The Axe Man

“…the best green athletic powder around. All right, now back to the show.”

“So, like I was saying,” continued the podcast host, “growing up, every neighborhood had that one guy. That one old bastard.”

“We sure did…” replied the cohost.

“He lived right down the street. We’d be outside, riding our bikes, and he’d be out there in his front yard spraying God-knows-what chemicals he’d probably stockpiled from his time in Vietnam or Korea or wherever the hell. And he’d be shouting at us to stay away from his property, even though we were nowhere near it. I’m telling you… every single neighborhood had an old guy just like that.”

Wajdi chuckled at the voices in his earbuds. He could relate. When he was a youngster, growing up in a neighborhood much like the one he lived in now, there was an old guy just like that—Mr. Kutz. He was always glaring at Wajdi and his buddies for doing normal, everyday, kid stuff.

“I know exactly why he gave you a hard time,” said the cohost. “Because you were young and enjoying life. And that reminded him that he was not young and that he was not enjoying life.

“Well, to be fair, we were also causing property damage…”

“Yeah, but it was probably minor.”

“No, it would have constituted a felony in most jurisdictions.”

Wajdi lost his balance mid-swing from laughing and nearly lopped off one of his toes with the blade of the axe. 

It had been a gorgeous tree, with well-spaced, sturdy, clean branches that invited climbing. Unfortunately, the bugs had gotten to it. The leaves yellowed. Fungus invaded its heartwood. Wind gusts snapped at it. Soon, the neighbors were complaining about the risk it posed to their vehicles.

Wajdi’s daughter had tried counting the rings, making it up to sixty, which, at four years old, might have been her all-time record. She gave up when a bee buzzed her ear and sent her into a hysteria that only a blue dog could calm.

A mound of handsome splits filled his wheelbarrow. He’d put the tree to good use, at least. His buddies—a few other neighborhood dads—were set to join him in his backyard for a bonfire that night.

Nothin’ wrong with manual work, he thought, and what did he have to complain about? He sat in a chair five days a week staring into that garish plasma-or-LED-or-whatever screen that illuminated his portal to productivity, which, ironically, was also his portal to unproductivity. This stack, in a way, was visual proof of his vitality, proof that he could at least conquer wood. Hanging with the boys—drinking beers without worrying about how tired he’d be the next morning when all he’d have to do was sit idle watching some ballet practice—further proof. 

He dared the heat to stop him. He even dared it to kill him. It wasn’t too long ago Wajdi had been stationed in Yuma, rucking in the desert. Now his co-workers looked at him funny if he took the stairs instead of the elevator.

A souped-up Miata raced down his suburban street, way above the 25-mph limit.

“Screw you!” Wajdi shouted, but not that loudly, and anyway, the guy’s tinted windows were up.

“Dipshit,” he muttered and set another fresh slice upon the stump. Lost in thought, he’d missed the middle of the podcasters’ story. 

“…and of course the cops found us, behind the high school in a patch of woods.”

“How much trouble did you get into?”

“Believe it or not, none. Our moms went over to the old guy’s house. They asked him not to press charges. Said they’d take care of us themselves.”

“‘90s moms were the best,” the cohost sighed. “And if you ask me, much hotter than moms nowadays…”

“And he agreed—but on one condition: we had to join him in his backyard for a barbecue.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, so about a week later, the four of us walked over to his place, and let me tell you something: that old bastard was actually a really good guy. He had this sick koi pond, a badminton net, one of those lawn games where you hit the ball with the big mallet through the little hoops… you know what I’m talking about?”

“Croquet.”

“Yeah. And I’m telling you, he cooked the best fucking cheeseburgers I’ve ever eaten—to this day. I drank like 25 cans of cola, too. I was flying, man!”

“He probably smuggled those in from the war. They probably had that real cocaine in them.”

“I don’t know. He chilled them in this big-ass metal trash can he’d filled to the brim with ice. It was like a frat party.”

“A frat party for twelve-year-olds.”

Wajdi landed a perfect blow, busting through a stubborn knot. Another half hour and he’d be done, which was good because the sky was beginning to darken. 

All that was left was to finish processing a few slabs, clean up the mess, oil his axe (that didn’t mean what you think it means), shower, find his Bluetooth speaker, perform the tucking-in ritual complete with a reading of The Tiny Tick Tickles Tina’s Tooth, drive to the liquor store, welcome the guys, and start partying. 

