Consumed- The Complete Works

by Kyle M. Scott

  This being California, you just know the weather is always right. The Pacific Ocean spreads out before our land and sails off into the horizon. Sometimes, it’s impossible to tell where the ocean stops and the heavens begin.

  In this, the year of 1969, you’re unlikely to find a more hospitable motel anywhere in the state. Certainly not one that’s willing to go that extra mile to make your stay a pleasurable and memorable one. We may not boast the extravagance of New York’s finest establishments, buy we make up for our size and standing, by providing our guests with everything they need.

  Everything.

  We cater to all manner of clientele – businessmen, lovers, backpackers, the retired looking for some much-earned rest and relaxation.

  All kinds of people.

  On occasion, we do find ourselves encumbered with, shall we say, a lower class of gentry, but we try our very best not to discern. Far be it from us to treat our varying customers with any lesser regard on the basis of their economic background.

  Goodness, no.

  We here at The Oceanside Inn realize that not all men are equal, though we strive to do our best in maintaining an air of respect and equality, whether serving a congressman or a beatnik.

  I won’t lie to you...as the proprietor of this fine hotel, I find many of these people distasteful, some to the point of being irksome, but we must be as accepting of the riff-raff, the mouth-breathers and the, I hasten to say, vermin, as we are of those worthy of our energies and our commitment.

  They all have a place in society’s pyramid, do they not?

  When all is said and done, things have changed in this part of the United States in the latter half of the decade, and while I myself may pine for a less decadent and more graceful time, I accept that the world has moved on, this part of it at any rate.

  I do my best to find my footing in a world that rapidly plummets from each and every grace.

  We all must do our part to make things better.

  Serving the more unsavory human detritus that crawls in off the streets from time to time may be a chore, but it is one I accept.

  If some of these peace-loving, drug-abusing, unwashed and uncouth young souls happen to wash up on my shores...well, I do my best to take care of them. After all, a lot can happen to idealistic youths on the open road.

  It’s my job...no, my duty, to keep the doors of The Oceanside Inn open to all comers. And to serve them as best they deserve.

  It pains me to say that in the few years we have been catering to the public, we have suffered a few deaths at the Inn, but I can promise you, there are no ghosts to be found at the Oceanside. Our halls echo with the sound of the living. With laughter, merriment and love. We hold no stock in superstitions and we see no need to revel in the macabre.

  If some who make the stop at the Inn, happen to find that it is their last stop, then I can attest to the fact that they passed away in the most pleasant of surroundings.

  There are surely worse places to pass away.

  Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name Edward Slater, owner and manager of this fine establishment, and, if I may say so myself, a man of some social standing.

  A social standing that is growing with each year my doors remain open.

  I built The Oceanside Inn seven years ago, with a reasonable sum of money, passed on to me by my dear mother – may god rest her soul – after the awful fire that burned our home to the ground.

  My poor father had perished three years previous to my mother’s immolation, and in truth his death was surely the catalyst for the terrible fall her spirit would soon take.

  Some souls do not take well to the loss of a loved one. My mother was a luminous spirit torn from the rapture of true love, and cast into the darkness with merciless precision.

  The passing of her husband served as a sort of dark initiation for the corruption of her soul. The poor, beautiful woman rapidly spiraled into a desperate freefall.

  A frenetic and dedicated plunge into alcoholism, promiscuity and finally, a fiery death.

  Part of me believes her despair gave her an excuse to revel in her more base desires. It seems to me that perhaps there was always a darkness lurking beneath her demure and fragile veneer. Something curled up and fetid within her heart that yearned to be free and run wild.

  It may just have been a complete mental breakdown.

  No matter...it was a tragedy with no seeming end, and as a young, impressionable boy, I bore witness to the fathomless depths of her misery on an almost daily basis.

  Many was the afternoon I would return from school to our rapidly declining home, only to find my once cherish-able and beautiful mother positioned on all fours in our living room, with two or more men, naked and grunting like animals as they thrust their sweat and shit-slimed cocks into her every orifice. Half the time she would be unaware I was even there – her eyes glassed over with a stupefied alcoholic sheen.

  The men certainly were aware, though.

  They reveled in my mother’s incumbent, despair-fuelled lunacy, and it seems that they found equal mirth in the contours of my own horror.

  Some would laugh aloud on seeing my tears freely flow.

  Some would ignore me and continue their scourging of my mother’s body and soul, unabated.

  The worst kind would glare at my young form with hungry, burning eyes as they thrust into her holes, and would erupt within her, their thick cocks pulsing in terrible splendor as their eyes bored into mine.

  On really bad nights, some of the men would wait till my mother had passed out, and visit me in my room.

  Shame and terror were of equal standing, in my once happy home.

  The school-yard was no different.

  My mother’s reputation for wanton carnality and substance abuse, danced on every tongue - young and old, pupil and teacher - and I found my once proud standing as a well-mannered and popular member of our small town’s population, to be eroding at a most alarming rate.

