“Where do you know her from? She said she just moved here.”
“She did. About a month ago.”
Another life ago.
“She started working for my dad and we got to know each other.”
“If she works for your pop, why is she behind the bar?”
“Second job, dummy.”
Fucking go-getter.
Told you. She’s out of your league.
Fuck you. Watch.
Chase sat as Rick finished his beer. With his other hand, he patted Chase on the back.
Chase licked his lips as he checked out Stacy from behind.
“Let me ask you something,” he said as he turned away. “Have you heard from her recently? Other than last month?”
Rick shook his head and looked away as Chase shifted back.
“Did she say anything about me.”
“We’re not talking about her tonight. Let’s just have some drinks and some laughs,” Rick said.
“But—”
Rick snapped his head towards Chase and grasped his forearm.
“I said no. Want to talk about your arm?”
Chase put his hand over Rick’s.
“Yeah. Exactly. Not tonight,” Rick said and motioned to Stacy.
“What’s up, teddy bear?”
“Two more, please.”
“Hey, T. Change of plans. Would you rather take a ride in a Jeep to your place? Having some problems with the heat at my apartment.”
“Thought you had a motorcycle?”
“Rick and I switched for the night.” Resentment filled him. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, baby.
She drew a finger to her lips and smirked.
“T?” she said. “Never mind. I get it. Trouble. I’m Trouble. Yeah. I think that’ll work.”
VI
“What’s the matter, baby,” Stacy cooed in Chase’s ear as she unbuttoned his fly.
Shaking his head, he wondered how they got here. And why.
“Don’t call me that,” he said.
Chase clamped his eyes shut and fought the blistering swell which threatened to split his skull in two. Three, five Troopers tops, he never recalled feeling such distress. Even the mornings after whiskey binges never thundered as thick. He winced as Stacy pulled out his painfully engorged erection.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” he said.
She gasped, and her eyes opened wide as she struggled to wrap her fingers around his shaft.
“Holy shit,” she murmured. “You’re a fucking beast!”
He glanced down. His mind refused to connect. More than he had ever wanted, the impossibilities of this girth and length made his head go light.
“That’s… that’s not me. Something’s wrong,” Chase said as he held down the curdled vomit that boiled his guts.
“Maybe it’s not you, but it’s for me,” she gawked.
Stacy dropped to her knees as she steadied herself with both hands on him.
Chase yelped as he felt his flesh might tear from her grip over his obnoxiously blood-filled appendage.
“Please stop!” he yelled. “I’m not that big! Something’s not right!”
“Yeah, right? Grace told me about you,” she said as she compared her delicate arm to his cock. “She couldn’t walk for a week!”
She stroked his penis as it expanded further. His head went light, rigidity locked his spine, and gnarled his hands into twisted branches. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes remained fixed on the graffiti-covered brick wall ahead of him as the stench of rancid meat filled his nostrils. Bile shot up to the back of his throat and choked his futile rejection.
He gawked at the rats and cockroaches as they feasted upon severed limbs packed into the dumpster against the brick wall. Repugnant gore and sludge seeped through oxidized perforations, and flowed along the broken asphalt, around Stacy’s knees and feet as she continued to manipulate his manhood.
Ethereal stillness swallowed the air, as if the world whirled within itself, creating a new reality from the ghostly remnants shed from fleeting apparitions.
Chase lurched over as awareness and mobility returned to his quivering body. A guttural wail and an aphotic smolder billowed from his gaping maw. Sludgy bile ejected and splashed against his boots.
Clutching his head, Chase collapsed to his knees.
Perhaps the whore sensed your malicious intent. Was your intent to sodomize her? You are a loser.
The voice reverberated in his skull, dark, assured, familiar.
“Fuck you! I’m not a loser” he bellowed.
Do winners attempt to fill the mouths of innocent ladies in a filthy alleyway with their equally filthy cocks? Stupid and selfish. Open your eyes, my dear boy. Look where you are.
