What Hell May Come

by Rex Hurst

  A further thought smacked him. If Gabbaducci had it, then— His head snapped up. His feet flew across to the porch. Maria was still there, smoking a cigarette.

  “Did you know that Gabbaducci has AIDS and that’s why he’s in the hospital?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, you’ve been having sex with him.”

  “It was only in the ass that last time.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “You can’t get it that way.”

  The term flabbergasted would be a mild version of Jon’s reaction. Was she that dumb? “How do you think all these gay guys are giving it to each other?”

  “What?” Clueless look. “I don’t know, because they do like gay things to each other or whatever.”

  “Including anal sex!”

  “Oh.” Confused and a bit nervous. “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “And you’ve had sex with him before, even after he started to look sick. He probably infected you a dozen times over.”

  Catherine crept about the periphery of Jon’s vision, smiling her evil smile. Maria still didn’t seem to get it. He shook her. Those curls of hair he loved fell all about, but now her beauty was gone. All Jon could see was the disease loitering at the bottom of her vagina.

  “You need to go,” he said. “Go home and get to a doctor. See if there’s anything that can be done. Hopefully—”

  He let it drop. She stood there for a moment, mouth opening and closing, like a fish gasping for breath. Then she booked for her yellow sports car and zoomed off at a dangerously high speed. Catherine began jeering at him the moment he stepped inside.

  “You had sex with her and got AIDS? You’re gonna have a baby and it’ll have AIDS. You’re gonna have an AIDS baby.”

  “Shut up.”

  Stomach sinking, all his hopes and dreams turned to ash. He ran up to the second story. She was right behind him the whole time chanting, “AIDS baby! AIDS baby! AIDS baby!”

  At the top, something snapped. This was too much. The final straw. Every humiliation, every disappointment, they piled on and on and now his reserve was broken. Jon backhanded the little girl as hard as he could. Catherine’s body tumbled down the stairs, hitting each individual step. Her head veered over and knocked out a few of the railing spokes, making nasty cracking sounds that hurt just to listen to. She hit the ground face down. Catherine’s left arm bent back up behind her with the hand facing the wrong way. A thin cry rose up from the little girl.

  Mother dashed out to cradle her child. She let out an inhuman wail, filled with all the sorrows of the world. The motherly she-beast was unleashed. Anyone who came close to her would’ve been torn to pieces. Mother was so out of control, she couldn’t muster up a coherent threat against Jon. All she did was bark high-pitched screams at him.

  Someone gripped his shoulder from behind. Father. Jon prepared himself for a scolding, a beating, some other terrible type of punishment. None of that happened. Instead what he heard was, “Looks like things are going to be tense here, son. I’ve got some business down in Mexico. Why don’t you come with me? And when I’ve got everything settled, I’ll take you to a whorehouse to lose your virginity. Would you like that?”

  Jon didn’t feel that he could say no, even though for the first time in a long time, sex was the furthest thing from his mind.

  CHAPTER 11

  Vaya Con Diablos

  Tijuana, Mexico—The rank scrotum sack of North America. Named after someone’s syphilitic aunt—or tía—who had been run out of Spain after her whorehouse was burnt down for allegedly holding occult rituals in the wine cellar. The woman, Juana, ran to the New World and opened a trading post, offering hospitality and cheap native pussy to leftover conquistadors and Jews escaping the Inquisition.

  The city would’ve ended up a cum-stained husk if, by luck, the American border hadn’t been slapped right in front of it after the annexation of Texas in 1845. Since then, it’s thrived on offering flimsy goods and illicit services to every gringo wandering into the country.

  None of this was on Jon’s mind as he flew into the airport attached to the region. The gravity of his actions still weighed him down, still clutched him like a tumor on his conscience. Father had been right to suggest he take this trip. For some reason, a change of scenery made all that horror seem part of another world.

