The Inheritors

Once a month, the dining center at the Bodhitree Retirement Community offers exotic meat Mondays. Octopus tacos. Rattlesnake kabobs. Even kangaroo burgers. Formerly a ghost town, the recently converted community resides on forty-four square miles of pristine desert just outside of Kanab. It is the number four facility in the state of Utah, preferred three-to-one by citizens of advanced age. Mr. Meh-Teh avoids exotic meat Mondays. There is nothing puritanical about it. It is simply that Mr. Meh-Teh is a Yeti and seeing so many residents shoveling exotic meats down their throats makes him a little uncomfortable.

#

Mr. Meh-Teh stands outside the recreation center. He stares at his hand opening and closing, the greyed, slightly purplish grooves in his palm wrinkling. He has hairy knuckles. The door handle is smudged with fingerprints. Mr. Meh-Teh, the Yeti, last known of his kind, has opposable thumbs. He has often wondered about them. Did they just appear one morning on the hands of a distant relative? Or was it a work-in-progress, these strange thumbs which slowly twisted into position? He moves the thumb around and around in a circular motion as he feels the ligaments and muscles tighten and slack. This too is strange: that something so evolved as a thumb moves in circles. Sometimes he would throw snowballs at the Pangboche monks during their meditations, hoping to rattle them out of wherever they were projecting their consciousness. He knows how to use his hands. But he hesitates with the door. He wants to go inside but he also does not want to be inside. Two gentlemen brush past him. It’s a door, dumbass, one man grunts. He’s bald and wears a plaid shirt tucked into pleated khakis. His friend sneers at the Yeti. Yeah, he’s quick as a glacier, the man laughs as the two walk away. The Yeti knows he’s not as sharp as he once was. His hairs have turned from white to grey. His testicles droop. His teeth are dulled. The arthritis in his big toe makes it difficult to walk and gives him bad posture. The Yeti ignores the men, hiding behind the perception he has a rudimentary vocabulary. He doesn’t want trouble. His visa is stamped RESIDENT ALIEN and he fears deportation. He could go ape on them. Beat his chest. Snarl. Fling shit. He remembers listening to stories of how his ancestors preyed on Homo erectus. Shit-sniffers, they were called. The Yeti is not docile by nature. A hundred thousand years of evolution cannot be unlearned in a lifetime, but the Yeti remembers the meditation practices he discovered spying on the Pangboche monks. He relaxes his jaw, breathes deeply, and imagines snow-scraped mountains.

#

Tonight is therapy in the Dharma room. The Yeti is the reluctant star of therapy. Non-compulsory attendance has doubled since he arrived. They come for him, for the carnival sideshow. It doesn’t matter that the Yeti uses the appropriate utensils during meals, knows the best wine pairing for stewed lamb is a Languedoc red, and can recite from memory the aphorisms of Benjamin Franklin. They come to see if the Yeti is a missing evolutionary link or some terrible lab experiment. The Yeti used to believe solitude was a punishment before being forced into retirement. Exile. Retirement. Is there a difference? the Yeti wonders. He has since learned company is its own kind of misery. He longs for privacy. He longs for a mountain of snow with nothing but his footprints following him. It’s exhausting having to live up to a mythology he never asked for. Confessions are mild tonight. Mrs. Jones admits to being a nymphomaniac and requests an orgy with the men in Unit C. Mr. Bishop wants to change his DNR policy again. Mrs. Herschel insists the orderlies are videotaping her in the shower and posting it on the web tube. There are the usual complaints of negligent children and lousy mattresses. There is a stipulation in the Yeti’s visa that requires his participation in therapy. Failure to do so may or may not result in additional deportations and rehabilitative assignments. The Yeti has often thought about violating the terms of his visa. After hundreds of years of solitude he has no interest in retirement, which is just a different kind of ice age. Don’t tell them anything, the Yeti remembers Maggie Livingston whispered during his first week in therapy. Maggie had frazzled grey hair that at one time suggested she had been every young boy’s fantasy. Now it was just sad and she seemed aware of this. Why not? the Yeti asked. It’s a death panel. Don’t you know? That’s what these places are—a cemetery for the living, she said. Maggie died two weeks after the Yeti arrived. She was eighty-two.