No.
Yes.
A gasp lodged in his bloated throat as he considered the woman lying in fetal position. Crimson flowed from her lips and mixed with the puddle of dumpster milk. Steam wafted from her lifeless body as the hoar of discord blanketed them both.
Twitching hands combed through dark, wavy tresses that used to bob to and fro with each correcting step of her trajectory.
“God, no. This isn’t real,” he muttered.
Indeed, it is.
A maniacal cackle filled the recesses of Chase’s mind, rebounding through the thunderous pounding of blood vessels threatening rupture within his skull.
Stop it! Make it stop!
You started it.
No, I didn’t
Really?
No!
Chase coughed and honked and wheezed and sobbed. Trembling hands caressed her cheek and closed her oceanic, green eyes. He kissed her.
“Why, God? Why?” he sniveled.
He embraced her cold body, and he bore his teeth.
“Fuck you,” he growled. “You can’t have her. I won’t let you!”
Amusing. What shall you do when she decomposes?
It doesn’t matter. She’s mine. She was always mine. She’ll always be mine.
Then why did you kill her?
His eyes blasted open. They flickered, looked at everything and nothing at the same time as reality, this reality, dawned on him. A distant wail of sirens filled his attention.
They’re coming for you. You’ll suffer for this.
I already am.
Explain that to them.
Red and blue lights danced across the brick walls, casting twisted shadows he imagined clawed hands reaching out from the nothingness of night.
“Hey, you! Hold it right there,” a voice echoed in the man-made valley.
What shall you do now?
“I didn’t do it!” he yelled as he pushed up from Heather’s lifeless body. He dashed further into the alley. Two police officers pursued, guns drawn.
Chase scanned the dead end and looked up at the perverse fire escape ladder that mocked his freedom.
“Hands where we can see them, asshole!” one of the officers exclaimed.
BAM BAM BAM
“You deaf or something, kid? It’s over!”
BAM BAM BAM
The authoritative voice, nothing but a whisper under the head-splitting canon fire.
I would relinquish if I were you. This is your end.
Chase looked away and reached for the revolver hidden from sight. Where it came from, he didn’t know, nor did he care. It reminded him of that awful John Wayne movie.
With the fluidity of a marksman, he gripped the handle and thrust the barrel under his chin. He measured the police officers aim.
“Don’t be stupid, kid. Put it down,”
BAM BAM BAM
VII
Chase bolted upright and clutched his head.
BAM BAM BAM
“Open the fucking door, stupid! I know you’re home!” a man hollered.
Chase tripped from his sofa and tumbled to the floor. Mucus blurred vision strained to focus as his overpowering gasps threatened hyperventilation. He swam to his feet and b
ounced off the walls to the door of the apartment.
BAM BAM BAM
Chase clicked the deadbolt and threw the door open. He gazed at the massive creature hulking in the doorway.
BAM BAM BAM
Bazzi punched at the opened door.
“Just in case you didn’t hear me the last five minutes.
“Jeez, Chase. You look like shit. And that’s saying something since you always look like shit. But you look like someone took a shit on top of a pile of shit! That’s how much like shit you look like!”
Bazzi shoved Chase to the side with his massive belly.
“Excuse me. Mind if I come in?”
Bazzi’s laugh made Chase cringe. He had heard no one in his life ha-ha-ha in their laughter so boisterous.
Chase shook his head as he followed Bazzi to the faux leather couch. The throbbing within almost took him off his feet as he held against the wall of the shoebox apartment.
He listened to the weak pine frame snap under Bazzi’s planetary.
“You really should buy new furniture,” he bellowed before the sickening ha-ha-ha that followed.
“What do you want, Baz?” Chase groaned.
Bazzi looked at him, stunned.
“Didn’t your daddy teach you any manners?” he said and pointed his sausage fingers to Chase. “It’s Mr. Baz to you. Come. Sit,” he finished, patting the seat next to him.