He made a mental note to grab ice—a metal trash can, too. That old guy from the story was onto something. The thought crossed his mind that he might want to try to score some coke. It was a habit he picked up when stationed in Germany—one he’d given up when his daughter was born. Still, he knew a bartender…

“Yeah! It was like a frat party. Minus the ice luge. I’ll never forget what he told us, though—and here’s where it gets crazy. It was getting dark. Our moms still hadn’t come to pick us up. He made this bonfire. We were roasting hot dogs on a stick when he started telling us stories. Shit from his time in the war.”

“No kiddin’.”

“Yeah, and we were sitting there, hanging on his every word because he’s talking to us about bombs and explosions and about his buddies dying. To be honest, I started to feel kind of bad about throwing dog poop at his bay window the day before!”

“You little jerk.”

“And then one of my buddies asks him if, you know, he ever killed anybody.”

The podcaster paused. Wajdi wiped the sweat off his brow with his shirt and pulled his vape. A cool breeze blew down his street. A black cloud muscled its way across the sky.

“And the old guy got real quiet. He looked down. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a cigar, and lit it up with some matches. My buddies and I are looking at each other like…”

“Is he going to offer us one?”

“No, we were like, what’s he about to say? So finally, he tells us this story about how he and his platoon were camped out in some gutted-out buildings deep in enemy territory. Some kind of urban warfare situation. Running recon. And one morning they’re relaxing… playing cards, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere a bullet flies through one of their guys’ heads.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah. And suddenly, they’re getting sniped off, one by one. So he quickly ducks down, puts his helmet on, grabs a grenade from the stockpile, and crawls out into the shadows of the street. He said he was looking around and thought he saw where the bullets were coming from—this open window a block away. So, he sneaks within range and hurls the grenade through it, assuming the enemy was inside.”

“Uh huh…”

“And while he’s telling us this, he starts to stutter, and, like, tear up. He’s almost crying.”

Wajdi struck his axe.

“What happened?”

“It was some kind of school or something.”

“He killed…” the cohost asked. “…kids?”

“Yup.”

“How many?”

“He said like six or seven…”

“He killed six or seven kids?”

“Yup…”

The podcaster hesitated… before suddenly changing tone completely.

“Six-sevennnnnnnnnn.”

The joke didn’t land for Wajdi, and he hit pause on his earbuds. Sometimes those guys went too far, and you could never tell if they were serious or not.

Refocusing on the dense slice of oak in front of him, he hoisted his axe high, studying the pattern in the grain and guessing at a weak point. He puffed his chest, coiled his back with brawny tension, and struck with a single hard strike, splitting the log clean.

He was sweaty. He’d been chopping all afternoon. The stacked wood promised a blaze that would last for hours. 

He was proud of himself and busted out his phone to take a picture, then texted it to the guys. One responded immediately with a fire emoji. Another sent sideways-glancing eyeballs, meant to convey something suggestive. Yet another said he’d be arriving late—his wife was making him rearrange furniture.

Wajdi decided to close out his session with some music. Dad Rock, he typed into the app. Lately, he’d been thinking a lot about his father.

The search didn’t exactly give him what he expected, though. Instead of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or even Omar Khorshid, he was hit with selections from the Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco, Weezer, and the jamband Dopapod. He had to scroll quite far down his screen to find what he was looking for, in a playlist titled Grandpa Rock.

Some angry birds chattered from the power line running up his street. The wires buzzed in that thick afternoon heat, alive with the strain placed on them by every air conditioner on the block. He cocked his finger and pretended to shoot at them. Took a clumsy swig of water from his gallon jug. Half of it spilled over the front of his shirt. Pulled his vape. Heaved his axe. Thought about death.

“I’m the tax man… yeah! I’m the tax maaaaaan…”

A breeze whipped up, blowing a leaf in his face. A cumulonimbus volcanoed into the troposphere, erasing the sun and darkening the sky. Those angry birds took off as a gurgle of thunder stampeded down his suburban street like the pounding footfalls of an elephant herd.

“Don’t see many kids running around the neighborhood like they did back in my day,” Wajdi muttered, reflecting on the podcast. A fat raindrop fell on the stump in front of him, coloring the spot a deep umber.

“Don’t see too many old bastards either,” he added as he scratched his butt crack—a bead of sweat had tickled it.

