by Garrett Cook
It makes me cry and I feel like every woman in almost every Western when I do. “I don’t want you to go out there and I don’t want you to die. I love you and I want to actually get married and if you go out there and you face him…” I can’t even hear or think or feel my own words over the sobbing. It is only sobbing, since there are no words to express the fear of losing someone you love and the knowledge that it’s so possible.
“I know Cass,” he says, his own eyes tearful, “I know. I don’t want to go either, but we have no choice. Godless Jack isn’t going to let us run any more than we would let him run if we were on his trail. I can only hope to be good enough. I can only hope that Lud was right when he said I could bring down the lightning from God.”
“God could take you from me,” I start to cry, “I don’t want anybody to take you from me.”
“I know you don’t. I don’t want to go away, Cass. We’ll get him, Cass, no matter what tricks he has up his sleeve. We need to get to sleep, though. If we can’t get to sleep, then we’ll be tired and weak and that’s what he wants. That’s why he didn’t send anybody after us on the road but left the message for when we come home. He doesn’t want us to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
Jeremy nods in agreement and then goes to the medicine cabinet. He has still has some of the sleeping pills that he’s been slowly taking from the pharmacy for years. He hands me a couple and takes a couple for himself. I don’t remember ever holding him so close or being held so close in my life. I drift to sleep barely able to breathe from being held so tight, but it still feels good.
I dream about wandering around the mall in Connecticut. The stores are all closed, though. I hear the footsteps of somebody with me there. I can’t see anybody, but the footsteps get closer. Then, I hear the sound of a whirring drill. I look behind me, and there he is, Mister Right. He’s no longer paunchy and weak and greasy. He’s bigger, tougher and much more magnetic. He smiles at me and I can’t run anymore. I have to go to his smile. And I do. Then, the smiling mouth opens up and extends, unhinged like Godless Jack’s jaw. It swallows me whole and I slide down his throat into a great, dank tunnel.
The photos from his drawer are several feet tall in here, decorating the walls of the cave. As I walk through it, I find that the photos in his drawer get more risqué and more disgusting. The naked women begin to cut themselves with things, they begin to eat shards of glass and masturbate with long knives. The things that provoke him are more disgusting than I thought. It dawns on me that the things that provoked all these men, all my enemies are more disgusting than I thought. Mr. Right’s weakness was a trap, he was meant to leave my psyche unhinged, meant to make me feel physically and morally weak, meant to make me feel like I was being mocked. I realize these things as I journey through the dark cave inside him in my dream. I emerge and I am in a desert. Towering above me is an enormous pyramid and I know who and what it is dedicated to. Something in General Lud’s rantings comes to mind, when he talked about the jackal and the serpent king. He talked about them as Egyptian gods, forces that roamed the earth dispensing their own justice, dispensing the justice that killed him. Tomorrow we go out to face the serpent king. The jackal will be with him. We must beware of the jackal. Anubis kills with his hands and teeth. Statues of a jackal and an enormous snake creature, the creature near the Contessa’s front door. Jack will not go alone, Jeremy won’t either, but I know Jack is going to cheat bad. We are dealing with something that does not feel he is human or that he needs to follow man’s rules. We are dealing with the icon, the serpent in the garden.
We get up and have breakfast. It feels so clear that it could be our last breakfast. It doesn’t feel like the last time you’re going to see somebody usually feels. For me, the last time was usually after I broke up with them, after I wanted them to go, but it’s so harsh this time because I want nothing more than for him to stay and for life to stay like this. There can be no simple, happy life in a world like this. How many other couples have been split up by these monsters and the world of hatred and stupidity they’ve built for us and themselves? I have to think of them, too. It still doesn’t make me stop thinking about us. I can’t imagine anything that would make me stop thinking about Jeremy and I and how we could just be another part of this tragedy. I lay my head on his lap and look up at his face. This might be the last time I see that face. I wish I had something better to think about.
