Wetbones

by John Shirley

  "He's in juvenile hall? They'd have to inform your mom or dad if they put him there, Jeff."

  "They informed my mom, chances are, but she fucking lied to me about it. I guess she didn't want me to get him out, wanted to teach him a lesson or something."

  "Or make sure he went through their drug rehab maybe."

  "Maybe, if you want to believe she had decent motivations in lying to me. I doubt it. The bitch. Well, let's go see if they'll let us have him. Maybe I can get custody." Jeff seemed relieved, almost happy.

  Jeff was almost out the door when the phone rang again.

  It was the cob Jeff had just talked to. Jeff listened, and said, "Well why the hell didn't you -? Hello? Shit." Jeff went into his slow motion mode, moving as if in liquid wax as he hung up the phone, sat down and tugged at his beard. "He was taken to a hospital. He ran away from it. They don't know where he is."

  3

  Oakland, California

  Constance was a virgin, certainly. In more ways than one, Ephram decided.

  They were in a motel room Ephram had rented. The standard fifty dollar motel room. Ephram had decided it would be unwise to be seen bringing in another young girl to his condo. And the Pakistani people who ran the motel had not seen him bring the girl here. It was an "adult" motel, out near the Oakland airport, which meant that it had a pornography channel on its television. Constance and Ephram sat side by side on the bed, lazily drinking wine and watching the pornography channel. Actually, Ephram only pretended to drink wine. It dulled his control.

  She watched the video-snowy close-ups of intersecting genitalia; watched it big eyed and with some confusion but happily, contentedly, because he'd pushed the appropriate buttons in her brain. She could watch a Roto Rooter man clean out a sewer, now, and find equal delight in it.

  She was more deliciously innocent than Megan had been. Constance had never before watched pornography

  – though she'd had an opportunity once to watch "a dirty video" at the house of a fiend, as she'd babblingly told Ephram on that first wave of the psychic high. She'd said no, wrinkled up her nose at the chance to watch movies of people rehearsing reproduction, till now. She thought about boys in terms of romance and dancing and dating and a little kissing, mostly, and read teenage romance novels which were so chaste there was scarcely even a kiss before the end of the book. And had never even masturbated. She had seen pictures of male genitals, and her dad told her anything about sex she wanted to know quite freely, in a clinical sort of way, and she knew how to have sex without getting pregnant or diseased. And she was curious about the act. Until now, only mildly curious.

  Ah, he thought: Curiouser and curiouser, ha ha.

  Being hardly more than a child, she'd never really had the desire, until Ephram rewired her for it. Using the associative technique he'd perfected with Numbers Nine through Fifteen.

  It was ever so simple. You subjected the female to the pleasure-receiver stimulus, continued it as you subjected her to certain kinds of visual input, and then physical input. After receiving enough induced pleasure coupled with the sexual input, the subject associated all pleasure with that input, and her complicity became quite implacable and compulsive. Even frenzied – at least for a time, until the figures and sloughs of despond began to set in. Even then, one could always squeeze a few more drops from the sponge, if one was proficient…

  The master switch supervened the other circuits of the brain. Supervened over choice, native character, self respect, self image or hope.

  And then, of course, there was the punishment. An essential part of the programming and, lately, increasingly of interest to the jaded appetites, ha ha, of Ephram Pixie. And Ephram's friend; his unseen companion.

  The "ghetto blaster" was playing certain Beethoven string quartets which had an astrological significance to Ephram – significance in the esoterica of the negative astrology – and the people on the little wall-mounted TV screen were copulating with energy, albeit no real enthusiam, when he at last began to fondle Constance.

  She shied a bit at first, though grinning with the waves of pleasure he was sending through her. She made some tentative effort to escape him. But already her hips were making the involuntary humping motions, already the drugged look was so deep in her eyes all personality was drowned in it, and he knew he had his fingers on the strings of this pretty little marionette.