Those beers were calling to him, imprisoned, they were, in that liquor store walk-in fridge. Gel ran from his hair and mixed with salty perspiration clinging to his forehead. It got in his eyes and burned. He started to feel antsy, angry, off kilter. His neck itched—on the inside. He wanted a cigarette—to hurt himself just a little. To hurt others. Drink a beer. Chop off a toe. Eat a hot dog.

Vertical light flashed nearby, ionizing the air and leaving behind a fleeting phantom of molecules glowing fairy blue. A gust was triggered. It whooshed the leaves across the street and carried with it a flurry of plinking hail.

“Tax man!”

Within moments, it was pouring.

From across town, a fire truck activated its sirens. Torrential flourishes washed the street. Flower petals, pollen, sticks, and fresh leaves got caught up in the paved gutter and got carried along in the flooding rush.

“Yeaaaah I’m the AXE maaaaaan!”

A text came in. We still hangin’ tonight? 

Another one. Raincheck? LOL

Another. Looking dangerous out there. 

Another. I’m gonna stay in and watch a movie with the wife. Too wet.

There was one slice to go. A crackling flash set his arm hair on end. He set the log and posed with the metal high above his head. It lined up with his spine like an unwelcome chakra, one which made all the other chakras nervous. Catching fat drops with his open mouth, he wondered whether the electricity would snake down his right arm or his left. He struck, rearranged the piece and struck again. 

Wajdi did not take cover. That itch in his neck would not let him. He brought the axe to it and scratched himself, pausing for a moment to press the sharp edge into his tendons and veins, but not breaking the skin. He felt the protest of blood pressure pulsing back against the blade.

Lightning flashed all around. 

Wajdi was tempting fate, he knew. He was tempting the gods, each one of those who had been traditionally associated with the element of fire. He was tempting his mother, who, decades ago, in the middle of a tornado warning, demanded he “get inside!” when he did not want to get inside. He was tempting the terms of his life insurance policy, the economic security of his family’s future, his daughter’s need for a dad. He tempted the demonic spirits of his ancestors (whose crimes he’d heard whispered at the funerals of some third cousins once removed, or otherwise on podcasts), desperate, as those spirits were, to possess a human vessel.

An ear-splitting discharge of atmospheric energy followed, accompanied—he could have sworn—by children’s screams.

“Bruh!” a voice suddenly broke through. “Slow down!”

Wajdi turned. Riding their bikes pell-mell down the street were four kids, ranging in age from seven to thirteen. The lead boy, the oldest of the crew, sped up ahead of the rest, showing no concern for the stragglers. He stood on his pedals, throwing his full weight into each crank, splashing a wheelie through a puddled pothole, and slaloming around glass bottles that had been blown from overturned recycling cans. Not paying attention to where he was going, the kid nearly hit a parked car, swerving out of the way just in time, and almost flying head-first over the handlebars. The kid wasn’t wearing a helmet. 

At each rumble, the trailing three laughed and screamed and shouted and whined. The shock of a close blast of lightning nearly knocked one of the boys out of his seat.

They didn’t notice Wajdi standing there as they sprinted home, in that neighborhood where it wasn’t very common to see a man standing on his front lawn, in the middle of a downpour, brandishing a sharp weapon across his chest.

“If you ride your bike, I’ll tax your yeat,” Wajdi sang.

“AXE maaaaaan…”

The lead boy caught Wajdi out of the corner of his eye as another bolt struck way too close, splitting an antique oak cleanly from crown to root. That boy was dirty, soaked with rain, and harboring an unmistakable instinct to tempt death. He was young and enjoying life, grinning psychotically.

Wajdi had that same look on his face. He had that look because he had been splitting logs for three hours in the front yard of his nice suburban home, on the hottest day of summer and didn’t mind the hard work, or the heat, or the rain. Wajdi had that look because he’d just been listening to his favorite podcast, and because he was about to drink a metal trash can full of beers around a bonfire in his backyard, regardless of whether anybody showed up to join him or not. He had that look of psychotic glee because the violent spirits of his ancestors were present, swirling through the clouds that were erupting into the troposphere.

Wajdi nodded at the boy.

The boy nodded respectfully back.

He struck his axe, splitting a magnificent hunk of wood cleanly in two, and the thought crossed his mind that he’d like to invite those boys over sometime. He’d buy a badminton net, pick up a 30-pack of cola, a metal trash can, and about sixty pounds of ice, too. Smoke a cigar—enough to go around.

Tell them about the time he killed six or seven kids in the war.