Monster's Chef

by Jervey Tervalon

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t be stupid, my brother.”

  “He wants you to kill us?”

  “‘Handle you’ means whatever it takes. Overdose you, make you disappear. Whatever.”

  “Did you do that to the boy?”

  Thug looked at me with great pain in his eyes.

  “You know, I could knock a fool out without a problem, I’m up for that, but I don’t kill people who don’t need killing. I ain’t like that.”

  “I lucked out,” I said.

  “Maybe, but Monster got lots of folks on his payroll who don’t have the scruples I got.”

  “So, you think they’ll do it, hurt her or me?”

  “Oh, hell, yeah! You need to know that.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “One of them is that Sheriff Graves. Now that muthafucka needs to die. Don’t you even look in his direction; he’s nothing but a corrupt cracker with a badge. You better be glad you never pushed the panic button on that pager he gave you.”

  “You knew about that pager?”

  “Of course, I was the one who gave it to him, on orders from Monster.”

  “What would have happened to me?”

  “Your ass would have been disappeared like Manny.”

  “Is that what happened to him?”

  “What do you think? See, you got to know how this game is played. Monster is tying up all the loose ends so he can keep what he wants: money and the baby. Everything else can burn as far as that fool is concerned and he’s willing to pay for it.”

  “You think he set those fires?”

  Thug shrugged. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  Then I felt a chill run through me: What had happened to Asha?

  “What about Asha and Bridget?”

  Thug shrugged and wrapped a towel around his bald head like a turban.

  “That I don’t know, my brother. Maybe they cut the right deal with Monster and they got out.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Thug smiled and walked over and patted me on the shoulder.

  “Because I got all the money I need and I’m sick of being Monster’s nigga, tired of being his thug, and he should pay for all the shit he did.”

  I believed him, though I don’t know why. Then, as he walked away, Thug turned and gave me a nod.

  “Monster is tripping, big time. He’s never been what you call rational, but now he’s got serious delusion going on, Jim Jones kind of delusion. Watch your back, my brother.”

  Thug was gone, and later in the day, when I was back at the bungalow, I saw him tooling downhill in the Maybach, getting out while the getting was good, a black man of means.

  RITA HAD ME FOLLOW HER to her apartment in the farthest-flung region of the mansion, the part of the Lair where the important guests were lodged. She didn’t seem at all bothered by Thug’s take on everything, but it did make me think that I was crazy coming back here, that I should have taken the money and run. And it was hard to ignore the thickening white ash falling like snow, portending the fire next time was here. Rita changed into black sweats and running shoes, pulled her hair back into a tight bun, and looked determined and ready for whatever.

  I looked out of the window and saw people gathered near the road: the gardening crew, cooks, and house cleaners boarding vans to leave the Lair. Near the Ferris wheel a fire engine waited for the encroaching fire with its exhausted crew sprawled out on the lawn.

  “How do you think Monster feels about abandoning the Lair?”

  “How do you know he’s going anywhere? He could stay here, living in the tunnels below, like some fucking rodent,” she said, with a face red with anger. “Monster thought he could get rid of me with money or lawyers, with Thug and with you, but I’m not going away. I’m right here until I get my baby back. I don’t care if this whole sick world burns down.”

  She yanked out a drawer, turned it over and out, and pulled hard at something taped to the bottom. She came up with a small silver gun that seemed very big in her hand.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “You don’t need to know that. What I need you to do is go with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To get my baby back.”

  I had to laugh. She must have thought I was Superman, or maybe in her mind she was Superwoman. Either way, it was a stupid idea.

  “Rita, the best thing you can do is get out of here and get yourself a lawyer. You’ll get a settlement; you’ll get your baby back. It’s obvious that Monster is crazy, and any sane judge isn’t going to give him custody of the baby.”

  Rita stood up.

  “I’m asking for your help to do something that needs to be done. I’m not asking for your advice, I’m asking you to go with me in there and help me.”

  “What good is that going to do? Monster will have me arrested as soon as I step in there. It’s different for you. You’re his wife, he can’t have you arrested for trespassing, for taking your baby. That’s not kidnapping for you. For me that’s life in prison.”

  She scowled in my direction.

  “You don’t know what I’m up against. When a judge finds you mentally incompetent, you don’t have shit to say when it comes to your baby.”

  “Okay, but still, how are we going to get this done?”

  “I know things about the Lair that Monster doesn’t know.”

  “I don’t know if this makes sense. We can figure out a better way of doing this.”

  “Don’t be a fucking coward. Stand for something.”

  “I’m not a fucking coward and fuck you for calling me one.”

  “Monster isn’t going to hurt you. He’s not a Saturday-morning-cartoon villain. Show some courage.”

  “I have courage, but I’ve got to use my common sense; otherwise I’m a fool.”

  “Did Monster get into your mind with his mumbo jumbo? Did he scare you?”

  “What are you talking about? Monster’s got a small army of idiots in uniforms to protect him.”

  Rita laughed, and she looked a bit like the woman I remembered weeks ago.

  “You just haven’t been here long enough. You get used to this, this craziness.”