#

After therapy there are arts and crafts. Today is animal hide fabric day. Everyone gets a few pieces of leather. The men make wallets. One old bird named Mavis stitches a mask with slits for eyeholes and a zipper for the mouth. She presses it into the Yeti’s hand. Come to my dorm and see the rest of it, Mavis whispers, sticking out her well-endowed chest. Unit D. Mavis has thirty-eight grandchildren. They visit infrequently. Her husband was a drunk and she has offered to marry the Yeti in a Mormon ritual so they can ascend to the third heaven and have little Yeti babies in the afterlife. The Yeti stands in the doorway and uses oversized hands to zip and unzip the zipper, unsure why anybody would need a zipper for a mouth.

#

There are Mormons making arts and crafts. Two sunburnt twenty-somethings in dress slacks and ties like used car salesmen, both mysteriously answering to the name Elder. A fat one and a skinny one. They call themselves missionaries. They’re here every week, supposedly to volunteer, but all they really do is eat free desserts and try to save the Yeti’s soul. Until the missionaries told him he had one the Yeti never considered a soul was good for much of anything. The skinny missionary told the Yeti he had an old soul. You’re Cain, brother Meh-Teh, the skinny missionary said. Apparently, a long time ago the Yeti killed his brother and was cursed to walk the earth forever. Now the Mormon god had sent these sunburnt boys to save him. This surprised the Yeti. Not that God was looking for him, but that everyone has an explanation for him except himself. He wants to believe there might be something divine about these clueless boys. He wants to believe the skinny one who says the Yeti needs a special Mormon bath, a baptism, if he is to receive his celestial inheritance. Don’t roll the dice with Buddhism, the skinny one tells the Yeti while taking a bite of his doughnut, because with reincarnation you might come back a silk worm. Or worse, he leans in and whispers, a Catholic.

#

Nobody can pronounce the Yeti’s name. Meh-Teh, the Yeti says. Oh, you worked for the Maytag company? Mrs. Jones says, trying to stitch together the leather. Wonderful washing machines. She leans forward. I’ll tell you what I told the bishop’s wife but never the bishop. When my husband was away on business trips, she says, I used to sit naked on our washing machine during the spin cycle. Her eyes get wide. Smooths all the wrinkles, she winks. Meh-Teh, the Yeti says. Mai tais taste like shit, a man with oxygen tubes inserted in his nostrils says. He leans back from his puzzle and folds his arms across his chest. Real men drink bourbon, he says, no ice. The Yeti misses ice. His favorite thing now is to take an ice cube from the freezer and stand on the patio in this awful desert. He likes the feeling of the melting ice, each hexagonal crystal dissolving as it collapses on its neighbor. It takes only a few minutes. He used to loathe the snow. Snow in your fur, between your toes, freezing your lips and numbing your balls. Now to watch the ice dissolve makes the Yeti homesick. He used to sit in the Himalayas and watch the glaciers melt in a slow, steady drip. Other times the ice thickened in monstrous waves. He listened to the glaciers move. They made a curious sound, like notes of a piano out of tune. Sometimes the Yeti spends all night melting ice from the freezer. He closes his eyes and dreams he is somewhere else awaiting the next great Ice Age, trying to fall in sync with the music of glaciers.

#

In an adjoining room there is a subcommittee session for those involved in the constipation protest. Dr. Wambaugh has been discouraging it for weeks. Dr. Wambaugh is the director. She arranged for the Yeti’s relocation and insists the Bodhitree Retirement Community is a respectable facility and not a circus sideshow. Dr. Wambaugh wears cream-colored slacks and a lab coat. Her hair is pinned up and reveals the back of her neck, smooth like the inside of an olive. Enthusiasm for the constipation rally is waning. A few banners have been made. But the participants are tired. Mr. McEwen says he shit last night after four days of resistance. Mrs. Snodgrass caved this morning. Even the more militant residents—men like Lenny Bagwell, a retired electrician from Murfreesboro, Tennessee—speak with weary fanaticism. Someday we’ll shit like we used to, the way God intended us, he tells the rest of the group, tugging at the elastic band on his regulation diaper. Everyone wears them. The constipators have tried to recruit the Yeti to their cause. Aren’t ya a Buddhist? Isn’t non-violent aggression what you people do? someone asks. The Yeti looks away. He does not fully understand these human animals. They seek validation for every little thing. Everybody knows the Yeti does not wear the regulation diapers. Everybody knows he refuses to use the toilet and, after curfew, takes a walk into the desert when he wants a constitutional. He will not compromise this instinct. If he does, the Yeti believes, then he will have to own this life. Dr. Wambaugh assures the constipators the Yeti has no interest in their childish displays. Isn’t that right, Mr. Meh-Teh? she smiles. The Yeti mumbles. He is confident this is the way America will end: not with a bomb, but with a group therapy circle.