  He made plans for her. He could make her love anything. He could make her love the bottom of his shoes. He could make her adore a German Shepard. He could make her plead to drink his piss and sigh with contentment when it was provided. He could make her as he had Number Twenty-one, who had been an enthusiast for the Humane Society – take delight in torturing small animals and then rolling naked in their half-vivisected bodies as they squealed and died. He could make her love a mouse trap, or a dead cat, or the taste of dog food; he could make her take pleasure in mutilating herself with scissors. She would beg him to let her mutilate herself with scissors a second time, if he gave her the pleasure waves when the first mutilation began. He could make her deeply desire to clip his toenails with her teeth. He could make her take joy in masturbating in a bathtub full of earthworms… Or he could force her to do things, with the Punishment. He could force her to eat a pigeon alive – and use punishment to make her do it even when she had no pleasure in it. Or, he could induce her to love eating a pigeon alive. To experience bliss in it.

  He could even make her want to kill her own father.

  From the Journal of Ephram Pixie, "9 May 1987"

  It has always ruled us, of course, no matter what we are doing. If we feel a little pleasure at having cleaned out a file box, it is the brain rewarding the pleasure receiver. If we feel a little regret at having hurt someone – an emotional excrescence I've trained out of myself – it is the punishment receiver that experiences the regret as an inward pang. If we feel a little happiness in the smell of a breeze, or the fit of a new shoe, or the taste of ice cream, or the thrill of taking part in an athletic competition, or the sense of having done a good day's work, or the good feeling that some people experience on performing acts of charity – the happiness is simply the brain rewarding the animal as it has been programmed to do. It has its sociobiological reasons for all of it. Sometimes the rewards and punishments come in tiny little increments, so small we're scarcely aware of them… we're constantly moving to the choreography of reward and punishment… Beyond it, of course, is the audience at this grotesque ballet, the invisible world. Through the invisible world, and an understanding of the dark astrology, it is quite possible to transcend the tyranny of the choreographer, the Great Programmer of Reward and Punishment. But this transcendance is given to only a few of us…

  Garner had almost lost the Porsche at the traffic light on Fifteenth. He'd had to run the light, risk the police and a wreck and risk that whoever was in the Porsche would notice him.

  A Porsche. Not something most teenage kids drove. Something a drug dealer might drive.

  Now he sat in his '83 Toyota, outside the motel, trying to make up his mind about what to do. They'd gone into the motel and any doubts about what was up were banished. His daughter knew about birth control; maybe he shouldn't stop her from experimenting with sex. Maybe. But the guy was obviously fucking her judgement before Constance herself, with the drug. No way was Garner going to let that happen.

  The Porsche was alone on the dark side of the motel parking lot, parked in front of the only room showing a light. That had to be the place. Constance must be in that room with the son of a bitch.

  Garner considered calling the cops. Did he really want the police in on this? Constance could end up in custody. If he charged in without the cops, though, he could end up dead – and maybe Constance too. If the guy was a dealer he was probably armed. Garner wished he'd seen the driver of the Porsche more clearly – he hadn't pulled up in time to see them walk into the motel room together.

  Garner felt a pang at having betrayed his daughter's trust.
Turned into one of the Over Thirty monsters Abbie had warned him about. But on some other level, following her was the right thing to do. This was the only way to get the truth. And seeing Aleutia had made Garner determined on the truth.

  Not my daughter. I won't have her trapped like that. Even If I have to be an asshole about it and follow her, just to be sure.

  He'd almost had himself convinced it hadn't been drugs. You who talk about the mote in your friend's eye, take the beam out of your own, pal. He'd been hiding snugly in his own denial.

  And then he'd awakened… heard that back door open. And knew instantly.

  He made up his mind about what to do. He got out of the car and got the tyre iron from the trunk.

  He walked around to the motel room and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He took a deep breath and opened it. He stepped inside.

  He stepped into glue. A world of glue. He couldn't move. He couldn't see.

  Someone took the tyre iron from his hand. He heard the door close behind him. Then his senses closed down completely. He could hear nothing, feel nothing. Someone had hit him, was his last thought, as he slipped into a world where everything was gray and endlessly inert.

