The Nettle Man
by John W. Steele
Have you ever had one of those glitches when you try to concentrate and your mind drifts away? It doesn’t have to go far, just enough to where you need to reel it back and focus on the task at hand. That’s what going on in my head now. It’s kind of hazy here. But I’ll get back. I’ve got to get back. The problem in the meantime is the stench... that godawful stench.
* * *
People had known the kinds of things that happened at the dam on the river for a long time. It had a reputation as a nasty place. Folks fell into the water and drowned. There were suicides and bodies were sometimes found abandoned by the railroad tracks. But the weirdness in that locale was most obvious in the summer, when the trains rolled slowly across the old black railroad trestle.
They journeyed from Pennsylvania to deliver the rich black anthracite to the power plant built upon the once-great Mohawk Indian campground. They called that place the Hauser Station, named after some important dead guy.
The dam crossed the river in the town of Westville. The rumor was that the plant had been built on an Indian graveyard and that a great shaman lay buried somewhere under the mountains of coal.
In the middle of the summer, when the rains stilled, the water flowed shallow over the dam, and spots were bare of it. Cracks in the structure peered out like a roadway covered with green slime. The river got deep behind the levee. All kinds of debris lay hidden below the surface of black, frothy water.
I remember the day Andy dove head-first off the dam. A hidden pilaster loomed out just beneath the surface. He hit the pier hard, and it tore him wide open. He choked and started to drown. His older brother, Richard, was sitting on the ledge by the spillway. He gazed at Andy like he was in a trance and watched Andy go under.
I’m not sure why I did it. I eased into the water and swam up to him. He clawed at me like a lunatic and scratched me raw. I’ll do this, but you’re not going to tear me up.
I swam down deep, got under him, and grabbed his feet. I could feel the muddy bottom of the riverbed with my toes. I stood solid on the floor of muck and rubble stone, then shot up and hurled him out of the water. He wasn’t but a twig of a soul. In three or four breaths, I threw him up on the dam and walked away. He survived, but his brother remained transfixed, as though catatonic.
* * *
The village of Westville is a factory town, a place made of strangers, drunks, brawlers, and laborers. A survival of the fittest place in the truest sense of the idea. Life didn’t mean a lot in Westville, especially for guys like us.
There were half a dozen juvenile delinquents in our makeshift family. Mike, Larry, Fred and a few other misfits. Daryl was the baddest. He had a mean streak. His old man helped him with that. When his father came back from the war, something inside of him had snapped. He used to beat the kid awful. You never knew when Daryl would go off or what triggered it. But when he did, you’d better stay out of his way.
We used to camp by the dam along the river all summer long. We’d fish all night and drink as much beer as we wanted. Carp as long as your leg lived in the water by the spillway then. They fed where the sewer pipe drained into the river at the side of the channel, back before that sort of thing was against the law.
Those carp monsters grew to be fifty pounds or more. We fished them from the dam with potatoes and kernel corn. They were as thick as salmon during a spawn. We hauled them in by the dozens and stacked them on the bank near the alleged burial ground.
Daryl was big, and you always knew where you stood with him. The back of his skull was flattened like it had been forged into an iron block. Thick wild, curly red hair covered his head like the mane of a Neanderthal. He looked like a prehistoric tribal meat-eater of the forest. Daryl wasn’t all bad, but he was as close to crazy as I’ve ever known.
When it got real hot, we’d head up to the trestle and jump off into the river. It didn’t matter if the water was brown and swollen with rain, fallen trees and debris, or flowing easy. We’d dive in and climb back up the stone block ledgers onto the tracks.
Daryl was a guy that needed thrills. The bigger and scarier, the more he needed them. He’d climb up to the top of the trestle and dive off head-first. It must’ve been a hundred feet to the water.
A lot of people used to come out to the dam to fish, but we owned the place. They called us the “River Rats” and nobody messed with us.
Hobos passed through the area all the time back then. Most of them were displaced winos. They’d live along the river bank in the summer. If they got too permanent, we’d drive them away; it was our turf. Daryl decided who would leave and when. When he said it was time, we’d rough up the bums and throw their junk into the river.
Soon the summer would end and we’d head back to school. The leaves had not yet turned, but a red, yellow tint had awakened in patches and stained the foliage.
* * *
On this evening, the sun had gone behind the mountain and the silver tint of moonlight reflected from the water. It was a cool evening, and our breath formed a thin white mist in the air.
