodies are no longer our own. But Clarence is a surgeon not a political philosopher.

The air moves in a surprising way. Clarence turns to his nurse and sees her head is gone. I don’t think we can fix that, he thinks, and that’s the last he remembers.

Clarence comes to days later, evacuated northwards. He’s wrapped in bandages and covered in blankets lying on a thin mattress on the floor of a high school gym. He pulls the blankets off with his right arm. His left leg is gone, up to the hip. His left arm is gone, up to the shoulder.

He watches a small TV through a fog of morphine. Reports come in about Jacksonville and Houston. The two cities have been vaporized by Washington using retargeted Minuteman III nukes launched from North Dakota.

The President is on TV talking freedom and equality and “arc of history.” He says all the death and destruction is justified. He says it’s necessary, that this is the end, that there will be no more. He says Washington has secure control of the divided nation’s nuclear weapons. That will turn out to be incorrect, of course.



* * *
So long ago.

“Hurry up. The anxiety is coming. We need the pleasure.”

Clarence respects the work done on this body. His own scars are nowhere near this clean. Maybe the world is getting better.

Between the body’s hip scars, in the space usually occupied by genitalia, is something that resembles a fleshy petaled flower. Layers of labia spiral out from an opening. Above them, where a clitoris or penis might be is something half-way between. It’s hard to tell if it’s a large clitoris or a small penis. Below the labia complex is a much more pedestrian anus.

The second body is a mirror image of the first, missing both legs and its left arm, with a similar sexual structure between its hip scars.

Both bodies are naked except for fresh bandages crisscrossing their torsos. The amputations were done some time ago, at least six months, and healed well. These bandages are from a much more recent procedure.

The closer body, the one on the left, notices Clarence examining it.

“Mommy gave us the pain therapy yesterday,” it says. “The cutting.”

“The amputations helped our anxiety so much,” the one on the right says, “but Mommy won’t let us do both arms.”

“Boo. Yes, we need one hand so we can masturbate. But we get more cutting now. It helps.”

“And the meds.”

“Kids, it’s so nice to see you again. But I’m sorry, can you remind me your names.”

“I’m Right,” says the one on the right.

That makes sense, though it is not on the right from its own perspective.

“And I’m Left,” says the one on the left.

“Of course. Forgive me.”

The two could hold hands across the gap between their beds. The names do make sense, each is named for its remaining arm.

“Now dears, I’ve been a doctor for many years, but I’m not sure about this therapy. Your mom says you can help me.”

“We alternate days. Pain yesterday and pleasure today. The tools are over there.” Left points to a bin on a shelf. “They’re clean.”

“You first today.” Right points at Left.
Clarence lumbers to the shelving unit. Pulling out a box, it contains objects in a variety of colors and patterns, all a kind of rubbery plastic, many long and shaped like a penis. Jasmine liked this one, he holds up a butt plug decorated with an open-armed Christ and the text “Jesus Saves.”

“It’s easy,” Left says. “Just massage my skin and once I get warmed up work on my nipples, cock, and pussy.”

“And don’t forget its ass. It likes that.” Right snickers.

“Kids, it’s great you and your mom are keeping our values alive.”

“Yeah,” says Left. “Mommy says if we can’t then what are we fighting for.”

“Oh, oh, don’t forget,” says Right, “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.”

The two cackle.

“Wait, wait,” says Left and they both quiet.

He punches out a big fart. They resume cackling.

“Okay kids, let’s settle down.”

They settle down. Clarence pulls a stool over to Left and begins massaging its torso. The skin between bandages is pale pink and networked with fine red scars from earlier cuttings. They were carefully done, healed well, and are only visible close.

“Use both hands please.”

“I’m sorry my other hand is robotic.”

Clarence has always found the artificial skins clumsy, he prefers the raw metal.

“That’s okay, just try.”

With his robotic hand, Clarence brushes its nipples as gently as he can.

“Use your tongue too. Do my anus first, then my pussy and cock.”

Clarence knows of the great progress for liberation and choice, freeing all from the unfair dogma of biology. But he doesn’t have much experience with these new biologies. Jasmine had been old-fashioned, discreetly of course, because being too old-fashioned is dangerous. He lubes up the “Jesus Saves” butt plug and pushes it into the anus. He massages the torso with his robotic hand, gently. He licks the labia flower counterclockwise. He rubs the penis-clitoris structure with his flesh hand. He contemplates how to do the vagina, if that’s what you’d call it—the hole at the center of the flower. This is all a lot of work, and tiring.

“It’s not right. I don’t feel the pleasure,” says Left.

The vagina belches pungent air. Clarence surges with resolve to bring it into the stimulation mix. He lubes and inserts a few flesh fingers. The flower complex throbs and sucks, pulling in more fingers and soon his whole hand is in up to the wrist. Is it working? Left is wheezing like an unoiled joint.

“It’s not right,” whimpers Left. “I need Mommy.”

“Get Mommy,” barks Right. “She knows how to do it.”

“Mommy,” howls Left.