“Sorry, Mr. Baz. What,” he stated.
“Christ, Chase. It’s six at night. Were you sleeping? You better get your shit together. Ha! Shit! Get it?”
The laughter resumed. Chase heard the jab of a mop handle under his floor. Bazzi stomped in response.
“I hate seeing you like this. She fucking left you. Don’t you think it’s about time you got over it?”
Bazzi reached into his coat and drew a small plastic baggy filled with a vivid white powder.
He opened it up and dug into it with his overgrown pinkie-nail. The snort was as reprehensible as his snicker. He resealed the bag and tossed it to Chase’s lap.
“Enjoy. It’ll get you out of this hole you dug yourself into.”
Chase glowered at the cocaine.
“Trust me, kid. Look at me. I’m on top of the fucking world! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
“Listen, I know we haven’t kept in touch since you went to Fist City, and I fully understand. But that’s in the past. I think it’s time our relationship moved forward.”
Chase lifted his head and fought Jupiter’s gravity beneath. He peered at Bazzi through swollen slits.
“You need money. I know you do. How about another job for old time’s sake? Would you do that for me? Would you do that for your dear Uncle Baz?”
Chase didn’t answer.
“How long have we been friends, two, three years now?”
“Friends? I don’t know,” Chase said.
“Has to be at least two years. I think we hit it off well when I met you at that art store. What was that fucking redhead’s name—"
“Grace,” Chase answered.
“At least you remember. Grace. She’s been asking for you. You ever hit that?” Bazzi said.
“No. Of course you didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have been there begging to put your shit in there. You missed out, kid. Sucked my prick like it was the last source of oxygen on the fucking planet. That girl would’ve changed your fucking life.”
His maniacal laughter returned.
“Ah, the good ole days! Anyway, what do you say? You in?”
Chase hesitated. Shaking down people for money wore on his soul. He knew it wasn’t right. But he also knew these people wouldn’t have asked Mr. Bazzi or Raguzzio for money without appreciating the repercussions.
Would they?
“I guess. Do I even have a choice?”
“No, kid. You don’t.”
Mr. Bazzi’s schizophrenic demeanor flipped off like a light switch. Chase considered his quivering hands and nodded.
Bazzi reached into his jacket once more and removed a wad of twenty-dollar bills, crudely bound in a dirty rubber band and tossed it to the remnants of the coffee table.
“An advance. You really could use to spruce this place up. Did you have a bitch-fit, or does everything you touch turn to shit?”
Chase didn’t answer as Bazzi waddled towards the door.
“You’re going to end up dead before thirty if you don’t stand up for yourself,” Bazzi said as he closed the apartment door.
Not a bad idea.
“Fuck you,” he muttered.
VIII
The unfamiliarity of the local dive bar in Boro Park sent Chase’s anxiety aflame. Though he lived only a few miles away, the neighborhood’s resident Italians had left throughout the last forty years, leaving nothing but blurred borders of Asians and Orthodox Jews behind.
Why did Bazzi insist they meet here, he didn’t know, nor wish to ask. When Mr. Baz says they’re going somewhere, they go. Chase learned that lesson one fine evening when Bazzi drove him down to Fist City. And Chase never wanted to return.
“What the fuck is this?” Chase said. “I get more than this.”
That annoying cackle filed his ears as he shut down within.
“You got money up front, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. But this is still short.”
Bazzi raised a hand to the bartender and nodded. “Interest, kid. Interest. You thought I did that from the kindness of my fucking heart? Don’t be stupid.”
Molars ground in Chase’s jaw and his eyes narrowed.
“What? What’re you going to do? Hit me,” Baz said. Chase pushed off from his seat and hunched over.
“Come on, kid. I dare you. I triple-dog fucking dare you.”
The handful of regulars looked up as Chase stepped away.
