The Coliseum

by Patrick Lestewka

  “I killed someone.”

  “What—just one?”

  “Yes.”

  “A kid?”

  Albert shakes his head.

  “Chick?”

  Another shake.

  “You torture him?”

  “Blew his head off with a shotgun.”

  “First degree?”

  “Second.”

  “That’s small fry,” The old man says. “What in the Lord’s name are you doing here?”

  “The man I killed. He was important.”

  “Corporate bigwig important? Prime Minister important? Mother-fucking-Theresa important?”

  “His name was Alvin Triggs.”

  “Oh, shit. Any relation to Premier Henry Triggs?”

  “Son.”

  “You killed the wrong guy, friend.” Charlie shakes his head. “The wrong fucking guy.”

  “I didn’t even know. Caught him sleeping with my wife.”

  “You mean—?”

  “In bed together.”

  “Shit. What are you gonna do?”

  “Wish the jury felt that way.”

  “Jury–shmury. You iced Henry Triggs’ boy. You’d be coming here one way or another.”

  They sit and listen to water dripping off exposed copper pipes. A man is screaming somewhere. He has been screaming for a long time.

  “What landed you here?”

  “Killed a few folks. Few too many, I suppose. You know how it is. Politics.”

  For Charlie Henried it had started out with some harmless cross-dressing: Lace underwear and costume jewelry, an underwired bustier and six-inch stiletto heels. Innocent experimentation. Until one afternoon his wife found him wearing a plaid schoolgirl uniform with his hair in a sloppy ponytail, jacking off into a pair of her pantyhose. For Charlie—a tobacco-chewing, strip-bar frequenting man’s man—the sight of his wife’s disgusted accusation was too much to bear. He wrapped the come-soaked pantyhose around her neck and applied pressure until her face turned purple and blood squirted from places it had no business squirting from.

  It was a liberating experience. After working a shift riveting girders on a skyscraper skeleton, he’d doll himself up in neon stretch-pants and body-glitter and dance the night away at clubs with names like Rod’s or The Tool Shed or The Cockpit. He loved working the dance floor, pressing his body into another man, grinding cock-to-cock or ass-to-ass. He loved drinking daiquiris or pina coladas or green grasshoppers, loved tongue-fucking maraschino cherries while some potato-masher rubbed the crotch of his sequined pants.

  But when he returned to work and stood drinking a cup of morning gutrot amongst men who drove pick-ups and knew the lyrics to every Waylon Jennings song and wolf-whistled at passing ladies…well, he’d feel like an imposter in the cult of masculinity. Can they smell it on me? he wondered. The cheap perfume and baby powder, the trace of K-Y Jelly frosting my bunghole? Guilt led to frustration, frustration mounted to anger, anger spiraled into thoughts of revenge.

  But against whom?

  Stashed under the bed, his wife’s body was starting to smell pretty ripe…

  The first faggot he killed was Billie Goldfarb, a wispy little thing who frequented a club called The Manhole. Charlie took him to a no-tell joint off the highway. They showered together. Charlie let the kid lube his cock with cheap motel soap and suck on it. They rolled around in bed for awhile. Billie tongued Charlie’s asshole. It didn’t feel too bad, actually. Squelchy.

  “Gonna tie you up,” Charlie said.

  Billie had the slim, hairless body of a child. His erect cock poked above the sheets like a compass needle. “Never done that before.”

  Charlie said, “You’ll like it.”

  “Aren’t we kin-ky.”

  Charlie went to his truck and returned with a toolbox. He tied Billie to the bedposts with loops of clothesline. Billie’s eyes widened when Charlie duct-taped his mouth shut.

  They damn near exploded when Charlie pulled out the Makita power sander.

  “You faggots are so damn bumpy,” Charlie growled. “I’ll smooth you out.”

  Charlie revved the Makita to a good 5000 rpm before grinding it between Billie’s legs. It was outfitted with 10-grit paper: The equivalent of gravel glued to a sanding disk. Blood and skin spat like sparks to spatter the sheets in a mad spiral, then a burnt-toast smell as the little fag’s pubes were friction-incinerated. Charlie squashed Billie’s nuts against the whirling disk and felt them diminish in his hand. By the time he let off, Billie’s tackle was like the Aztecs: Ancient-fucking-history. Billie had gone stiff by then, every muscle rigid, his crotch a confusion of tattered skin-flaps and tiny frayed tubes and jellied flesh and dark-red blood.