  I wished I could be like her, sure that if we charged into Monster’s Lair, something good could come of it.

  “Monster did something to me. Something, I don’t understand, but it fucked my head. I saw things last time I was there. I can’t remember what happened, but I catch glimpses, images.”

  “Monster does do things to you. He’s good at that. He has all the drugs that no one else has. He’s got this Hong Kong chemist who cooks them up for him. You hallucinate, speed up, and crash.”

  “I heard about this chemist, Mr. Chow. He’s another good reason for me not to be in there.”

  “Here,” she said, and unzipped her fanny pack, and took out the silver-plated .22. She tried to hand me the gun, but I backed away.

  “No, I don’t want it.”

  “Take it, if it’s going to give you confidence.”

  “I’ll throw it in the trash,” I said, and she put the gun back in her fanny pack.

  “No, you won’t. I worked like hell smuggling that thing in here.”

  “I’m not going to shoot Monster. I’m a lot of things, but not a murderer.”

  “I need your help, that’s all. I’m not asking you to shoot anybody. I just need you to be there for me. It’ll be easy.”

  “If it’s so easy, why didn’t you take the baby earlier?”

  “Because Monster did something to my head. I couldn’t stand up to him, one person can’t stand up to him, but together we can. We can make him respect us, put the fear of God in him.”

  “You think?” I said, shaking my head with doubt.

  “I know. I know it for a fact, we can do this.”

  Rita rushed the door as if she had been waiting for the right moment to burst free from the confines of the room with me
following at her heels.

  “Hurry!” she said, and I did my best, but she was quick and fit and I was a winded, out-of-shape cook.

  I thought that since we were inside the Lair, the mansion proper, it wouldn’t be a big deal to head over to Monster’s wing. I wasn’t sure I would go with her; this wasn’t my problem, and it seemed suicidal. Monster must have still had some Security in his employ, and if not them, Sheriff Graves might be about, and if he made Thug worry, the last thing I wanted was to see him again. I wanted to go, find my way down off the mountain ahead of the fire, but I followed her.

  “There’s no way we can get to Monster from the inside,” she said. “But there’s another way.”

  Hard wind blew from the north, the sky was red and black, and stinging sand whipped against my face.

  “Come on, follow me,” she said. We ran along a path that circled the mansion until we came to a heavy metal door. She didn’t bother trying it, but I did. It was locked. I turned back to Rita, but she was gone, pulling herself up the wisteria-covered walls to a destination I didn’t want to think about.

  I hated heights.

  She stopped fifty feet above the ground and stood up on a ledge, holding on to the wall, reaching into the heavy foliage, pulling at something—an electrical box? I heard a click, and the metal door swung open. Rita climbed down quickly and waved for me to follow her inside. In the darkness we reached a stairwell, which we took to the bottom. There we were in a part of the mansion I hadn’t seen before.

  “We’re past the grand hall and now we’re at the living quarters.”

  Voices came from up ahead. She opened another door, and light flooded over us, the sun itself.

  Blinded, I stumbled forward into a sweltering room, some kind of sauna. I heard voices and laughter. Finally my eyes adjusted enough for me to see.

  There were maybe a half dozen blonds, naked and glistening with sweat, carrying water bottles that they shook and sprayed one another with. One gestured for us to follow.

  “Ignore them, Monster’s harem. They’re so high, they’re barely human.”

  I tried to avoid the boy, but he came toward me and grabbed onto my arm.

  “Hey, get back!”

  The boy ignored my command and rubbed himself against me. I shoved him down to the floor. Another boy approached and did the same thing, trying to rub up against me. I knocked him down and ran after Rita.

  “How come they ignored you?” I asked her.

  “I’m not a man,” she said by way of an explanation.

  After we crossed the hall, Rita’s gun pointing the way, she opened another door that led to a cavernous space, dark as a Texas highway at night except for a blazing fireplace. We had arrived at the library where I first saw Monster and the baby.

  Rita ran for the fireplace, pressed a hidden lever, and the fireplace slid away, revealing another stairwell.

  “This is it. We’ll find Monster here.”

  We started down the steep and narrow stairs, again walking in darkness. We slowly and carefully maneuvered down to the landing, where she pushed the door open.

  We were in a bedroom, and there was Monster, naked in the way people seemed to like to be at the Lair, stretched out on a gigantic bed, almost engulfed by the pregnant plushness of pillows. Everything in the room was white, white as Monster. We were in a nursery, but the baby was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want to see Monster naked, sensing that it would be dangerous to look; I would become stone or a pillar of salt at the sight of something mind-boggling, like a gang of tentacles writhing away where his manhood should be.

  It was wrong to look. I could sense it, that the perversity of Monster was more than his Clarence Thomas–like attempt to racially obliterate himself, his need to maintain the illusion of marriage, his harem—all of it would be explained by the brutalization of his own flesh, proof that what he was willing to do to others was nothing compared to what he had done to himself.

  But I couldn’t resist; my eyes burned to see the mystery of his sex.

  I glanced quickly as Rita tried to wake him from a stupor.