#

In the rec room the Yeti watches a documentary on yetis. There is footage of footprints in the snow and blizzards with blurry shapes followed by high-pitched cries. The more footage he sees the less he believes he exists. The Yeti knows he exists but would like to know he exists. The Yeti takes a Xanax.

#

Can we pray with you before leaving, brother Meh-Teh? the skinny missionary asks. The Yeti shrugs. The skinny missionary bows his head. Thank you, father in heaven, for the moisture we have received. Please send us more. More importantly, please water the faith of our lost brother, Mr. Meh-Teh, wandering the wilderness of doubt. Help him know he’s not alone. The Yeti does not understand Mormon prayers. The Pangboche monks took vows of silence. Words were a sickness. They listened. To the breeze, the water, the earth. To nothing. They tried to harmonize themselves with the world around them. But the Mormon god wants his people to stick out like a sore, opposable thumb. As far as the Yeti can tell, the Mormon god is a bearded cosmonaut floating on an interstellar harem who demands a one year supply of potato pearls and sends his angels to repair flat tires for stranded motorists. There is something beautiful about a god who listens to his creations. There is something beautiful about a god who demands worship of the invisible. There is something frightening too.

#

The Yeti is folding his laundry when the women walk into the room. No, no, they say, you’ve done it all wrong again. See the wrinkles here? That will never do. Take these off, honey, they say, tugging at his trousers. The Yeti stands in the laundry room in his undergarments and lets the women paw him. Meh-Teh, the Yeti tries to protest, indicating with his hands he has this under control. People always expect a yeti to look like a mongoloid ape, but the Yeti is more complicated than that. He is hairy and unkempt and misshapen, but his hands and face are strangely familiar. His palms especially are soft and forgiving. While one of the women irons his shirts three others groom him. They oil scissors and comb the tangles in his fur. They apply conditioners. They pick out burs and lice and ticks, squishing the creatures between their fingers. The Yeti prefers to squish the lice between his fingertips but preserve the ticks. He is not sure why. Perhaps there is something admirable about a species that can disembody and still survive. Mavis trims the fur around his navel. Her shirt is low cut and the Yeti can see the shaded furrow between her heavy breasts. It is a primal pose. The Yeti has often wondered what Mavis expects of him. He is a foreigner, displays an uncertain biological condition, and he may or may not be thousands of years old—the aging process for yetis is different than humans—but he showers daily, keeps his nails filed, polishes his teeth and scents his fur. He has visited the Bodhitree Community library and read The Joy of Sex. He knows precisely what to do with Mavis. The first month after his arrival he seldom left his dormitory, preferring to watch late-night infomercials and order cosmetic products on clearance from QVC. He still has a tube of NoWangAway warming ointment made in China. Unused, sadly. But despite a few thousand years of instinct he is not exactly sure what to do with a woman with thick-rimmed glasses and a Southwestern accent. The entourage of women is chatty. They remind him of the sanitation crew that deloused him after he was discovered in a Himalayan cave. The Yeti was performing his afternoon mantras when a heavy-set man with a clipboard strolled inside. He was a geologist from an oil and gas company prospecting for hydrocarbons. When the Yeti stepped out from the shadows with his animal pizzle dangling between his legs the geologist’s face twisted with horror and fascination. Who the hell are you? the geologist demanded. Meh-Teh, the Yeti said. The Yeti spent the night in a Nepalese detainment cell. They placed him under twenty-four hour surveillance because they suspected he was not toilet trained. Three days later a government committee designated the Yeti for rehabilitation. They signed the paperwork and put him on the first plane to Utah, assuring him how lucky he was to live the American dream. Still too many wrinkles, one of the women says, tugging at the Yeti’s trousers. Take them off again, she says. Slowly, the Yeti unbuckles his belt, trying not to think too deeply about why clothes feel like a monstrous costume. The women lather their hands with shaving cream and apply it to his chest. The Yeti does not protest this humiliation. He does not howl and beat his chest and say fuck this shit, I’m the Yeti. He loves the touch of their hands. But their fingers make him burn hot with shame. Once shaved, his skin is soft and pinkish, like a newborn infant.