  Constance was beginning to suspect that this wasn't a dream. As the waves of pleasure receded, she began to feel the rug under her bare feet. It scraped at her. She could feel the air on her skin. Sticky, foul. She could feel the weight of the metal rod in her hand. She could see, quite clearly now, the look on her father's face.

  It was empty.

  The one who'd called himself Michael had taken control of her father's brain. Michael had a pinched look of concentration, as if he were having difficulty keeping a grip on both of them.

  Maybe she could fight him now…

  Pain like a rain of fire. Pain raining over her skull, burning down her spine. Malicious and all consuming and beyond screaming about.

  "Please," she heard herself say.

  "Raise the tyre iron over your father's head," Ephram told her. He sounded happy, though he had to grunt the words out through his concentration.

  She obeyed instantly, hoping it would make the pain stop. The pain diminished a great deal, but didn't stop. Not quite.

  "Drive the tyre iron through your father's right eye," Ephram said. She could tell he enjoyed saying your father's right eye.

  "No," she said. It was all she could get out.

  The pain last time was a campfire compared to the forest fire that now consumed her senses. Every last shred of her was looking for a way out.

  It was easy to get out. Just push the tyre iron into…

  But her father's face appeared through a veil of fire. No. No. No. I'm not going to do it.

  The pain was unspeakable. She was knotted with nausea; she was wrung out by the hands of an ice giant.

  She drew her arm back slowly and aimed the tyre iron, and struck.

  It struck where she'd aimed it: at the side of her dad's head. She tried not to think about what she hoped to get away with…

  Her father went down, blood splattering, coursing from the head wound. But he was alive.

  She heard someone laugh. Two short monosyllables.

  Like, Ha ha. "I'm not stupid, my dear. Do it for real this time. Bend over him…"

  There were sirens in the distance. She waited. The man who called himself Michael waited.

  The sirens warbled into a lower register, and faded away.

  But the sirens had given Ephram pause. Who knew for sure this man hadn't alerted anyone? Perhaps they'd be along any minute. And find a corpse, here. Messy, as always. A problem.

  If he killed the girl's father, and if the father had told the cops where he was going, perhaps just before coming in…

  Well. They might get a description of Ephram from the Pakistanis. But of course when he'd registered he'd given them a phony license number and they hadn't checked. So that wouldn't be of any help to anyone.

  If dad here didn't turn up dead, the cops would be less inclined to search out Ephram. And they wouldn't take the man seriously. After all, he'd seen nothing – he couldn't swear his daughter was in here. Evidently he'd seen her get into the car, though. Even so… she was old enough that the police would regard her as a probable runaway. There'd been no struggle, when she was taken. Not a visible one.

  He had some new plans for this girl, after all. He planned to redesign her, with reward and punishment. Instead of killing her, he could make her into a happy and carnal accomplice. For a while. He'd hate to have to give her up now just to make escape more feasible.

  Ephram sighed. "I will be magnanimous, girl. Your father will live. We will move him out to his car, and then we'll be going out to our own. I'll need to get rid of the Porsche soon. Bother…"

  But, really, this was quite exciting. How much better it was, without the Akishra, diverting him from his divine inspirations.

  Where would they go? He wondered, bending to lift the father up, make him look like a drunk supported between Ephram and the girl.

  Someplace they could fit right in, he and the girl. Someplace it wouldn't look strange for an older man to have as companion a girl her age. Someplace corrupt enough to provide camouflage.

  Wasn't it obvious? Los Angeles.

  Alameda

  Garner was sitting at his kitchen table by the phone, pressing an ice pack to his throbbing head, waiting for a police detective to call him back. But thinking the cops were probably a waste of time.

  With his free hand, he touched the bandage around his head. It felt too tight. And it partly blocked the sight in his right eye.

  He tried, once more, to remember the assault. He remembered opening the door. And then, wham. That was all. Next thing he remembered was paramedics bending over him. Someone had found him in the parking lot.