  This new world brought its own horrors, however, beginning with the seven-hour flight from Buffalo to Mexico. Jon had never been on a plane before, never really been on vacation before, and the sensations of taking off scared the shit out of him. White knuckled, he gripped the seat as the world dropped out below and he took to the sky. It was like that first drop on a roller coaster, only in reverse, where there was nothing else but the thin floor supporting your body. His belly floated and colon felt ready to empty. It was a horrible, bumpy, violent ride.

  Father, seated next to him, had taken it all in stride, of course. This was a common interlude for him and he dealt with it by taking full advantage of the frills of the first-class passenger. Once the plane leveled out at cruising altitude, he dangled a glass of whiskey in front of Jon’s face.

  “Not bad,” he said, “but not my preferred brand, as you know.”

  Yes, he did know. Glenlivet Nadurra. The brand of the bottle in the little surveillance room. Apparently, the elder St. Fond knew of Jon’s snooping and let him in on the gag. Once again, Father toyed with him. How did a man gain such confidence? His whole livelihood might hang in the balance, but Father would never show an ounce of concern.

  At first, this trip seemed like a reward for breaking his sister’s arm and giving her a concussion. He didn’t really need it. Jon had to admit the act itself was reward enough. The sensation of power was intoxicating, and he would be lying if he claimed he didn’t want more. His brain, on the other hand, was still clouded over in guilt due to Gabbaducci’s eventual fate.

  Now he had this dangling barb about the whiskey jabbed at him at 30,000 feet. Did Father know, or was he trying to rattle Jon to give up the goods? Silence was probably the best defense.

  Father tried again.

  “I heard a good one the other day,” he chortled into his drink. His third one so far.

  “There was a young man from Tijuana,

  Who declared, as he wallowed in guano,

  ‘It may seem imbecilic,

  To be coprophilic

  I indulge in it just ‘cause I wanna.’”

  A limerick. Michael’s little creative endeavor. Again, this might mean nothing. Father knew Michael. He could’ve discovered his friend’s poetic habits through his surveillance of Jon. Father easily might be just shaking the tree to see what dropped out of Jon’s mouth. Enough of that. He was going to do some shaking back.

  “Do you know a guy called Brian Elder?” he asked.

  “A sensible question at last. Yes, yes, I do.”

  That was more honest than Jon expected. Maybe the alcohol was loosening lips. “How do you know him?”

  “He’s been there all my life. I’ve never not known him.”

  “All your life? He must be—”

  “Incredibly old and hasn’t aged a day for all that time. Always had the face of a scrawny old man with black eyes. He was good friends with my great-grandfather.”

  “What is he? He’s not really human, there’s something—”

  “Missing, yes.” Sip, sip. “He commands himself with much more grandness than he actually possesses. Those who go beyond can snap at greatness, thrust oily hands towards the golden bead, and occasionally become a power unto themselves. Brain Elder tried, and what we see is the wreckage of a cosmic failure, or the residue of a monumental success. I’ve never been sure which. I don’t think he knows either.”

  “But can he do things?”

  “He has power of a sort, but he’s crippled mentally and physically. What we see could be just the leftover humanity that a power beyond doesn’t need, that was flaked off like a scab and tossed behind.
We’ll talk more about this after we touch down. There’s someone I want to show you.”

  “Hold on. One last thing. Is he what he claims?”

  A chuckle. “What’s he claiming?”

  “He says he’s a psychic assassin. That he can get people to commit suicide by crawling into their heads.”

  Loud boisterous laughter. Father wiped his eyes and thrust the glass out to be refilled, which the servile steward quickly did.

  “I’d say that there’s a possibility that it was once true. Great-grandfather and he were sorcerer criminals in arms. They stole. They killed. They conned. They molested. Whether it is true now is up in the air.” Sip, sip. Sip, sip. Father slammed the glass down in frustration. “Stop pussyfooting around. Time to connect the dots.”

  It was the moment. The one that had been brewing for months. The confrontation between father and son, but the moment had no dramatic feel. It was more of an anti-climax. A mystery that a two-year-old could figure out by now. No need for a pretense.

  “You’ve been watching me through surveillance cameras in the house,” he said.

  “And.”

