Appalachian Galapagos

by Ochse, Weston

  "I don't think so," said Eli, setting the bag down and reaching into it. He came out with a length of rope and walked quickly toward her.

  She backed up several feet, stabbing at the approaching figure.

  He reached out and took the shears from her trembling hands as she felt herself let go. She sunk to the floor, a small scream leaking from her red painted lips. Shaking her head, she crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

  "Don't rape me," she pealed. "Please. Please, don't rape me."

  Eli stood and titled his head to the side, admiring her in her fear. "I promise. I shall not rape you."

  He took the shears and clipped four equal length pieces of rope. He cast the shears aside, gripped her wrist and jerked her to her feet. From the bench to his right, he grabbed a roll of silver duck tape. Within seconds, her screams were silenced as she breathed heavily through her nose, her gaze dancing across the garage and her attacker as she attempted to discern the meaning of his movements.

  He gripped her gently and led her back to the rear of the jeep.

  "Step up, please," he whispered, more a lover than a murderer.

  She looked but didn't understand.

  "Here," he said indicating the rear bumper.

  She slipped twice in her heels, and in her terror was unable to complete his command. He reached down and gently removed each shoe. He placed them neatly by the door as if she would use them again when they had finished whatever it was they were going to do. Her eyes brightened slightly with the hope they represented.

  "You won't be needing these."

  She stared at her shoes and then at the man named Eli. She didn't understand and her hope slipped.

  "You will never understand. That is the crux."

  She stared hard. She knew she hadn't said it out loud.

  "Now, get up there and turn around."

  She complied, the spare tire causing her back to arch backward as she struggled for balance.

  Within moments, he had her hands tied to the roll bar and ankles secured to the bumper. Her breathing escalated, making freight train sounds in the half-light.

  Gently, like a lover, he unsnapped her black leather bustier until the sallow color of her breasts was revealed. Small pink nipples quivered hard from fear. He folded the garment and laid it atop her shoes. Stepping back, he appraised her, staring deeply into her eyes as his hands slid up her thighs. Feeling no underwear, he removed his hands and unzipped her skirt, ripping it along the seam, not by anger, but by necessity. Naked, tied to the rear of her jeep, she watched him closely, the word terror rebounding in her mind, but seeming so insufficient for the moment.

  "I promise you will feel no pain," he said.

  He kissed her on her forehead and placed his right hand on her left breast.

  "I was like you once. I had much power, but I did not believe. I was cursed for it and lost my sons. You have power and you have killed."

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head frantically.

  "You use people. You use your love. Love is not meant to be a tool."

  He ran his fingernail across her breast. Among the goose bumps that launched upwards, the skin peeled bloodlessly away revealing a rapidly beating heart. Gently, he reached in and removed it. Her body shook and she inhaled sharply, but she did not die.

  Carefully, Eli carried the beating heart to his bag, opened it and placed the heart carefully within a silver container. He returned to Hannah with a length of living vine. As he wove it into a rounded shape, he spoke.

  "You are like this kudzu. You live off the pain of others and take sustenance from their dying. You are a parasite."

  He placed the formed vine where her heart had so recently been and sealed the rent in her skin with a flick of his forefinger.

  "Thus you will live," he said standing back, "as a parasite."

  Her body began to quiver, then shake as the vine took hold within her. She fought and screamed from beneath the tape, but was unable to get free as small tips of vine broke through her skin, exited from her nose, her ears, her eyes. Vines slithered from the used space of her crotch and slit the tips of her nipples, the green leaves pausing and testing the air before they continued their complicated weave. The vine grew quickly devouring her, until finally, all that was left was vine—large and vaguely human shaped.

  Eli picked up his bag and leaned the viney mass over his shoulder. He exited the garage and moved to the side where a sickly rose bush was attempting to climb a large trellis. He deposited the vine beside the rosebush and waited as the feelers rooted themselves deep and latched onto the white wood of the flower ladder.

  He left with a smile, walking down the driveway to the street, whistling his song.