The room can’t hold much sound. Clarence falls off the stool and back against the shelves. His hand exits the flower with a wet sucking sound. Bins and items cascade to the floor.

“Stop it, just stop,” Right snaps at Clarence. Left is crying.

Clarence struggles up and turns away from the twins. “I’m sorry,” he says, not looking back. He shuffles from the room and down the hallway.

“Useless old tool,” Right calls after him.

Outside the unit, in the hall, the twins can be heard wailing and shouting, muffled by the door. Clarence leans against the wall, breathing heavily.

“Useless.” He hammers his palm against his forehead. “Useless.” If he’d used his robotic arm, he would have crushed his skull.

I need a beer, he thinks, some fresh air. There’s a 7-11 close by. He heads to the exit the nurse used. Through that door, his motion triggers lights flickering on up a flight of stairs. At the top there’s a steel cellar door with rubber sealing. He cranks a handle and pushes. It’s locked. There’s a button on the wall. He presses and the lock clicks disengaged. The door is too heavy for a 92-year-old, but he can feel the power in his new components. If only flesh could be so renewed. He moves in close, crouches, sets his robotic foot firmly on a step, platforms his robotic hand up on the door, and explodes open.

The door screams up and clangs out. Clarence steps into a dusty orange afternoon. His eyes sting and the air catches in his throat. It’s bitter, even acidic to taste. He’s standing in the shaded corner of a parking lot overrun by weeds and small trees. There, on the other side of the lot, through the scrub, is the 7-11, its sign long gone.

After pushing through the weeds Clarence rests on the sidewalk in front of the 7-11. Its door and windows had been blown out or harvested. Artillery rumbles in the distance. Armored vehicles roll up the road. The last slows and stops in front of Clarence. The motor quiets a bit to neutral, but keeps growling.

A PA system crackles, “Go to ground old man. Area’s hot.”

Clarence can’t see anyone through the heavy armor and tiny windows. He waves and thumbs up then catches himself and salutes. The vehicle groans into gear and moves along to catch its caravan, fading over the hill.

Shells pound ground, not too far away. Then all is still.

Clarence shuffles into the 7-11. The counter is bare. Empty shelves are pushed out of place. There’s probably no beer here. Then a brief mechanical whining sound surprises him. It hadn’t come from his own machinery. It sounded like a broken hydraulic pump. He freezes and holds his breath, listening. Something, maybe a person or an animal, is breathing behind the counter.

A useless old tool has nothing to lose. Clarence peers over the counter, meeting the terrified stare of a kid, at most 16. He’s dirty and wearing tattered camouflage. A crucifix hangs from his neck and a rifle lies at his feet. Both his arms are robotic, and they’re severely damaged, probably inoperative.

Clarence knows a dirty Texan when he sees one.

“The Dallas Cowboys suck ass,” Clarence says.

The kid tries to move. His arms whine and pop, their dead weight keep him pinned down.

“Lose your unit?” Clarence asks.

“Fuck off, Yankee.”

The kid isn’t even wearing a mask. Amazing how the young ones fearlessly breathe this disgusting air.

“Sorry, no hablo espagnol,” Clarence replies.

Silence. Clarence laughs. The air burns his throat.

The kid laughs then cries. “Please.”

“We did better to you than you did to me.” Clarence motions at the kid’s arms. “At least you’re symmetrical.”

Clarence rounds the counter and sits down beside the kid. A nasty smell hits him. The kid has shit himself.

The hydraulic pumps on both robotic arms have been smashed. It shouldn’t be hard to fix. “Let’s see if my Yankee parts work on a dirty Texan. I’m going to fix you up. No funny moves.”

Clarence carefully removes the broken hydraulic pumps from the kid’s arms. Then he removes the pump from his own leg, rendering his leg inoperative. He won’t be able to stand up. He doesn’t care. He removes the broken pump from the kid’s right arm and replaces it with his working pump, tightening the wing-nuts then attaching the nozzles and power. The arm wheezes and jerks to life.

The kid could kill Clarence with one movement.

Clarence turns to the kid’s left arm. This one is harder because he must harvest the pump from his own robotic arm, rendering that arm inoperative, and leaving him with only his flesh arm to work with. But he has practice. Finished, the left arm jerks awake. The kid stands, tall and strong, towering over Clarence who’s now slouched on the floor, with the robotic half of his body nothing but dead weight.

Clarence smiles up at him. “Looking good.”

The kid takes the crucifix from his neck and puts it around Clarence’s.

“Thank you, old man,” he says.

“God bless you,” Clarence replies.

The kid picks up his rifle, turns and walks out the back of the 7-11.

Clarence stretches out, pressing against his dead metal side, heavy and inert on the floor. He wheezes, coughs, and struggles for air. Feeling satisfied for a moment, he sighs and stares into the darkness under the counter. There, among the dust, rests a lone can. Clarence can barely reach it. It’s dirty but looks silver. Please don’t let this be a Diet Coke. He smudges away the dirt. Wow, it’s a Coors Light. He cracks the can open and doesn’t even sniff it, gulping it down.

“Oh yeah,” he says.

Shells pound ground, even closer now.

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