  “And Michael’s been spying on me, too. You got Elder to give him the game and directed him to take us to Goodleburg Cemetery. Which you now own,” Suddenly he remembered the conversation with Absolom at the dining room table, before the pair tag-teamed his mother. “Which you purchased from the Osborne Canning Company.”

  “Well, you know more than I believed you could work out. Very good. Your friend said you had no idea.”

  “How long has Michael been reporting on me?”

  “A while now. I needed to direct things in a certain way and he was the easiest instrument.”

  “What did you offer him?”

  “Michael has ambitions beyond that trash family of his and he had started poking around in areas that I keep abreast of. I offered to show him a way to power. And I did.”

  “He snapped it up with gusto.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  Jon turned and looked into Father’s yellow eyes. Once again, he had to wonder what the older man knew. Why had he been manipulating Jon? He was about to ask but held back. It could be a trap. Or something he was supposed to figure out on his own.

  Instead he asked, “What’s going to happen to Michael?”

  “What do you do with a tool that’s no longer useful? Whether you remain friends is your decision, but I wouldn’t want someone around who’s betrayed me.”

  A fair point. However, Jon couldn’t conjure up the energy to care. They had been friends, a team, surrogate family, for so long. He found it almost impossible to really blame Michael. His friend was desperate. With such useless parents, his dreams of getting away wasn’t going to happen without outside help. Plus, with all the other surveillance Father had on him, it wasn’t much of a betrayal at that. It was all beside the point. There was something else Jon wanted to know.

  “I’m going to ask you a question,” Jon said, “and I want a straight reply.”

  “Oh, very good! Ask away.”

  “Why don’t you care about me?’

  “I feed you, clothe you, and make sure you’re educated. Would I do this if I didn’t care?”

  “You have to do that.”

  “No, I don’t. I could throw you out. Plant drugs on you, and then report it to the police and make sure you’re sent away for a few years. There are a number of possibilities. But I don’t.”

  “Then why do you treat me—?”

  “Because I am not a crutch for you to prop yourself up with. Follow your own path. Figure out your own problems. Be the solver, not the whiner. Be the man everyone wants to be, not the sidekick. That requires you to be strong. The more you can do on your own, the more confident you’ll be. The more confident you are, the more people respect you.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no but. Everything your mother and I have done, the way we treated you, was designed to make you stand on your own and fight back. I’ve been waiting for you to retaliate for some time, hoping every day that this would be the time you lashed out and took control. Finally, my prayers were answered when you gave Catherine that concussion.”

  “Jesus, that’s—”

  “That’s how the men in our family are raised. To be strong, to take command, to demand what they want. There are many who strut about with puffed-up attitudes, but are weak on the inside, writhing in pathetic self-doubt. The St. Fonds have long realized that to achieve the strength we desired in our younger generation, their personalities must be forged from struggle. From that struggle, true character would be seized.”

  “And what if I hadn’t?”

  “What do you do with the runt of the litter, with the undersized vegetable? You throw it away.”

  “Glad I could measure up.”

  “You haven’t yet. A first step is just that, singular. It’s promising, but a lot more ground needs to be covered.”

  With that proclamation, Father downed another drink and passed out for the rest of the flight. Jon did nothing but contemplate the false serenity atop the cloud line. The vapor thin peaks and valleys soothed him, lulled him to believe in a cotton-candy view of life, simple and peaceful. But he knew, all it took was one step beyond this plane and everything would fall to pieces.

  The airport, like most airports, was a nightmare of waiting for some slouching oaf to actually do their job at a reasonable rate. Need the bathroom, stand in line. Need a quick snack, stand in line. Need to exchange money, stand in line. Need to check a passport, stand in line. Need to make a bribe to smuggle in contraband, stand in line. Luckily, Father’s fluency of Mexican Spanish cut down on the red tape.