  We've Only Just Begun

  Jerry Ross stepped into the restroom of his favorite bar, The Lunatic Fringe, and saw a heavyset man beating the hell out of a small skinny man. He watched momentarily, beer in hand, enjoying the way the bigger man's fist collided with the smaller man's face in a wet explosion of teeth and blood.

  Jerry did the only right thing and joined the fray until the small, skinny man was lying face first in the overused urinal, his blood mixing with the thick, yellow water.

  The larger man grinned, stuck out his bloody hand in a friendly gesture, and said, "Thanks, my man. That little fucker had it comin' to him. Name's Wilbur."

  Jerry returned the handshake and the smile. "Hey, no problem! I'm Jerry." He looked down at the beaten man. "What'd he do?"

  "You mean you helped me and you didn't know?" Wilbur asked, his eyes scanning Jerry's thick sideburned face suspiciously. "Shit, I figured you heard 'im whistlin' and then you came to help me."

  Jerry shrugged. "Nope. I just figured that any guy getting beat that passionately deserved any beaten that he gets. What he narc about anyway?"

  Not waiting for an answer, Jerry walked over to the urinal next to the pummeled man, put his beer on the top of the commode, and began to relieve himself.

  "He didn't narc on anything, friend. I was sittin' in the stall takin' a shit, when that little motherfucker began to whistle. There's lots of things that get me riled up in this shithole of a world, man, and one of them's a whistler." Wilbur glared down at the injured man and contemplated putting his boot in his rib. "Not only was he whistlin', but he was real good, too. Motherfucker sounded like a cute little bird from some goddamn cartoon or somethin'. Cute is somethin' I can't stand one whit. Like that little bastard Gizmo in that movie Gremlins. That little motherfucker makes me want to punt him like a football. Anyway, that bastard layin' there on the floor was somethin' special of a whistler. Like he done went and practiced that shit for years and now he's tryin' to impress me with his magic. It'd be one thing if he was just some average Joe Shit Whistler, but this whipdick sounded like an angel. The fucker knew it too, so he was all impressed with his self. Had a glow of arrogance about his whistlin'. The bastard."

  Jerry glanced down at the unfortunate whistler and saw yellow teeth scattered about like kernels of Del Monte corn. "Don't know if he's going to sound too professional now, man, considering that most of his teeth are laying around him like that." He paused, giving time for Wilbur to laugh.

  At that moment, Jerry realized that he had found himself a real friend. He, too, hated whistlers and had often thought of tearing out their throats. The only difference was that he didn't act on his impulses. Now, he was wondering if he should start being more impulsive. Shit, what gives people the right to annoy me, he thought. Without even knowing what the man had done, he had joined in the pummeling instinctually. It was as if he knew what the right thing to do was.

  "Yep," Wilbur said. "Let's just say that he ain't gonna be whistlin' "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" no more."

  "Goddamn but that's a happy song to be whistling just before you lose your teeth," Jerry said. "Life's funny that way. One minute you're happier than Uncle Remus and his rabbits, the next you're lyin' on the floor of a urinal."

  They both erupted into insane
giggling. When they were through, Jerry said, "You ever do anything like this before?"

  "Shit, yeah. One time I heard this brave fucker singin' "Seasons in the Sun" as I walked by his house."

  Jerry groaned. He hated that fucking song. He had also gotten violent when he heard music that he didn't like once. One time he had broken a boombox over the head of some prick that was playing that jungle rap shit. He spent a year in prison for that one.

  "I knew he was singin' in the shower cuz his voice sounded all hollow and shit," Wilbur continued. "So I tried his front door. Jesus must have wanted him dead, too, because his front door was unlocked."

  Jerry broke into a grin and rubbed his thick Elvis-like sideburns. "Goddamn, if Jesus wants you fucking dead you may as well just up and kill yourself."

  Wilbur nodded. "Fucker was in the shower runnin' the soap under his balls, when I came through the glass. That was all she wrote for that dumb bastard. The angels just swept him away."

  Jerry's eyes widened in admiration. "You killed a man for singing 'Seasons in the Sun'?"

  "Well, I beat him first, but yeah, I killed 'im."