#

At 10:00 P.M. sharp the lights go out. Orderlies patrol the halls to make sure nobody wanders. Protocol dictates twenty-four hours surveillance. For your peace of mind, the brochures say. Grown-up children taking a tour of the facility, eager to spend their inheritance, smile when they hear this and quickly sign the paperwork to enroll their parents. The facility is built on an old ghost town. There are seventeen domestic units, each with five floors, each floor with fourteen dormitories and a maze of hallways and stairwells and doorways exactly like the other. The Yeti does not like to sleep. He prefers wandering. If he falls asleep he might never wake up. He has seen it happen. The past smooths away like peanut butter spread over bread leaving a pile of crumbs waiting to be swept off the table. To distract the residents from the bread crumbs of their lives the facility provides neatly packaged activities advertised in the weekly catalog: Please join us for the bi-monthly Shuffle Board Tournament. Doubles and singles welcome. Equipment provided. Those with preexisting medical conditions must secure approval from Dr. Wambaugh. Death is advertised on invitation cards that arrive almost daily: Services held tomorrow. Shuttle available to and from the chapel. Light refreshments will be served.

#

The Yeti does not understand his own mind. Now that he is alone the Yeti feels terribly alone and faced with the same dilemma: he has never been happier and he has never been more miserable. He wishes he had spoken with one of the laundry ladies. Maybe held her hand in his, if only for a few seconds. If he concentrates, he can still feel their breath on him. It warms him. It makes him sick. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Euline. She’s the only one who hasn’t tried to convince the Yeti he must be baptized. She holds out an extra portion of dessert. I won’t tell if you won’t, Euline smiles. The Yeti, who knows very well what to do with Euline but is too afraid to come out from behind the door, shakes his head and offers a conciliatory wave of his hand. He prefers to be alone, he gestures. Lying in bed, the Yeti cannot understand why he said what he said. He opens the front door expecting to see Euline still waiting for him, but the hallway is empty. In the doorway are leftover crumbs from the clandestine dessert. The Yeti gathers them in his palm, haunted by their smallness.

#

The Yeti watches endless amounts of television. His first month he discovered advertisements for psychic hotlines. They spoke in riddles like Buddhist monks. Once the bill arrived his phone privileges were revoked. He has moved on to game shows and PBS documentaries. Tonight there is investigative reporting on the illegal gorilla trade in Uganda. There are interviews with activists and poachers. There are photographs of half-naked children sitting on a pyramid of gorilla carcasses. They are so small. In another photograph a village constructs a wall from bleached gorilla skulls. Villagers smile. Other bones are fashioned into utensils and fertilizers, sometimes grounded into powder and administered as an aphrodisiac. It is wondrous and terrifying, this television, the Yeti thinks. Anything can suddenly appear. Something beautiful. Something horrible. The Yeti wishes he were a psychic and knew what the television would tell him next. When he cannot watch any more the Yeti turns off the television and stands hunched in the living room. His neck has a knot from constantly bending over to avoid the light fixture. The architects did not consider the needs of a Yeti when crafting their designs and the Yeti has difficulty wedging himself through doorways, his feet often slipping on the slick tile. The Yeti enjoys the dark. All the images from the television fade away and it is quiet. In the darkness life slows down. He misses that slowness. There are too many cars, cables, highways, wires, invisible waves and other transmissions to keep track of these days. He stands in the darkness, unsure whether to close his eyes or open them. He turns the television back on so he doesn’t have to be alone, but the longer he watches the more alone he feels.

#

The Yeti prefers to defecate under the mesquite brush. He refuses to use the toilet. It is so unnatural. Tonight, the Yeti digs a bowl of dust at the roots. He does not relieve himself. He stands and admires the hollowed out earth. He would like to fling his shit, maybe howl, but feels ashamed at the thought of it. It is an odd routine, but it gives him inexplicable satisfaction to carry on the evolutionary urges. At night, the Utah desert is haunting. The wind howls and threatens to bury everything in dust. It is a reminder that one day soon the Yeti will be dust. Maybe, he thinks, he belongs here with the dust, even if he knows he can never belong anywhere. It was much easier in the Himalayas. He had snow. He had the Pangboche monks. Now there are Mormons and dust. Wandering over hills he thinks he sees his cousin, the Sasquatch. He waves. As he hurries closer his chest tightens with disappointment. It is only a juniper tree.At his deportation hearing the Yeti was promised valleys and streams and conjugal visits at the gorilla exhibit in a nearby zoo. He was promised something better than snow—snow cones. Sitting on a juniper branch, all desire slowly leaks out into the dust and is quickly buried in other dusts.