  Monster had no genitalia, just something that looked like a brass-ringed hole.

  “What is that?”

  Rita ignored me and kept shaking at Monster’s arm.

  “Did he do that to himself? Did he have himself cut like that?”

  “What did you expect?” Rita said as she turned back to Monster. “Where is my baby?” she repeatedly screamed into his uncomprehending face.

  A flutter of movement, lips twitching.

  Dazed, with eyes as red as blood, he tried to stand, teetered, and fell back onto the bed.

  Rita slapped him, and he cried in short, hard sobs.

  “Go away,” he said. “Where’s my Security?”

  “It’s over, Monster. The hills are on fire, everyone is evacuating.”

  Finally, she got through to him. Monster more or less came to his senses.

  “Rita, you are so wrong. I did so much for you, and you betray me, just like everybody else. Like those liars out there who talk about me like I’m some kind of child molester. You know the truth; I’m incapable of hurting anyone.”

  He glanced down at where his genitals should have been.

  I felt like throwing up.

  “Where is my baby?” Rita demanded.

  “He’s not yours. He’s my flesh and blood.”

  “He’s not, you fucking liar! He doesn’t have an ounce of your blood in him, and if you don’t tell me where he is, I’ll shoot you down right now,” she said, shoving the gun into his face.

  Monster shoved the gun aside and ran to an armoire and flung it open to reveal an array of bottles with colored fluids inside.

  “Leave those bottles alone. You’re not poisoning me again.”

  Monster’s hand darted for something among those dozens of multicolored containers.

  Rita fired.

  A red bottle slipped from his startled grasp and shattered on the floor. Whatever it was sizzled and evaporated into wisps of smoke. Immediately, I coughed and tasted pomegranates.

  “Don’t breathe!” Rita shouted to me as she dragged Monster into the hallway. I followed, eyes stinging and throat burning, only able to take a breath once the door closed behind us.

  “Where is the baby?” she demanded of Monster as he crumpled on the cold slate of the hallway.

  “The baby is home. He’s safe at home,” Monster replied.

  “He’d never be safe with you. Give him to me,” Rita said, and I was sure she would kill Monster.

  “He’s away from you. You’ll never have him,” Monster said, and started to shimmer and pulsate, skin churning, slipping into something else.

  “Stop!”

  Monster’s face began to elongate into a snout, and that’s when she shot him.

  He continued to change and she continued to shoot until the gun clicked.

  Too late.

  Monster had become a massive wolflike creature, with bloody welts across its face. With a snarl, he padded away from us.

  VEGAN PINEAPPLE-SAFFRON UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

  TOPPING

  5 tablespoons Earth Balance spread

  ½ cup plus 2 teaspoons raw brown sugar

  1 pineapple

  CAKE

  2½ cups all-purpose flour

  ½ teaspoon baking powder

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ¼ teaspoon cardamom

  ¾ cup raw sugar

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon saffron threads

  ½ cup water

  ²⁄³ cup coconut milk

  5 tablespoons grapeseed oil

  Make the topping: Put the Earth Balance spread and the brown sugar in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the spread has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Continue cooking, without stirring, for a few more minutes or until bubbles start to appear around the outside edges of the mixture and the sugar starts to caramelize. Then remove from the heat, and p
our into a nonstick or sprayed 9-inch round cake pan.

  Peel and slice the pineapple and arrange the slices evenly over the topping in the pan.

  Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and ground cardamom into a bowl. Place the sugar and salt on top of them and mix together. Take some of this dry mixture and, using a spice grinder, blend it with the saffron threads until you can no longer see any strands.

  Using a whisk, combine the water, coconut milk, and grapeseed oil in a bowl. In thirds, add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and combine after each addition until you have a homogeneous batter. Pour the batter over the topping in the pan.

  Bake at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely, then invert onto a cake plate so that the pineapple slices are on top.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “WE ARE HALLUCINATING,” I SAID TO RITA calmly as she walked about in circles.

  “No, he is some kind of thing. He does that. He’s capable of anything!”

  “Should I have said, Are we hallucinating?”

  “He’s a demon. A godforsaken thing.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to faint,” I said, and meandered away.

  I found Monster’s bathroom and washed my face, and dried it on a towel so thick I could plunge myself into it, submerging totally into the whiteness, its abundance, and wondered if a flock of geese would burst forth.

  I returned to her with the towel wrapped around my head.

  “I can taste it. It’s bitter and thick on my tongue. Don’t you taste it? We’re both very high,” I said with satisfaction.

  “What are you talking about? That man has my child, he turned into some werewolf thing and I shot him and it didn’t do anything.”

  “I’ve been very drunk. I’ve smoked hashish, chewed peyote, done acid, ecstasy, but I’ve never felt this.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Listen. My heart, I can feel the beat reverberating throughout my body. The blood rushes all around me, flowing from me into the air around us.”

  I meant every word I said because I wanted Rita to know Monster wasn’t really a monster but a freak who had thrown us all into a poisoned river.

  Rita pointed the gun at my head, gesturing for me to shut up.