“Jack’s going to cheat,” I tell him, as he toys with my hair, I know from the sober look on his face that he’s figured that out, but maybe I kind of feel that if I make the argument he won’t go out and do it.
“Don’t worry,” he answers, “we’ll cheat too. At around nine thirty, you get in the blue van and you hide. If anybody comes with Jack, you plug them. I’ll try and keep things as disorienting as possible so whoever comes won’t be able to get a handle on your position. If anybody does, you drive off.”
“But…” here I am again. Every woman in every Western.
“No. No time to argue. Nothing to argue about. If anybody finds your position, you drive off. You’re not the one that Jack wants, but he’ll use you to make my last moments even more agonized. If they find your position, you drive off as fast as you can. And don’t go after me. Jack’s address might be on his website, but I’ve got a feeling he might not be taking me there. That’s why I’m telling you right now, to drive off. You won’t find me if he catches me. I’ll find you if I can get away, but don’t let me see you driving after him. Understand?”
I don’t understand. I don’t understand how we could be in a position where one of us would have to leave the other to die. I don’t understand how he expects me to let Jack get away with him when he would never have let it happen to me. I feel like it’s an insult. An insult to the time we’ve spent together and the love I have for him. He seems to think I could keep on going if I knew he was in the bastard’s hands. That, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how anybody who actually loves someone would want them to stand by and watch. I don’t God’s injustice, but I still do what he wants me to do. He wants me to agree to drive away if I’m found and let him resolve the fight himself. So, I do it. My heart is screaming and swearing and breaking, but I nod. My tear stained eyes beg him to reconsider, but of course he doesn’t.
We sit together on the couch awhile, holding each other, hoping to take as much as we can out of our arms to remember each other by. I don’t think it could work. I don’t think that these moments could give back all of the time we spent together and the future we could have. These last, desperate moments of clasping each other can’t give back the child we might have raised together. I can’t help but pessimistic, I can’t help but feel the loss already, because I know Jeremy misses that future and the child that might have been and the war we would keep fighting. At 9:10, I take the sniper rifle, the van, the pills and a walkman and I stake out a position near the warehouse where the fate of our love, the fate of our lives and a little bit of the fate of America will be determined.
I listen to Abbey Road three times. It was such upbeat music when I picked it out, before I’d been thinking of endings. I hadn’t been thinking of the end of an era, the end of lives, the breaking of the bond that chains our hearts together. I cry so much that I can’t see where I need to be drawing a little red bead on some guy’s head to make it explode. I have to dry my eyes. I think of the sniper rifle and the little red bead that might save Jeremy’s life. The last time I hear the phrase “and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make,” I hope that it’s true. I hope that the love we’ve forged will create more love, in our hearts in the world, love that will rise up with big, dripping fangs like the human snake that wants to tear it apart. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Let it be true. We made so much love for ourselves. I can only hope there will be more.
I pick up my cellphone when a big, muddy red pickup parks a little bit outside the warehouse. I know who
se muddy red pickup this is long before they get out. I knew he would cheat. Hacksaw Sally picks up a crowbar from the truck bed and finds hiding place. I’m ready to draw that little red bead right now, but that would give us away instantly and I have to wait until things get rough before risking my own life. I tell myself that agreeing to this is actually doing something for him before I dial the phone, hoping I can provide some help before he shows up. Even as I dial the number, an ice cream truck parks discreetly down the street. A huge, burly fat man emerges with a garotte in his hand. That’s interesting. It looks to me like they don’t plan on killing him right there. That doesn’t relieve me at all.
“Jeremy, I was right,” I tell him when he picks up, “Jack’s cheating. He isn’t going to fight fair. People are already here…”
“Don’t tell me how many. Don’t tell me who. It won’t help, Cass. It will just make me nervous. I don’t need to know. Just keep watching and get ready for noon. I love you.”