  “Like the guy on TV says,” Charlie said. “Wait, there’s more!”

  He got a soldering gun good and hot and jammed it down Billie’s urethra. The kid bronco-bucked, his bound wrists snapping like spring saplings. Charlie crammed the gun in until the searing metal disappeared into Billie’s abdomen and left it jutting there. Next he took a pair of needlenose pliers and tore the kid’s eyelids off. He stuffed the bloody tats of skin and hair up Billie’s nose, poking them up each nostril until his sinus cavity was stuffed full of eyelid. Charlie looked at the sad thing writhing on the bloody bed and the only emotions he felt were revulsion and rage.

  He grabbed a Stanley Antivibe hammer and a box-cutter and, with a dexterity that surprised him, traced every one of the faggot’s teeth with the razor, cutting deep into the gums, before smashing them out with a well-placed hammer stroke. It was tricky work: Blood was spraying everywhere, splattering the ceiling and curtains and his face, and the kid was thrashing around a lot. Satisfied with his handiwork, Charlie reached into Billie’s mouth with the pliers. The kid shook, protesting, biting down with his toothless, old-man mouth. Charlie seized the red bulb of his epiglottis and tore it out and then blood was flowing unimpeded into Billie’s lungs; his epiglottis looked like a tiny tongue clutched between the plier-jaws and Charlie rubbed it over his cock before throwing it at the wall, where it stuck for a moment before sliding to the carpet.

  A brown, syrupy discharge jetted from Billie’s asshole that smelled very bad. This only angered Charlie further. He whacked the kid’s skull with the hammer, high, near the temple, and the impact caused his left eyeball to rocket from its smashed socket; it bobbed against his cheek by its glistening stalk like a paddle-ball. Charlie squished it between his fingers—it felt a little bit like a cocktail onion—and smeared the warm jelly on his cock, the stimulation of which caused him to ejaculate furiously. Billie somehow summoned the energy to cry, and his remaining eye rolled back in some kind of horrible dream-state.

  The sight of the poor kid crying and that one crazy, lazy eye rolling about had filled Charlie with a momentary pity.

  Then he poked it out, casually, with a leather punch.

  Presto! A second wind!

  Charlie cut the restraints with the box-cutter. He flipped Billie over, pinned a knee between his shoulders, and slashed a deep ring around the crinkled balloon-knot of his anus. Billie’s cornhole popped up like a cork from a champagne bottle. Yee–HA! Charlie pinched it off with a pair of Vise Grips.

  “Okay, fag,” he whispered. “I had my fun. You can go.”

  Billie staggered toward the door with the soldering gun projecting from his crotch. Charlie held the Vise Grips tightly and Billie’s guts uncoiled from his asshole like colored scarves from a magician’s sleeve. Charlie had a good laugh at that.

  Billie kept going and his sticky viscera dragged across the carpet. He was halfway out the door when he ran out of intestine. He continued to strain in the manner of a dog against a short leash. He was saying things through that busted mouth, insensible things, although Charlie thought he heard him call out for his mother, then for someone named “Petey.” He opened his mouth and a huge sack of blood fell out, dark red and reeking, onto the orange shag. Charlie let go of the Vise Grips and Billie fell forward, unbal
anced, toppling off the second-storey balcony. His guts followed him down to land atop his deflated belly in milky-wet coils.

  Staring down at the mess of Billie’s body, Charlie found brief peace.

  He found peace twelve more times before the cops caught him.

  His house was searched, the putrefying remains of his wife located.

  Charlie stood trial for fourteen counts of first-degree murder.

  The jury convicted him on every count.

  The hardest part for him—worse than the recriminations of his wife’s family, worse than seeing his depravities splashed over the national newspapers—was having his old construction pals watch as he was led away. Charlie knew they didn’t see the yellow prison overalls or the cast-iron shackles: They saw him in a pink taffeta dress, sheer nylons, spike-toed heels, his hair plaited in braids. A Sugarplum Fairy. He almost cried.

  Albert says, “Is there anything I should be careful of?”

  “Only everything,” Charlie replies. “Find a spot and defend it as best you can. Make damn sure you’re out of sight when the Skineaters make a meat run.”

  “A meat run?”