#

The Yeti waits in a parking lot watching the stars. There is a woman not far from here, the most famous woman in town, who was lying on her couch one evening when a meteorite crashed through her roof and hit her on the stomach. It left a bruise shaped like the Milky Way. The local Mormons said the meteor was from Kolob, the star where God lives with his wives. They took her photograph for the newspaper and interviewed her for television. Someone wrote a song about her. People came from a hundred miles away just to touch the bruise. The Yeti is wondering whether he too is a kind of meteorite when he sees the fat missionary on the other end of the parking lot. He’s barefoot. The tie dangles loosely around his neck. The Yeti wants to talk to him, but hunches down on the curb hoping to make himself another shadow. The missionary walks towards him. The Yeti gets a knot in his stomach. What will they talk about? Ask him what he’s doing this late at night, ask him why he’s not with his skinny friend because they always travel in pairs. Maybe the Yeti will ask to know more about himself. Jesus, the fat missionary says, you don’t look good. Want a cigarette? The Yeti shakes his head. The missionary asks if the Yeti is going to tell on him. The Yeti grunts, confused. Me and the other elder are never supposed to be out of each other’s sight, the missionary says. We’re never supposed to be alone. Can you imagine having someone always breathing down your neck? Never being alone? Jesus, the fat missionary says shaking his head. I like the stars. I like being alone with them, the missionary says. He presses on his temples like there is an ache. Have a smoke, he says. The Yeti gags when he first inhales. It tastes earthy and sour, almost like the leaves the Pangboche monks used to burn. Almost like home. Feel better? the missionary asks. The Yeti shakes his head. The two of them stare at the stars. Do you believe in God? the fat missionary asks. No, I guess you wouldn’t. Can’t blame you. Not easy believing in God if you’re looking in the mirror, friend. I wouldn’t if I were you. Fuck, look at you. Mirrors. God shouldn’t have created those either. I mean, what was he thinking? What kind of God makes something like you? A child with a chemistry set. If there’s you, well, then there must be mermaids and if there’s mermaids there are unicorns and thanks but no thanks. That’s one miracle too many. The fat missionary takes a long drag on the cigarette. You’ve got to have a lot of heart to create something like you, he says. Gods with big hearts scare the shit out of me, am I right? I bet you have a big heart. That’s the only way you’ve made it this far. You ever listen to your own heartbeat? Don’t. Trust me. Sometimes it’s like a clap of thunder and other times a pebble skipped on a lake. Thunder, that’s no big deal. But hiccups? Shit. You’re a hiccup of nature. Once I hiccupped for six months straight. Doctors didn’t know what was happening. I thought I was dying. Finally the bishop put his hands on my head to cast out the hiccups in the name of Jesus and you know what? He said amen and I hiccupped. That’s when I knew what I knew. I don’t believe any of it, you know, the missionary says. Gods, Mormons, a life after this one. Well, I believe it but I don’t believe it. I want to believe it, but I don’t want to believe it. Shit, he shakes his head. You know what I’m saying? I never asked for any of this, the missionary says. Nobody asked me. You’re just born with it. Who decides what you’re born with and what you get to believe? Not me. Well, I’m here to get away, the fat missionary says. He tells the Yeti his parents didn’t want him to be a missionary. They were afraid of what might happen if he was alone. They used to believe. They used to be in love and dance in the kitchen. Now the only time they are romantic is when they say fuck you in the hallway. I had to get away, the fat missionary says. You ever feel that way? Like you want to be far away from something but the farther you get the closer it is? God, I wish I could believe. Faith. Now that’s a small thing, smaller than a hiccup. It’s the small things that ruin you, friend. Trust me. Smiles. Ladybugs. Stars. My mother’s voice when she cries. Salmon eggs. Bubbles. A grain of sand. Shit. A prophet once said we should find heaven in a grain of sand. Can you believe it? Heaven? Probably as fucked up as this place. Who wants to inherit that eternity? Do you? Meh-Teh, the Yeti says.