  Jerry giggled. "You mean to tell me that this poor fucker was singing, 'Goodbye, Pa-Pa it's hard to die' when you came through the glass and executed his ass?"

  "Actually he was singin' that part where the guy sings, 'We had joy, we had fun'. Who sings that fuckin' song anyway?"

  "Terry Jacks."

  "Terry Jacks," Wilbur repeated, tasting the foul name on his lips. "He ain't still alive is he?"

  "Yeah, I think he is. You know something, Wilbur? I think me and you is gonna be friends. There's one way to find out. What if I was to start singing "YMCA" by the Village People?"

  Wilbur's eyes darkened. "I'll tell you what, Jerr. It's taking everything I got not to kill you for just mentionin' Satan's war song."

  "Dear God Awmighty!" Jerry said, his voice reverberating through the restroom like a fiery preacher. "It's like were long lost brothers or some shit like in a fucking movie. How about guys who dance real good?"

  "Shit, I killed me three of them already," Wilbur said. "Motherfucker was out there on the floor shakin' his ass back and forth like a girl, actin' like he was on goddamn Soul Train or somethin'. Had these tight leather pants on where you could see the crack of his ass. I considered it a mercy killin'."

  They paused for a moment, staring at each other with respect and admiration. The seed of friendship had been planted; it was up to them to bring it to fruition. They had only known each other for minutes and they were already comfortable with silence.

  When the bar band's faithful rendition of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" began wafting in through the bathroom walls they broke out into predatory smiles.

  "Ohhhh, yeah," they both said simultaneously, heading towards the band, their hands clenched into tight fists.

  Summer Planting

  At four in the afternoon, the shadows were already descending along the zigzag mountain road. Dark green kudzu smothered the trees in a continuous sculpted blanket. Windows of shadow enticed glimpses into the forest's interior. Multicolored trash littered the sides of the road like wild flowers growing lazily along the base of great castle walls.

  Laurie smiled as she watched the shapes hurry by. Unlike clouds, imagination didn't need to be exhausted discerning the shapes in the complex kudzu lattice.

  A large dinosaur was bent over gnawing at a smaller sleeping bear.

  What looked like a net laden with fish danced in the wind making it seem as if they were alive, flopping, trying to escape.

  A young child reached to the sky like a champion at some Olympic games.

  The perfect shape of a 1950s pick-up truck squatted in the weeds as if...

  Laurie grinned as she caught a glint of chrome and rust. It was a pick-up truck. She marveled at the voraciousness of the kudzu and wondered if the truck's occupants might still be sitting inside having momentarily stopped to consult a map, only to have become captured by a sudden furious growth of the all devouring plant.

  Laurie turned to Doug who was grinning like a child. Although humid, Doug had insisted that the windows be rolled down and was breathing in the husky mountain air in deep drafts as if the smell of honeysuckle, old growth forests and humidity were an existentially necessary sustenance.

  Raised in the Rockies, Laurie had scoffed at her husband's impertinence at calling these tiny Tennessee hills, mountains. She was used to majestic views of towering snow-capped rocky peaks, permanent and daunting in their glacier-carved clean lines. But now, she wasn't as certain as she once was. The rolling, tree-rounded Appalachians confused her, snuck up on her, drew her in and made her an extension of the forest. More than an experience, it was a feeling.

  "Why didn't you tell me it was like this?"

  "Like what," said Doug, grin widening.

  "The mountains. The forest. This incredible kudzu."

  "But they're not really mountains, honey. Not like the Rockies," he said, drawing out the word.

  "Stop that," she said, punching him in the shoulder. "Don't make fun of me." She stared out the window for a few heartbeats. "It's everywhere. It grows on anything."

  "And you know, I've always loved it. Strange thing, to love something that's essentially a parasite. I always wondered if the trees would grow bigger if it wasn't for the kudzu."

  "Dad," came the voice from the back seat, drawn out in an impossible long breath. "Dad," Ian said again, "when are we gonna get to your fishing hole."