An old dirt road ran under the trestle. Scarcely a vehicle could venture there. It was too easy to get bogged in the muck, and the ruts, and the lumbering river rocks. Anyone who wanted to come to the dam walked across the trestle and down the embankment from the other side.
We sat on the rocks fishing the pools for mud-cats. A hearty campfire burned, our lanterns were lit, and of course, there was plenty of beer.
An old man appeared under the trestle. One of his feet dragged behind him, and he limped along slowly. He leaned on a long staff, without which it appeared he would topple to the ground.
The man came closer. He wore filthy rags, and his boots were full of holes. His beard and hair were long, gray and ragged. A crumpled felt billabong with a long feather that peered up from the band sat on his head.
Daryl was the first to stand. He leaned against a husky boulder and stared.
The hobo looked at Daryl like he wasn’t there. He ambled forth as though indifferent to us. Despite his bedraggled appearance, it was the stench he carried with him that was most difficult to endure. He smelled like a corpse that had not yet rotted away. The stench reeked of death, and Fred and I gagged.
Daryl raised his lantern and shone it in the old man’s face. One of his eyes was missing. A wet red socket, like an open wound, lay gouged beneath his brow.
For the first time, I saw a trace of fear in Daryl’s eyes. I could see his throat contract. “What do you want here, bum?”
The man shifted his weight and lowered his arm. “Would you be so kind as to spare a bottle of your cold ale for a weary traveler, my brother? I have journeyed far and I am sorely parched.” He bowed his head and stood contrite.
Daryl fixed him with a cold eye. “We ain’t your brothers, scum.”
The old man remained still. He turned his head and gazed at the river.
“Surely you know the virtue of Christian charity, my brother. Will you not share a bottle of ale with one who means you only kindness? I’m on a long journey. And if you share with me a bottle of your fine cold ale, I will leave you and be on my way.”
Daryl looked him over and spit in the fire. “Ya want a beer, huh? My old man would sell his soul for a bottle of booze. Are you willing to sell your soul for a taste of our ‘fine cold ale’?”
The old man gazed into the flames. “I have no soul to sell, my brother. I bartered it long ago. I must ask you three times; it is the law.”
The hobo looked at me, his eye white and calloused; I froze. “You’ve fished our waters for a long time, haven’t you? If you allow me a bottle of cold and refreshing ale, I will provide for you a gift that equals no other.”
Daryl sneered. “What could a crippled old sot like you have of any value to us, old man?”
The wanderer smiled. His eye twinkled with terrible scarlet light. “Your soul,” he said.
The blue vein on Daryl’s forehead throbbed. I knew what was coming.
“You have no soul. You’re just like my old man. You smell like piss, ya filthy drunk. Ya want beer? We got beer.” He raised his fist and knocked the old man to the ground. He grabbed a bottle from the cooler and got down on one knee.
“Here ya go, ya worthless piece of shit.” He slammed the neck of the bottle deep into the old man’s mouth and twisted it. Blood poured from his throat and trickled down his chin. Daryl stood up and placed his boot on the hobo’s chest.
“My old man claims he’s going kill me all the time. But he hasn’t been able to yet. He tries... oh how he tries. And you think I’m going to take that kind of threat from a worthless piece of garbage like you?
“You look like you got fleas, old man. Do you have fleas? You know what they say cures fleas? Nettles, the big green ones with spikes like needles.”
Daryl looked at us, his face hard like a wooden mask. “Rip off this bastard’s clothes. He needs medicine.”
We did as he said. Daryl put on his leather gloves and pulled a huge nettle stem out of the ground.
The hobo’s body was little more than a sack of bones wrapped in a bag of skin and festering with sores. A tattoo of a gold and red sun lay inked on his chest. The artwork looked more alive than he did.
“Stand on this bastard’s arms and hold him down tight.”
Daryl raised the stalk and scourged the old man unmercifully.
I remember Daryl in the glow of the firelight, his arm flailing like one possessed. Drool drained from his mouth and his eyes burned. He kicked the man hard in the head. The old man groaned, his flesh red with welts. I looked at Fred. We jumped on Daryl and tackled him to the ground. He shook us off and got to his feet and stood panting.
The beggar’s lungs rattled, and his respiration ceased.
“We messed up, Daryl! We killed the bastard!” I said.
