The Fourth Hand

What was wrong with the dream was that the lion guy had two hands and was holding the newborn baby in both of them. Suddenly Otto's wife reached up and stroked the back of his left hand.

Then Otto saw himself. He was staring at his own body, looking for his hands. The left one was gone--his own left hand was gone!

That was when he woke up, sobbing. This time, at the sports bar in Green Bay, with under two minutes remaining in the Super Bowl, a fellow Packer fan misunderstood his anguish and patted Otto on the shoulder. "Lousy game," he said with gruff sympathy.

Drunk as he was, Otto had to make a concerted effort not to doze off again. It wasn't that he didn't want to miss the end of the game; he didn't want to have that dream again, not if he could help it.

Naturally he knew where the dream came from, and he was so ashamed of its source that he'd never told his wife about the dream.

As a beer-truck driver, Otto believed himself to be a role model for Green Bay's youth--not once had he been a drunk driver. Otto hardly drank at all; and when he drank, he drank nothing stronger than beer. He was instantly as ashamed of his own inebriation as he was of his dream and the outcome of the game.

"I'm too drunk to drive," Otto confessed to the bartender, who was a decent man and a trusted friend. The bartender wished that there were more drunks like Otto Clausen, meaning responsible ones.

They quickly agreed on the best way for Otto to get himself home, which was not by accepting a ride with any of several drunken and despondent friends. Otto could easily move the beer truck the mere fifty yards from the delivery entrance to the bar's main parking lot so that it would not be in the way of any Monday-morning deliveries. Since the parking lot and the delivery entrance were adjacent to each other, he wouldn't even have to cross a public sidewalk or a street. The bartender would then call Otto a taxi to take him home.

No, no, no--the phone call wasn't necessary, Otto had mumbled. He had a cell phone in his truck. He would move the beer truck first and call the taxi himself. He would wait in his truck for the taxi. Besides, he wanted to call his wife--just to see how she was feeling and to commiserate with her about Green Bay's tragic loss. Furthermore, the cold air would do him good.

He may have been less certain about the effect of the cold air than he was about the rest of his plan, but Otto also wanted to escape the televised postgame show. The sight of those lunatic Denver fans in the multiple frenzies of their celebrations would be truly revolting, as would the replays of Terrell Davis slicing through the Packers' secondary. The Broncos' running back had made the Green Bay defense look as soft as ... well, yes, cheese.

The thought of those Denver running plays made Otto feel like throwing up, or else he was coming down with his wife's flu. He'd not felt as awful since he'd seen that pretty-boy journalist have his hand eaten by lions. What was the peckerhead's name?

Mrs. Clausen knew the unfortunate reporter's name. "I wonder how that poor Patrick Wallingford is doing," she would say, apropos of nothing, and Otto would shake his head and feel like throwing up.

After a reverential pause, his wife would add: "I'd give that poor man my own hand, if I knew I was dying. Wouldn't you, Otto?"

"I don't know--I don't even know him," Otto had replied. "It's not like giving a stranger one of your organs. They're just organs. Who ever sees them? But your hand ... well, gee, it's a recognizable part of you, if you know what I mean."

"When you're dead, you're dead," Mrs. Clausen had said.

Otto remembered the paternity suit against Patrick Wallingford--it had been on TV, and in all the magazines and newspapers. Mrs. Clausen had been riveted to the case; she'd been noticeably disappointed when the DNA test proved that Wallingford wasn't the father.

"What do you care who the father is?" Otto had asked.

"He just looked like he was the father," Mrs. Clausen answered. "He looks like he should be, I mean."

"He's good-looking enough--is that what you're saying?" Otto asked.

"He looks like a paternity suit waiting to happen."

"Is that the reason you want me to give him my hand?"

"I didn't say that, Otto. I just said, 'When you're dead, you're dead.'"

"I got that part," Otto had told her. "But why my hand? Why him?"

Now, there's something you should know about Mrs. Clausen, even before you know what she looks like: when she wanted to, there was something about her tone of voice that could give her husband a hard-on. It didn't take long, either.

"Why your hand?" she'd asked him, in that tone of voice. "Why ... because I love you, and I'll never love anyone else. Not in the same way." This had weakened Otto to the degree that he felt too near death to speak; all the blood from his brain, his heart, and his lungs was going to his erection. It happened that way every time.

"Why him?" Mrs. Clausen had continued, knowing that Otto was entirely hers from this point on. "Why ... because he clearly needs a hand. Nothing could be plainer."

It had taken all of Otto's strength to summon a weak response to her. "I suppose there's other guys who've lost their hands."

"But we don't know them."

"We don't know him, either."

"He's on TV, Otto. Everyone knows him. Besides, he looks nice."