  The phone rang and he answered before the first ring had finished. ''Hello."

  "Reverend Garner? This is Brent at Alameda General -"

  Carrier sighed. He did a lot of counselling for the hospital. They knew him well in the Emergency room. He counselled recovering ODs; sometimes he comforted the AIDS patients. But just now all he wanted to do was start looking for Constance. "I'm really caught up in something now, Brent -"

  "I know – I heard. But there's a girl dying here and she keeps asking for you. She's on the verge of a coma. Crack overdose. Some really massive amount. I guess her old man ripped off a dealer and they smoked all night… Girl named Berenson."

  "Oh Hell." On the verge of a coma. With crack that probably meant Aleutia was dying…

  He heard Aleutia's voice as soon as he stepped into the E.R. Whimpering, pleading.

  Garner turned and saw her in one of the alcoves, lying on a hospital bed under heaps of ice.

  He knew what the blanket of ice meant. It was a last ditch treatment to lower a soaring body temperature. A killing fever that came with crack overdose.

  She was dying. And the baby…

  Two nurses and a doctor worked over her. Machinery beeped softly as it monitored her vital signs. She lay there motionless, now. She'd stopped whimpering, stopped squirming.

  "We're losing her again," the doctor said, his voice flat.

  "Where's the obstetrician?" one of the nurses said, sounding like she was fighting hysteria.

  Carrier wanted to go to Aleutia, hold her hand, try to reach her. But it was too late; she was unconscious, babbling in delirium, and he was afraid of getting in the way. He just stood there and prayed.

  A slow minute later, as he stood riveted, watching, the heart monitor flatlined. The monitor made a single, empty tone, whistling into forever. A Code Blue. Her heart had stopped.

  They tried CPR; they failed. They tried re-starting her heart with electrical jolts from a defibrillator. That hardly ever worked. It didn't work for Aleutia. She was gone.

  "What about the caesarian?" a nurse said.

  "We've lost the baby too," the surgeon said.

  I prayed into a vacuum, Garner thought bitterl
y.

  The cops. Go to the cops. Tell them about Constance. Find her.

  Mouth dry, head thumping, Garner walked on wobbly legs to the exit. He just wanted to find Constance. We've lost the baby too.

  "So did I," Garner said, aloud. "Lost my baby too…" He said it to no one in particular.

  Or maybe he said it to God.

  Los Angeles County Juvenile Detention

  The visitors' room was painted white, overlit, and furnished with cheap orange plastic chairs, most of which were so bent they were a danger to sit on. There was a single decoration, a retouched photo of an autumn scene in New England. It was cemented to the wall. Some kid had scribbled on it with a ballpoint pen, drawing in a word balloon over the forest lake, which was reflective with sunset orange: Get me out of here! I'm drowning in this orange shit!

  Prentice and Jeff sat alone in a corner, waiting for Lonny. The counsellor had said Lonny was Mitch's room-mate, and a friend of his from before the arrest. "A friend of his?" Jeff had said. "It's weird that I never met him."

  "No it's not," the counsellor had said.

  In the other corner of the room a Chicano boy talked earnestly in Spanish with his mother. The boy was overweight, the skin of his face pocked, his hair puffed up in the sort of pompadour that's stylishly dimpled in the middle. It looked to Prentice like there was a hole going down into his head. The boy had a fake gold chain around his neck.

  Jeff shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "You think that doctor was full of shit? Doctor Drandhu?"

  "Christ, that name sounds like the villain of a Flash Gordon serial or something." Prentice shrugged. "That's something we can ask Lonny. If that shit was self mutilation."

  "That's just not a Mitch thing to do. He might do all kinds of weird shit but Mitch hated pain. Hell, he hated any kind of discomfort, he was not your Spartan type, you know? And if he was into mutilating himself it would've showed up before now. I mean, he was never that fucked up."

  "Yeah well. Amy was crazy but I never knew her to mutilate herself either. And she did it…