  The school-yard took on the dimensions of a dog pound – full of rabid, drooling dogs, waiting to pounce. A place devoid of comfort, warmth or compassion.

  Something to be endured.

  Survived, but hated.

  Each and every school day was a vacation in Hell. I did my very best to maintain an air of self-respect amidst the constant barrage of phlegm-green spittle and wayward fists, but some things are intolerable.

  A broken nose is one thing – it can be worn.

  Suffered.

  Broken pride is something entirely different.

  This assault on my person, combined with my insane mother’s self-imposed assault on her body and being, had taken their toll on me by the time I was of job age.

  I left school behind with the greatest of relief. Hearing those damned-able bells chime for the last time was like a celestial opera swelling in my ears. By that time, I was a shell of the vibrant, confident boy I had been in early childhood, but one with a pointed sense of destiny. The shadow I cast was now every bit as ravaged as my one surviving parent’s flesh, yet I swore an oath to outrun it.

  Ahead of me, I saw escape.

  A glimmer of hope.

  Change.

  A future free from the corrupting stain, placed upon the family name by the very woman who bore me.

  I would make my fortune, and strike out into the world with dazzling vigor and pip. I would bring this whole sickening, upsetting world to its bloodied knees and restore my name.

  For myself.

  For my father...

  Arnold Slater had been the Eastport’s bank manager, and a beloved and trusted one, at that. He stood nearly six feet tall, and was gifted with the most dazzling smile. His deep blue eyes spoke of compassion and decency. His soft words soothed and charmed. In the spring of my years, there was nary a person in town who didn’t know, or love, Arnold Slater. He carried an air of geniality and strength that inspired many admirers, men and women alike. Not least of them, his own young son.

  I looked to that
man as one would look to a superhero. My boyhood fantasies were not filled with masked vigilantes, alien visitors or insect-powered teenagers. No, they were filled with a desire to reach the level of citizenry that I saw in my father.

  To be a man of the world.

  Now, the world of Eastport may have been a small one, but it was his. He was the master of his standing, and I, his young and promising heir.

  A stunted and portly heir with none of my father’s physical attributes, true, but the inheritor of even more useful gifts.

  I imagine that my somewhat impressive handling of moneys came from the man. His self-control over the dollar was admirable in the extreme. Whether handling the finances of others or that of his family, he was a man who had mastered the art of economy.

  Shame, then, that it would be money – his bread and butter, and the manner of his profession – that would become the catalyst for his horrifying and shocking demise.

  It was I who found his body.

  I’d gone down into our basement – heedless of the crawling, ever watchful spiders that nestled in its dark corners - to search for an old, love-worn typewriter that my mother had worn away the hours on in the spring of her own life. It had long been her girlhood ambition to become a writer, and while later years had saw the tool of her artistry gather dust rather than dreams, I knew she dreamt still of being an author someday. On this particular July morning, I took it upon myself to attempt to reinvigorate her passion. She was always happiest when she was creating. There was a fire burned inside that woman that could render crashing waves calm, and basking in the warmth of her vitality was a treasure and a joy to me.

  I had no sooner reached the halfway point of the steep wooden stairs when the smell assaulted my nostrils and made my stomach lurch.

  Reaching the bottom, I hit the light-switch, and in the light I saw only darkness.

  My father, my hero, had climbed atop a small wooden stool, tied one end of a thick, hemp rope around his strong neck, and tied the other around a sturdy oak rafter that supported the ceiling.

  The stool lay on its side.

  With one kick of his feet, he had fallen of the edge of the world and into the terrible abyss, taking with him a young boy’s dreams and hopes and loves.

  To see him there, swaying as if guided by some sentient, malevolent wind, opened a door inside me - one that would never close.

  His eyes, once blue and vibrant, had faded to a sickly grey, like milk left too long in the sun. His tongue, now blue and swollen, protruded from his too-red lips, coated in a crisp, dried residue that could only be blood. In his death-spasms he had almost bitten his tongue off – it dangled like a great blue slug from a thick, fleshy tendon. His hands were clasped, as though to grab – the fingers curled like claws, and he wore his best suit, a dark blue tweed, complimented by a brilliant white shirt and a sharp, clean tie to match the jacket.

  His suit pants were a perfect fit also, showing off his muscular, lean legs. Now, though, with a slow stream of thickening feces running from the hem and into his soft leather shoes, the image of perfect civility was all but lost forever.

  I watched in sickened fascination as the ruined body of my dear father shat its last. The feces dripped to the floor in small globs, forming a small pile at his heels.

  A legacy in excrement.

  As I wiped the tears – born from the awful smell or the gruesome scene, I do not know - from my eyes, I looked for the first time at the man I had loved and idolized my whole life. His power had slid from his soul like the waste from his bowels.

  I looked up from the muck on the basement floor, unwilling yet to accept the pure horror of my parents death - reduced to little more than spent dreams and a puddle of shit - and noticed that in the fine-cut pocket of his suit, there had been placed a note. The white of its corner practically radiated against the dark-blue tweed.