  “The Skineaters eat…well, skin. That’s you and me. When they run low the tribe goes hunting. They find you first, you’re the meat.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Not in here.”

  “Is anywhere safe?”

  Charlie hisses through his teeth. “Tough call, son. Can’t say there is… although there’s one place that might be safe. Nobody has the stones to check it out.”

  “Where?”

  “Basement.”

  “The basement? Why?”

  Charlie waves a rag-swaddled hand around his head, as if to shoo away a fly. “This went down before my time, but I’ll tell you what I know. The first bunch of guys who came here were the worst—Christ, they were the reason this fucking place was built, right? Now only three of them are left: Edward, leader of the Baboon Boys; Jeremy, leader of the Skineaters…and another.”

  “Who?”

  “His name…her name…its name…hell, I dunno…is Lazarus. Lazarus Cranston.”

  “What do you mean, its name?”

  Charlie runs a hand over his groin. “He…her…whatever…is one of them men-ladies.”

  “You mean a transvestite?”

  “No!” the old man snaps. “Like, all mixed up. Men parts, women parts—a big stew of parts.”

  “A hermaphrodite?”

  “Christ, listen to mister-fucking-dictionary over there. Yeah, sure, one of them. Anyway, what I hear, this fella was a sight to behold: the old-timers talk like he was Paul Bunyan, head-in-the-clouds kind of huge. Edward and Jeremy are the big Kahunas now, but when Lazarus was topside, their M.O. was same as everyone else’s: Steer clear, stay alive.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “First he killed half the inmates. If you crossed his path or looked at him cock-eyed he’d snuff you, and nasty: Bash your head against the wall or toss you over the balcony, maybe snap every bone in your body and leave you to starve.”

  A sound of grinding gears from the roof, followed by savage hoots from the upper tier.

  “That sound,” Charlie cocks his head. “Means they’re dropping the sky-meat.”

  “Why don’t you get some?”

  “Not that easy.”

  “Why not?”

  Charlie just grunts. “Anyway, Lazarus, one day he’s gone. Told Edward he was going down to the basement to tunnel out. He took two prisoners with him: Just hooked them under his arms like they were fucking kindling and dragged them down into the dark.” Charlie shudders. “That’s where he is. Down in the basement. Digging.”

  “Does anyone see him?”

  “Nope. The guy must be fucking albino by now.” He pauses. “But I hear him sometimes. At night. This sound, this scritch-scritch-scritch, like nails on a chalkboard. And…other noises.”

  “Other noises?”

  Charlie leans in. He whispers, as if to speak overloud would rouse a sleeping beast. “Some nights, when things get real quiet, swear I hear…crying. Like a squalling baby.” A shrug. “Listen, you’re talking to an old man. I’m hearing things, maybe.”

  Sound from the darkened concession stand: A wet-stick snap followed by a muffled groan. Then footsteps plodding up the stairwell.

  “Someone just made tribute,” Charlie says. “Going to barter for a shred of sky-meat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Charlie holds his hands out to Albert. The blood-soaked rags are unfurling in wet strings.

  “Help me off with them.”

  Albert peels the covering from Charlie’s hands.

  “Oh my God…”

  “This is tribute, son.”

  Most of Charlie’s fingers are missing. The crudely hacked-at stumps weep thick yellow pus. The tips are the mottled gangrene-green of a rotting potato.

  “Edward takes our body as currency. We give him pieces of ourselves, he repays us with pieces of bread and meat. If you want to eat, to live, you must sacrifice yourself.”

  “That’s horrific.”

  “It’s like the warlords used to do in feudal Japan. When you defeated an enemy, you’d make him cut off the little finger on each hand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he couldn’t heft a sword properly afterwards. All his strength was gone. He was no threat to you, then.” Charlie passes a malformed hand through his greasy hair to show Albert the butchered remains of his left ear. “I wedged it in a door jamb and tore it off. Edward gave me two loaves of bread and added it to his treasure chest.”

  Albert’s mind rebels at the mental picture of Edward’s “treasure chest” of rotting spare parts. “I couldn’t do…I won’t do that.”

  Charlie laughs softly in the gloom. “Get hungry enough, son, you will. Get hungry enough…you’ll do anything.”

  ««—»»

  “How’s it looking in there?”