  "Soon, Son. Soon," Doug replied. "Did I tell you about the time when my Dad and I found the hole behind the pig farm." Ian scooted forward on his seat, straining the limits of his seatbelt. "You know, we really didn't believe that there were any trout there, seeing as it was smack dab in the middle of Bass Country, but my Dad insisted we check it out. The day was one of those non-stop rainy Tennessee mountain days where you didn't know if it was the sweat or the rain that was making you wet..."

  Laurie let the male-bonding fade into the background and watched the darkening forest that surrounded them. The edges of the shapes had become amorphous and darker with the setting sun. Goose bumps rose on her lightly tanned arm. The rushing wind teased her ears in a seductive whistle.

  An inexplicable emotion interrupted her musings. She thought it might just be nervousness, but staring out into the dark mystery of the forest, the leafy vines eating away at the living, she admitted that it could just as easily be described as fear.

  "There it is," shouted Ian from the backseat. The green Jacob Mountain City Limits sign welcomed them with a shotgun-hole smile. Laurie eyed the double-digit population figure. "Most of the folks up here live in the county. The actual town is pretty tiny," said Doug.

  "Tiny? I could invite everyone over for a party and not have to borrow any extra chairs."

  "What do you think they do here?" He laughed.

  The forest had receded from the road, graciously allowing houses to be built. These were not the Alpine lodges of Colorado. Definitely not the carefully manicured and environmentally conscious plots and condos of Rocky Mountain retreats. Laurie's lips tightened as her critical eyes took in the anachronisms. The first house was a long blue trailer that squatted diagonally across the lot. In front was a large 1970s era black satellite dish that could easily bring in four hundred channels. Parked next to this was a dark red Trans-Am: T-tops, hood scoop, mag wheels; the wild 165-mile-an-hour ride of the late seventies.

  The second house was a clapboard masterpiece of tar and the art of creative nailing. Dead hulks sat in effigy of their Detroit masters, losing the battle against weather and the ever-creeping kudzu. Grass grew in great tufts around the base of each wreck making them look like old grandfathers watching the youngsters speed by. Dogs cavorted through the missing doors.

  The third house was an actual brick ranch-style house. Recently built, the shutters were still a gleaming dark green. The matching front door had a brass knocker in the shape of a lion's head. But the
normalcy stopped there. If the house had been in a modern suburbia, it would be manicured to the millimeter. Any weed brave enough to invade would be immediately destroyed by the lawn's loyal owner. Yet here, the house sat on a plot of Tennessee red clay, the ground seeming as if the act of building had been a grievous wound.

  As the other houses sped by and into memory, Laurie realized they were merely variations on a theme.

  "I had this friend in the Army," said Doug, noticing her discomfort. "He was Hawaiian, and in more than blood, if you know what I mean. The term pack rat could be easily placed beside his name. One thing I noticed about him is that he had no need for a nice house or a fancy car or new furniture. Some people made fun of him. He didn't care. What he wanted was lifestyle. He cared more for the way he lived than how he lived. The folks around here are simple. Not stupid, but simple. They like living well better than appearing like they're living well. They don't worry about...things."

  Laurie could tell it was a prepared speech. Doug really wanted her to like it here. This was his past. It was what made him the man she loved. The culture, the mentality, the...life. All of it. Laurie promised herself she would get past her own materialism and give the place a chance.

  "I didn't say anything, Doug. Nothing at all," she said softly, beaming a smile across the small space.

  "Look," he said, indicating a building, "something new. If I remember right, the town store used to be in the old firehouse."

  A tin, barn-like structure sat amid an almost empty parking lot. A flickering neon sign was bolted above the single double-wide door in the metal building's center: Jacob Mountain Beer & Grocery.

  "At least they have their priorities straight," he said.

  "Dad, it says ham hocks are on sale. What's a hock?"

  Laurie ginned.

  Doug sighed and glanced at his son in the rearview mirror. "Ian, I haven't a clue. And I don't know what pickled pig's feet taste like. I have never eaten tripe. And I only had hog jowls once, but that's because my mother made me eat it when I was a kid. Hey, let's get some supplies."