“What the fuck you looking at, Chang? Drink your fucking Saki, or whatever the fuck it is you drink, and mind your own Goddamned business!”
“I’ll be back,” Chase muttered.
“Where’re you going?”
Chase didn’t answer as he walked under the half-lit neon restrooms sign, loosely hung by reused hardware store hooks.
He slid the deadbolt closed and scanned the room. Focus remained fixed on the closed toilet stall after he noticed the missing urinal. He thought it looked as if someone like Bazzi must have had a fit and tore it free from the urine-stained wall.
He considered at the dark circles under his eyes through the dingy, steel mirror above the equally marred sink.
Scowling to force back the heartache that threatened him to his knees, he grunted and punched the mirror. The ugly dent beneath his fist splattered as his dried knuckles split open. He palmed the sides of the mirror and groveled.
“God, please. I can’t live like this anymore. I don’t know what the hell to do anymore! Either fucking help me or—”
“Or what?”
Chase spun around and fell back against the sink.
“Kill you? Stay out of your way?”
He trembled and wanted to vomit, thinking that familiar, internal voice burst forth into reality.
The flush from the stall stifled all sound within the cramped restroom. The latch clicked open, and Chase bit his lip.
He felt a twinge in his stomach when he examined a well-dressed, elderly exit the stall. Chase reeled back and fell against the sink.
The man gripped his black lacquer cane hung on the partition and brought it before him and clasped the silver grip with both hands.
“Beg your pardon, my dear boy. Didn’t mean to give you a start,” he said with a grin that reminded Chase of Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man.
“I know you,” Chase whispered.
The man tipped his head and smiled once again. His jaundiced fingers danced on his cane like spiders, eager to catch the fly. Chase glimpsed below them at what he thought was a bird’s skull.
“Perhaps. But I cannot say that I have enjoyed the acquaintance,” the man said.
“Who—who a
re you,” Chase pleaded.
“Only someone who is disturbed by the failings of his fellow man. One never knows when a stranger might lend an ear. Or a hand.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed. The English accent in the man’s voice rooted itself in absolution.
“No. There’s no fucking way you’re real. It can’t be,” Chase quivered.
Disconnected surprise raised a salt and pepper eyebrow. The folds in his forehead tightened. The painting he never finished illuminated the dark ignorance of the past.
He stepped towards Chase. He felt the temperature in the room plummet. The click of the cane tip on the linoleum pierced his ears. Chase craned his neck to consider the man’s eyes as he entered his space. He smiled again and gestured to the sink.
“May I?”
Chase stepped back and said nothing while the man rinsed his hands. He stared at the bottomless sockets of the bird skull cane, touching the gravitational pull into another place. Another world.
He pressed his eyes closed and fell away.
“My apologies, Mr. Romano,” the man said as he gripped his cane. “You will know who I am. Perhaps we shall commune again in another life,” he said and stepped out of the washroom.
Chase remained frozen. Unable to move, unable to breathe, his eyes fixed on the squealing door as it slammed shut. The crash of shattering glass filtered through the flimsy door and snapped Chase from his miasma.
He pushed against the sticky door plate and stormed out from the lavatory.
“What happened? You fall in or something?” Bazzi said. His laughter drowned out the Wurlitzer’s rusted wail of the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil in Chase’s ears. He stood by his stool, snatched his beer from the bar and chugged it. “Scotch, please. Double.”
Bazzi leaned back and examined Chase. “What happened to you?”
“Did you see that old man who came out of the bathroom?”
Bazzi turned in his seat and scanned the room.
“Old man. No. Nobody came out of there except you,” he said.
Chase bit his lip and silenced the barrage of questions he knew Bazzi couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. He slammed back the bottom-shelf scotch and motioned for another.
For the next fifteen minutes, Chase nodded and said nothing as Bazzi droned on about some pizza-guy who might be avoiding him and Raguzzio for the last several weeks, and his note was way overdue.
The Accursed Page 18