  The airport, built in a futuristic style in the 1950s, hadn’t been refurbished since that ancient decade. Everything was rundown and frayed around the edges. Occasionally, an advertisement featuring smiling Mexicans was slapped over mildew-covered walls, but it was like painting a dying plant green. Outside, a driver was there to escort them around and took Father’s suitcases with disgusting servility. Jon’s expectations had been low when he stepped out into the blistering Mexican sun, but as he observed this lawless city, he realized with shock that his sights had been way too high.

  Tijuana was not an example of Mexico putting its best foot forward. Unshaven men ran around bartering gasoline for food. Toothless old women gummed week-old candy bars. Children with practiced sorrowful expressions sold individual sticks of gum at 1000% markups. Cheap goods were hawked from teardown stalls, their proprietors hurled every insult under the sun at those who didn’t ogle their crap merchandise. Drugs of every sort was offered by seedy men with runny noses and faded jeans. Vines had grown through abandoned vehicles on sinister side streets. Beggars lined every street and crowded each corner, all of them had mastered the fake pathetic whine. All of them needed your damn money urgently.

  Everywhere, tourists stumbled about. Wearing loud clothes and clean socks, they were all over: Drinking, buying drugs, haggling with prostitutes, marveling over the “handcrafted” native goods, dodging panhandlers, paying off corrupt cops, and gawking at the poverty and general degradation.

  Father instructed the driver to pull over by a crumbling curb and got out.

  “Time for a teachable moment,” he said.

  He approached two beggars sitting in the shade. Each was dressed in ragged clothes, with bellies exposed. Both held out feeble hands, asking for a donation so they could live.

  “Por favour. Por favour,” they screeched in unison.

  Father sympathetically looked down at one and handed him a hundred peso note. The second beggar gawped at the charity and redoubled his entreaties, hands flailing for the generosity of this great man. Father once again looked concerned, then kicked the second beggar in the head. Blood and teeth fell out of the man’s face. Father stooped back into the car and told the driver to continue on.

  “What’s the difference between my two actions?” he asked Jon.

>   “The first was good. The second evil.”

  “Wrong. The first took my money and gave me nothing in return. The second cost nothing and made me laugh. By my definition, the second was the good act. Do you see my point?”

  “Laughs can be cheap?”

  “No. Good and evil are subjective. A programming of society. Why am I supposed to feel good about handing my money to some human detritus? How do I know he’s not a pedophile and I’ve accidently supported his filthy habit? We’ve been brainwashed by flabby liberals to feel guilty about wealth and success. I don’t. I never will. With a lack of guilt, you also lose your need to cleanse your soul by throwing money down the toilet.”

  “Some people like it.”

  “My point exactly. They give charity not out of a desire to help others, but because it makes them feel good. They pay for that sensation like any other vice. It’s a rush, same as gambling, liquor, drugs, or loose women. The only difference is that it’s the only one which allows people to be sanctimonious afterwards.”

  “But if these people are in genuine need?”

  “Then they need to fix themselves. Look at the Mexican Stock Index. Financially, this country is doing great. The reason it hasn’t filtered down to the lower classes is because of massive corruption. No handout is going to fix their shitbag country. I need to fulfill my genuine needs and my genuine need is to spend my money on making me happy.”

  They spoke no more on it and finished the ride in silence.

  A massive water fountain bearing the legend, “Lomas de Agua Caliente”, dominated the entrance to the neighborhood of their destination. It was immense with water shooting from the top to fill two successively large bowls, which spilled out into a beautifully blue-tiled pool beneath. Or it would have been beautiful, if the water hadn’t been green.

  They drove up to a spacious villa surrounded by high white-washed walls with elegant iron spikes and armed guards at the gate. The car breezed through after a brief conversation at the gate. The villa’s rooms were large and airy, and tiled immaculately in brown and red. The furniture looked antique, while the guard’s weaponry was very modern. They were met by two middle-aged twins, a brown haired male and female. Father introduced them as distant cousins to the St. Fond family, Arlo and Lola de Courriere. They were tanned but had a European tang to their bodies. Definitely descended from old conquistador stock. Both had hungry eyes that rarely blinked. A malevolence hung behind their irises.