#

Before returning to his dormitory the Yeti goes brings a bottle of aged bourbon to the gas station clerk. Most of the locals refuse to offer the Yeti services. They are of two minds. Either he is some idiot kid in an abominable snowman costume, or he is some pervert hipster who didn’t get the memo about shaving. Welcome home, the clerk says with a sly grin. The Yeti does not understand the American humor. He mumbles something about not being from here, his voice barely registering above a whisper. Shit, you could have fooled me, the clerk says. You look like all the rest singing in a Sunday pew. The Yeti sits on the curb. Already, he misses the fat missionary. He takes long swigs from the bottle. His throat burns. No wonder the human animals have twisted faces and are always yelling. He used to sit in the trees and watch the Pangboche monks distill raksi in large vats. When inebriated the monks would twist each other’s nipples to see who could endure the most pain. The Yeti longed to drink raksi and have his nipples twisted. Sometimes he will bring a bottle of liquor back to his dormitory and drink it in the dark while twisting his own nipple and chanting his mantras. When finished, the Yeti throws the bottle in a ditch. He wonders how long it will be before the desert erodes away and they uncover Atlantis. He cannot be the only one. In some other part of the country a mermaid must be working as a waitress in a sushi bar. It is lonely being the only freak. But the Yeti also wants to be alone. Sometimes, right before he falls asleep he dreams of finding another yeti hiding beneath one of the sandstone caves. He pictures them making love. Other times he pictures himself strangling the other yeti so he can be the only one. He cannot decide which is the dream and which is the nightmare.

#

The Yeti watches a girl pump gas. She is uncomfortably pregnant. A certain globular cuteness. With one hand she balances the nozzle and in the other arm holds a young baby. The Yeti spent so many years longing for contact with these human animals now that he is surrounded by them he doesn’t know what to do. They laugh, they cry, they yell, they remain silent. So many emotions. The Yeti has much to learn. He fidgets on the curb wondering if he should talk to her. She might be nice. She might be nasty. The Yeti offers to pump her gas. The pregnant girl smiles. The baby squeals playfully at the sight of the Yeti. It makes his heart beat fast. He feels an odd camaraderie to these animals, these humans, like he is staring in the mirror only the reflection is not quite the image he expects. After pumping the gas the Yeti washes her windows and checks the tire pressure. Rummaging through his pockets the Yeti produces a candy bar which he offers to the baby. The baby falls into his arms with ease. He pops the hood and shows the baby the timing belt. The baby puts his finger up the Yeti’s nostril, licks it, and giggles. When the Yeti returns to the front seat the pregnant girl is asleep. He nudges her with his paw. She apologizes and tries to give the Yeti some money. Coins fall from her hand and in his effort to pick them up the Yeti accidentally rips the girl’s dress. The Yeti, cheeks flushed with humiliation, opens his arms in an effort to apologize which the girl mistakes as an assault. Pervert! she screams, slapping at the Yeti’s face. In her frantic movements she twists the Yeti’s nipples. The Yeti grunts. The baby is crying. The Yeti loses his balance and tumbles forward, pressing the pregnant girl onto her back. In his panic, the Yeti accidentally scratches her thigh. There is blood. The baby is crying. The pregnant girl screams. The Yeti wonders if this is how the woman screamed when God’s star crashed through her roof. The Yeti lies very still on the ground and covers his ears, doing his best impression of a glacier.

#

The sheriff and his deputies keep the Yeti handcuffed and face-down on the curb while they take a statement from the pregnant girl. She is pale and trembling. When she looks at the Yeti she faints. A deputy opens the Yeti’s paper sack. He sniffs. You bringing sand nigger drugs into my town asshole? Hey, I’m talking to you, brownie, the deputy says. Meh-Teh, the Yeti whispers. You’re going to be the belle of the ball, one of the deputies whispers in the Yeti’s ear. It’s not every day they get an exotic piece of ass. The sheriff tells the deputy to shut his mouth. This sonfabitch has rights like the rest of them, the sheriff says. He does? The deputies squint. Even the Yeti is surprised to hear this. Yep, the sheriff says, he has the right to shine my shoes. The sheriff kicks the Yeti in the jaw. The Yeti pisses himself. Baptism by fire, the deputies laugh. The Yeti is suddenly unsure if he exists. The pain reminds him he does, but the pain also sends his mind drifting into the emptiness of space. He feels himself floating there. It frightens him. He tries to claw his way back. Another kick makes him howl. If only he didn’t exist. The Yeti could protest this injustice. But why bother? It is not that words are useless, but that the future has already been written. Having arrived in his old age the Yeti no longer knows whose story he is in, only that it is not his own. The lines have been scripted and the pages published, and he is merely an actor performing the fantasy required of him. No amount of prayers or shit-flinging or star-gazing will change that. The sheriff stomps the Yeti in the balls. Inevitably, he shits himself.