“I love you.” And I hate him because he’s getting ready to die and he won’t even listen to me. I hate him even more for having the courage to do what he has to do when I don’t have the courage to do what I need to. I don’t have the courage to run if he gets in trouble. Another car shows up and four people I don’t recognize get out of it. A fifth person I do recognize gets out too. Marshall Kozack, the Tennessee nailgun killer. I have a feeling I know who two of the other four might be. They are, after all, shapely young girls with black hair and thick eye makeup. The Contessa even sent him a little backup. At least seven people are here when Jack said come alone. Of course you can’t trust the words of the devil. Of course you can’t. Thankfully, there aren’t any other cars until Jack’s big black limo with snakes painted on the side shows up. Jack is as ugly in person as he is on the TV. Uglier perhaps. His eyes look even yellower, his face even more sunken and inhuman, that terrible unhingeable jaw even uglier when he smiles.
He opens up the huge trunk and reaches into it, for a cage that has been put in there sideways. I cannot begin to speculate what he put in such a huge cage. It looks to be about seven feet long and three feet wide. Amazing that he had a trunk so huge that he could squeeze it in there. Astonishing how happy the cage seems to make him. All this backup and he brought a tiger or something, too. But it’s not a tiger.
Inside the cage is a naked man, his body covered in tattoos. All the tattoos are of the same thing, though. All the tattoos are the head of a jackal rendered in various colors and styles. I can’t believe how long his fingernails are. I think they might have been surgically enhanced. His nude body ripples with muscle and his teeth, like Jack’s, are filed. The emissary of death, the burial God right beside the prince of lies and evil. This death is the devil’s right hand. They’ve taken to heart Ian’s advice about being forces of nature. The totemic pretenses aren’t an act anymore. They are the totems they pretend to be. It’s so hard not to shoot.
Jeremy parks the car and gets out. At least Jack hasn’t run him off the road before he gets here. At least Jack gives him a moment to approach. Jeremy has Mr. Right’s Magnum in his hand and maybe a sharp knife in his jacket. I hope he has a sharp knife in his jacket. He hasn’t bothered with any of the regalia except the t-shirt. He very bravely asserts that it is, in fact, Mr.400 that stands before them. Jeremy looks at Jack, Jack looks at Jeremy. They exchange some words that I would give anything to hear. I would give anything to know the defiant last words of the man I love to the man who set up the ambush that would kill him. What I expect after this is something like the end of Julius Caesar, when the whole senate, the disapproving Roman public fell on him with knives. I have a feeling they will fall on him soon. Jack takes his time, though. He makes sure that Jeremy is distracted when Sally and the Ice Cream Truck Strangler emerge from their hiding places to attack.
Sally gets Jeremy in the left arm with her crowbar. It looks like it might give way under the pressure, but it doesn’t. It’s Jeremy. No, it’s Mr. 400. It takes him just a second to reach up his sleeve for the knife he’s concealed there. He doesn’t even turn around to stab her. I’m shocked that he manages to get her in the chest without looking at her. She falls back as the Ice Cream Truck Strangler wraps the garotte around his neck. I get ready to draw a bead and shoot him in the head when Jeremy pulls his foot back and kicks the guy in the balls, causing him to relax his grip for a second, which is of course, a fatal mistake. The Ice Cream Truck Strangler lets go when Jeremy thrusts the knife into the man’s arm. Jeremy turns around and shoots him, although it might have been a mistake to do so. I can’t really imagine what it feels like to be shot in the back with a nailgun, but I think it feels worse than the arm. It’s sort of a bad move for Kozack to give away his position so early, however, since Jeremy has a magnum, which is as powerful as a nailgun is sadistic. The formerly concealed Kozack identity fades as his head becomes a bloody mess.