Daryl glared at us, his face damp with sweat. “That bastard was dead long before we got a hold of him. We did him a favor. Shut your mouth.”
“What’re we going to do with him, Daryl? We can’t leave him here. Someone’s bound to show up in the morning.”
“We get rid of him, dumbass!”
A threadbare tarpaulin lay over our cache of firewood. Daryl grabbed it, shook it, and laid it on the sand. We took the old man by the arms and dragged him to it. We rolled him up tight and bound him with rope. He looked like a mummy unearthed from some long hidden tomb. Daryl grabbed his feet, and we hauled him to the dam.
It had rained a day earlier. The current was swift. We pulled the body out to the middle, where the water fell into a violent torrent. We cast the Nettle Man over the edge, and the falling wave drew him under. We waited, but he never emerged.
* * *
The years drained into the future. Daryl quit school. He bought a big Harley and rode out west. One of our clan, Mike, died in a grisly car accident. He was drunk and collided with a semi that severed his head.
I stayed in contact with Fred. He married and they had a baby girl. We still fished together on the trout streams in the north. One day, they found him hanging dead in the basement. I never knew why.
The rest of the guys were just players. After I graduated, I lost track of them. I worked on construction for a while before I enlisted. I could never forget about the Nettle Man. He lurked in the corners of my dreams. I knew I would need to leave Westville if I ever wanted to be rid of him.
* * *
I got out of boot camp. In a month, I’d be on my way overseas. I had a ten-day furlough. I came home to no one. Home is where you grew up. Good or bad, warm or frozen, it’s where you grew up. It’s where you land when there is nothing left.
I asked around town in the bars on Kensington, but nobody knew what happened to any of those guys I went to school with. They’d all vanished. Women... forget that. They seemed as rare as white crows in this cow town. And I wasn’t going to pay for it.
I had three days before I returned to duty. I decided to head down to the dam. They were the fondest memories I had in this place, and they were all terrible.
I drove beneath the trestle and climbed up the embankment. The mountains of coal still towered like the Rockies. I trod out to the middle of the trestle and stared out at the dam.
A long cable ran across the river now. Metal signs with the word “Danger” written in large red letters dangled on the line like some kind of revelation. From this perspective, it looked like they’d closed the place off. A tall Page fence stood at the end of the rutted dirt road.
I gazed down at the rolling water. The old memories burned like smoldering embers, the only testament to my wasted youth.
From the end of the trestle where the dirt road ceased, a thick oily shadow emerged from the ether. I knew it was the Nettle Man. I recognized his limp. He appeared like some kind of effigy made of obsidian with an electric scarlet shell. I always knew we’d meet again. He haunted my deepest dreams in that place you hide the secrets you tell no one. I knew one day there would be a reckoning. My greatest fear now stood before me.
I approached him. I wanted to ask for his forgiveness. We faced each like penitents seeking retribution for sins preordained in a distant past.
He stared like one deranged, his eyes empty dark sockets. “You know it’s time, don’t you, Johnny?” I couldn’t speak, but I knew it was time.
The Nettle Man rushed me and slammed into my ribs. We tumbled off the trestle and sank deep into the icy black water.
* * *
It’s nothing like I ever thought it would be... This place defies description. It’s calm here. I’m not dead, but I’m not alive either. It’s like a moment frozen in time that loops over and over like a day with no end.
I see Daryl, and Mike, Fred, and the others. They stand by the dam fishing... They’re all smiling. All except Mike... His head is missing. They’re curled up now, like they’ve withered inside out. But the part I can’t handle is that their eyes have vanished. Gaping red holes peer out from their forehead. They motion me to come and join them, but I don’t want to go there.
My body is like a block of ice. I can’t move. I watch them on the water. They drift like wraiths in the rolling surge. They seem oblivious to where they are, like zombies locked in a hologram.
They continue to fish, but something about them has changed. They look angry now. Daryl shakes his fist, and the others curse my name. Their voices grow louder and I tremble. I don’t want to go back to the dam. I don’t want to wander deeper into that godawful stench.
Have you ever had one of those glitches when you try to concentrate and your mind drifts away? It doesn’t have to go far. Just enough to where you need to reel it back and focus on the task at hand. That’s what’s going on in my head now. But I’ll get back. I’ve got to get back... Please let me go back.
Copyright © 2022 by John W. Steele