  With shaking hands, I reached for the note.

  It took two attempts before I could find the strength to slide it from his person, and open its folds. It felt heavier than lead in my trembling grasp, promising secrets that would grind my joy to brittle dust.

  I read the letter in its entirety, without breathing even once. I think my heart may have stopped in those unending moments. I have memorized that letter to the word, and have carried the weight of it upon my heart for each and every intervening year.

  Here is what it read:

  Dearest Maria, and my beautiful son, Edward.

  It is with the greatest of regret that I must do what I now do. I beg of your forgiveness in this selfish and weak-seeming act. I love you both more than all the world, and I wish only the very best for you in your lives. I dedicated my life to making both of your lives much more abundant than my own youth had afforded me.

  You were my inspiration and my heart.

  Maria, without your love, I would never have left my father’s farm. Never have tasted the success that I tasted, and never have known true happiness. For you gave to me, my only son, and what a son he is! I will always love and cherish you, no matter where my soul may lie, and I beg that you find a way to go on. This storm will pass, as all storms do. You will find a way. You are stronger and smarter than I ever was, and were the world one in which a woman could rise to true prominence, it would be you who had taken the lead in this families fortunes. You have been, and always will be, my soul-mate.

  And Edward, the light of my life and my very best friend. I will miss you always, son. Leaving you is the hardest thing I will ever do, but it must be done. In the coming days you will learn things about me of which I am less than proud, but I beg of you that you will always remember me as a loving, attentive father. Someone who would die for you.

  I want you to stick in at school, and study hard. Don’t take the easy way to success like your old man did. Do better than me. Be better than me. The whole world can be yours, son, and the path ahead can be one with clear horizons from this day forth. I would not ever have you and your mother fall with me.

  You both deserve so much more.

  Look after your mother as best you can. Live wisely and follow your heart. It will be your moral compass. You are my one true accomplishment, son.

  Live the life I couldn’t.

  You will always be in my heart.

  Both of you.

  Till we meet on better shores....

  Dad.

  In that moment I saw the truth of our world. I had yet to learn of the circumstances that paved the horrid walkway to my father’s untimely death, but I had witnessed first-hand the reality of our cold, desolate rock under the stars.

  Good men fall. The best of intentions are mocked by the fates, and the world makes mincemeat of the meek.

  It was a lesson I would never forget.

  Within days of discovering my father’s bloated, shit-stained corpse, the world, as I had always known it, had irrevocably changed. As he had eluded to in his suicide note, there was indeed a reason behind this most horrifying of acts.

  Embezzlement.

  My father, hardworking and honest as I still believed him to be, had run afoul of hard times, and had taken measures that he would otherwise have balked at. He had stolen from our townsfolk in order to keep my mother and I living in our relative harmony, and in doing so, had built a wall around his own future – one that was roofed with barbed-wire, and guarded by men with guns.

  A bank clerk, in the employ of my father, had discovered the inaccuracies in the books. The young man, surely looking to do his best for the bank and for the town of Eastport, had approached my distraught father with his findings, and had informed him that unless he handed himself over to the police within two days, then the clerk would have little option but to alert the law to my father’s activities himself.

  My father, realizing that all of his money was tied up in a joint account with his wife, and would be extricated on his arrest, decided that to save his family, he would have to leave this world, but not before laying all of the moneys on her per
son.

  That way, we would be monetarily secure for the foreseeable future. His legacy, however tainted, could be forgotten over time, if I, his one and only son, could make of myself an approximation of the man that he so desired to find in himself.

  I have to laugh when I think on how much faith he had in our futures.

  How much faith he had in my mentally unstable mother.

  It would have killed him, once and a thousand times over again, to see her as she’d become, in those last years.

  I can still see her face when I close my eyes.

  Her screams still thunder in my ears when I least expect them.

  Perhaps there are some ghosts here at The Oceanside, after all...

  I’d rather not remember.

  Not now.

  Let’s talk of happier times, shall we?

  The path my life has taken since her terrible accident has been one of good fortune and providence – the looming shame and despair that strove to pull me into the mire has perished, a clear horizon now stretches out before me. I left behind the town of Eastport, a home burnt to black cinders, two parents in their tombs, and a trail of terrible memories.

  And I travelled.

  The small fortune left for mother and I, though much dwindled in the wake of her insatiable, lunatic thirst for self-desecration, was still of a reasonable standing. I had enough to make my way west, to the outermost shores of San-Francisco, where among wind-kissed trees and the ever-present song of the crashing waves, I opened my Inn’s doors to the world.

  I would build on my father’s legacy.

  I would restore our name to one of pride.

  I would embrace my position as manager and proprietor of The Oceanside Inn, and I would wash away the stains left behind, by both my father’s misfortune and my mother’s devastating illness.

  In time, the Slater name would rinse clean.

  Perfect and beautiful, as it had once been.

  Perhaps my own soul could also be saved...