  The Master Guard seats himself on a swivel chair in the control room. He siphons unfiltered cigarette smoke into his lungs and blows twin streams of bluish smoke out his nostrils. The nightwatch guard fills him in on the latest news.

  “Looks like Cantrell’s been adopted by Hanson’s group.”

  “And a new Skineater is born.”

  “Inmate Ruddock went off with inmate Tonnere’s crew.”

  “Dumbass Ed invited the wolf back to the hencoop.”

  “Rose disappeared with Chuck Henried.”

  “The cross-dresser? Not quite a blue-chip connection.”

  The Master Guard stares at the few remaining monitors. Nothing moves save a few inkblot rats foraging the grime-streaked floor.

  “Calm before the storm.”

  “Sir?”

  “Remember your high school chemistry, kid? How an inert chemical can maintain a state of suspended hyper-activity? It’s like that,” he points at the screens, “in there. All you need is one combustible element—acid to base, match to kindling—and boom. Everything blows sky-high.”

  “I guess so, sir.” Sometimes the young man thinks his boss belongs in a classroom, expounding on the intricacies of the sciences, instead of overseeing the day-to-day operation of the most inhumane institution in the free world.

  “Calm before the storm, kid.” Shadows twist within themselves under the Coliseum’s dark dome, such strange mysteries birthing themselves anew. “Calm before the fucking storm.”

  — | — | —

  IV. CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  Harlan waits two days before stealing Edward’s sight.

  The Baboon Boy leader sleeps on the topmost row of seats. Lester Biggs, a skinny, weasel-faced man stands sentinel. Harlan mounts the stairs silently.

  “I’m going to have a word with Edward.”

  Lester’s body uncoils like a cobra from a fakir’s basket. “Don’t think so, Lurch.”

  “I’m talking to Edward, Lester. Want to move, fine. If not…”

  “That so?
” Lester pulls a double-pronged blade. “I suggest you get ta steppin’, little doggie, before this big dog starts chewin’ on your—”

  Earlier that day, Harlan had torn a length of railing-pipe off a stairwell. It was a good three inches in diameter, solid steel, blue paint chipping off its surface. The metal bar now materializes from behind Harlan’s back, slices through the air in a hard downward orbit, embedding itself in Lester’s head. A sound like a shellacked egg cracking as cold iron buries into twitching gray-matter. Lester’s mouths falls open and a Vesuvius-like torrent of blood gouts around the railing’s curved side. His eyes blink, rapidly. He topples forward, bare feet rat-a-tat-tatting on the concrete.

  “Hey,” Harlan slaps Edward’s stubbled cheek. “Wake up, Ed.”

  After years in the Coliseum, Edward has learned to sleep with one eye open. Still feigning slumber, he reaches underneath the seat and closes his hand around a wedge of glass. He brings the weapon around, aiming for Harlan’s neck. Harlan feints left. The shank whickers past to leave a shallow gash along his throat. He snares Edward’s hand as it passes, closing his own bear-paw-sized mitt around it.

  “That wasn’t very sporting, Ed.”

  Harlan squeezes Edward’s hand with sufficient force to compress a lump of coal into a diamond. Glass cuts into Edward’s flesh, slicing through tendon and muscle. Then it shatters and Edward’s severed fingers fall to the floor, wriggling like plump inchworms in the dim light.

  “This is just politics,” Harlan says, holding Edward down with no more effort than it would require to subdue an excitable child. “Nothing personal.”

  Harlan had taken the Master Guard’s advice: He went on a scavenger hunt. He found everything he needed in the equipment wing: A length of copper wire and a pair of insulated rubber gloves. He hooks the copper wire through the roof’s electrified mesh, infusing it with 150 pulsating volts.

  “Hold still.”

  Harlan guides the wire over the contorted landscape of Edward’s face, leaving a contrail of seared flesh and a smell like barbecued pork. Edward presses his eyelids shut but Harlan jabs the tip through this slim defense. Electrified metal slides into soft corneal jelly. Edward’s eye explodes behind the closed lid and flecks of superheated pulp burst between the fleshy slit. With nothing to support it, the eyelid caves into the empty socket. Edward mewls like a drowning kitten and his hands reach up blindly to paw at his attacker’s face. Eye-gelatin drools down his face like gummy red alligator tears. Harlan rakes the wire over the bridge of Edward’s nose and detonates the neighboring eye. Edward’s screams ricochet across the arena.