#

In the morning, the Yeti is released from the county jail and ordered to appear in court within thirty days. Before returning to his dormitory he walks to the store. Male hygiene products are on sale. He gave up using his tongue a long time ago. Now the Yeti prefers to use a loofah. Only animals like washcloths. The Yeti has a difficult time selecting the proper loofah. There are dozens of colors. Some have handles and others do not. Some loofahs are made especially for backs, others for faces, many for elbows. Many are knit tightly to appear like a piece of hollowed corn, and others fit on the hand like a glove. There are pads and scrubbers and discs and slippers and buffs. The loofah fabric can be tough like sandpaper or spongy like a sea creature. There are Egyptian loofahs, Indonesian loofahs, even Mayan loofahs. The Yeti searches but is disappointed there is no Tibetan loofah. The Yeti stands in the aisle and feels exhausted. He wants to ask for help, but worries about the kinds of questions he might be asked. Human animals are very fickle. There was a time when the Yeti was fond of choices. When he first explored his cave in the Himalayas he was seized with the thrill of discovery. Iced stalactites hung like errant teeth. He wandered deeper and deeper under the mountain labyrinth, creating a detailed map in his mind. It excited him to come to a dead-end and retrace his steps, always finding something new, something different. The Yeti petitions one of the Mega-Mart employees to assist him in selecting a loofah for sensitive skin. He explains he has never visited a dermatologist for a proper consultation. The employee looks at the rows of loofahs, then stares at the Yeti with raised eyebrows. Shit. Does it really matter, dude?

#

The Yeti passes slowly through the quad at the retirement center. The constipation crowd is busy preparing for the protest. Lenny Bagwell hangs a banner above a doorway. FECAL FREEDOM! There are others. CLEAN OUR CLOTHES, NOT OUR COLONS. EMPATHY, NOT ENEMAS. Lenny asks the Yeti what he thinks. The Yeti does not have the heart to tell him the sadness of it all. A farmer walks through the quad with a herd of goats. It is pet therapy day. Every month there is a new social activity. The state legislature, in conjunction with the medical board of trustees, has decreed that the elderly require stimulating contact. Sometimes kindergarten classes are bused in for an afternoon. Once the community was treated to a theatrical reenactment of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Animal shelter representatives arrive with dogs and cats. The pet store owner brings lizards and rare birds from halfway across the world. The residents get to groom, feed, walk, and pet the animals. Only the Yeti seems to realize this is psychological conditioning so the residents do not revolt when the staff groom, feed, walk and bathe them.

#

The Yeti visits the infirmary. We have some helpers today, the nurse says. It’s the fat missionary and his skinny friend. The missionaries help bathe the Yeti. It feels pleasant to have his skin scrubbed with the loofah. At the same time, it feel horrible being this vulnerable. The Yeti keeps his eyes down, afraid to look at the fat missionary. When he does, it’s like the fat missionary doesn’t see him at all. The Yeti stands at the mirror while the nurse dabs his cuts and bruises with disinfectant. He mumbles. He can still taste the blood in his mouth. It takes an hour for the fat missionary to comb the tangles out of his matted fur. The skinny one oils him in lavender and applies a generous handful of tea tree lotion. This isn’t the way he imagined life, with cuticles that need moisturizing and arthritic paws, but maybe nobody gets the life they pray for. The last order of business is the toilet. The nurse insists. The Yeti mumbles in protest of this humiliation. The fat missionary takes him by the hand and helps the Yeti squat over the toilet. The porcelain is cold and causes him to shiver. He can feel his heart swelling in his throat, his heart hiccupping like a ghostly thing. The fat missionary’s hands are also cold and the Yeti trembles as he is wiped clean. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? the skinny missionary says. He helps the Yeti into one of the regulation diapers, then steps back to admire his handiwork. There, you see? the skinny missionary says. Now you’re one of us.

Ryan Habermeyer earned his MFA from the University of Massachusetts and PhD from the University of Missouri. His prize-winning stories and essays have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he is the author of the short fiction collection, The Science of Lost Futures (BoA Editions, 2018). He lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where he teaches at Salisbury University. Find him at ryanhabermeyer.com