The Contessa’s girls are both armed with huge links of chain, turning this whole affair almost comical, making it into a vicious Bruce Lee movie. His left arm hurts, I can tell, as he strains to slice both girls with the knife. They get him several times with the chain, smacking him in the sides. They’re just here to make sure he suffers. He doesn’t let them, though. His cuts are quick and dirty, leaving both of them clutching their throats in disbelief. It’s funny that Jack isn’t doing anything at all. He just watches and laughs as Jeremy disposes of all these minions. I don’t understand it, because Jeremy’s doing damn well, proving himself as terrible and remarkable a totem as all of them are, a God to parallel even their strongest.
Then I realize what Jack’s laughing about. The big, naked Anubis killer sinks his claws into Jeremy’s wounded sides. He’s so fast, I missed him sneaking up. With his sheer body weight, he drives the nail Kozack fired deeper into Jeremy’s back, causing Jeremy’s face to fill with agony. Even in my position, I can hear him scream. I couldn’t hear any of the others. I take a moment to steady the sniper rifle as the monster withdraws his claws, opting instead to squeeze Jeremy with all his might. Jeremy drops his weapons and it looks like he’s about to faint from the pain. I can’t let this happen. I fire at the little red dot, and the little red dot expands into a big, dark fountain of red. The Anubis killer doesn’t let go until he falls. Nobody’s immortal, but some people are so damn tough it doesn’t matter that they aren’t.
Wounded though he is, Jeremy picks up Mister Right’s magnum and points it at Jack. He looks like he barely has the energy to pull the trigger, but as long as he could; I could go down there and get him to a hospital in time to save him. I can’t believe this. I feel like crying out with joy, but I know that might still be a bad idea, that something might still go wrong. Why do I feel like something might still go wrong? Then I see why.
Jack points up in my direction and I get a feeling that if I could look up at my own forehead, I would find a big, red dot at the center of it, a little pimple of light. Jeremy drops the magnum and puts his arms up. If I hadn’t made the agreement, I would pick up the sniper rifle and point it right at the disgusting, long jawed face of the man I hate so much. But I made the agreement, and I’m not going to break it. Besides, it’s not like that same sniper couldn’t take out Jeremy, too. As Jeremy faints, I do what he told me to do, even though I hate him for having told me to. I drive. I drive like the devil.
I drive to the apartment and I sink down and cry. I can’t bring myself to look at the photo albums or the objects on the coffee table. I can’t bring myself to look at anything that was him. The promise hurts like nothing else has ever hurt to me. But I can’t break it. I wish there was something I could do, though. Some way to make this right. I pick up the phone and I dial Jones. Reiko picks up, unable to hear anything with all the crying that I’m doing.
“Who is this?” she asks, “hello?”
I compose myself enough to say “this is Cass. This is Cass. I need to speak to Jones.” Reiko doesn’t say anything.
It’s a bit too long before Jones
picks up. His voice is cold and solemn. “This is Mister Jones. Be quick.”
“It’s Jeremy. I need your help. I used the gun, I used the van and I used the pills and we went out there and Jack was there and Hacksaw Sally and everybody and Jeremy fought them and he he ended up not, not not…”
I thought I had been prepared to see him beaten. All day long I had prepared to see him beaten. In my dreams I had prepared. But I wasn’t. I’m still not prepared to think of him having been defeated. Jones doesn’t say anything for awhile, hoping I can muster the courage to even say what happened. But I can’t. I want to skip over it all and get right to the point where I ask to borrow his helicopter and I use it to blast Godless Jack to smithereens and free Jeremy and we’ll run off together and be safe. I don’t want to tell him what happened, I can only hope that he’ll guess and that after he guesses he can help come up with some kind of solution, some device that will help me find Jack and rescue Jeremy before he rapes him, breaks him, eats him, whatever will happen. But there is no such device. There is no such thing as anti-tragedy cannon. There is no such thing as a love retrieval magnet. There is no time travel and no petitioning God. Jones sees what I want, and he finally speaks. It doesn’t help at all. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he tells me and hangs up.