Harley thumped his head against the glass and tried to ignore the man’s voice.
Finally they reached the house. They sat in the car in the driveway and stared at the front door for almost a minute.
“Might as well go inside,” Tompkins said.
“No, let’s wait here. We’ll see him if he comes.”
“Not if he comes around back, Harley. Besides, it’s too hot to wait in the car.”
Tompkins got out, his boots crunching on the gravel. Reluctantly Harley followed, and stood beside the car.
“We can’t go in,” he said. “The place is a mess. Sarah would have a fit.”
Tompkins looked over at Harley, shielding the sun with his palm. “What’s going on here, Harley?”
“What?”
“You’re acting strange.”
“Think about what’s happened to me today, and then think about what the fuck you just said.”
“No, man, it’s more than that. I don’t mean to sound like a heartless bastard, ‘cause I do know what’s happened to you today. But Harley, man, you’re acting like you’re hiding something. And you know the law, okay? You know you can’t do what I’m pretty sure you did. But there’s still time to fix this. I don’t have to tell anyone I found him inside the house. Okay, Harley?”
The blazing sun wasn’t helping matters. Harley felt clammy and chilled at the same time, and his bowels clamped up the same instant his testicles crawled inside his body. “Tompkins,” he croaked, “you don’t understand. It’s not like that. Patrick’s not inside. I just found out about it in Mellner’s office.”
Tompkins started walking toward the house.
Something was stumbling toward them from the woods beside the house. Something small, very small, something human-shaped but not quite human, something pitching and reeling and trying desperately to climb over deadwood and saplings.
“Holy sweet Mother,” Tompkins said, undoing the snap on his holster and releasing his sidearm.
Harley came up behind him and pressed his gun into the back of Tompkins’ head. “I swear, you have no idea how sorry I am. But I can’t let you do this. I can’t.”
“Don’t, Harley,” Tompkins pleaded. “Don’t do this. You know what this means, man.”
Harley raised his arm and smashed his gun into the back of Tompkins’ head. Tompkins crashed to the ground like a bag of wet cement.
Patrick had reached the edge of the woods, about five yards away now.
The child had been in the ground for several weeks and the decay was evident, even from this distance. Harley shook his head, ignoring the stench that assaulted him from ten feet away. Much of the flesh was missing from his son’s face, seemed to have melted away. Part from the car wreck, part from rotting in the ground, part, probably, from being a Rotter. A sob tore out of Harley’s throat as the boy approached.
Tiny fingers clasping and unclasping, vacant eyes staring at Harley although Harley imagined the child didn’t know what he was seeing. The shredded remains of his tiny blue suit, hanging from and falling off the child’s body. Dark hair matted with dirt, alive with whatever maggoty insects had burrowed their way during his climb through the soil from his casket, and nested in with his baby’s body.
This was his boy. His child. His flesh and blood, the light of his life.
Patrick had come home.
He subdued the boy easily—his police training had taught him the proper method. Despite the child’s attempts to bite, to tear the flesh from his face, Harley had him under control. He carried Patrick into the basement and chained him in a corner of the room. Harley slumped onto the bottom step of the short stairwell and cried. How would he ever be able to make this right? How was he ever going to explain this to anyone?
“Jesus, Harley …” Tompkins stood at the top of the stairs, the gun that was aimed at Harley’s head slowly slipping in the cop’s fingers until the muzzle was aimed at the floor. His eyes weren’t on Harley, they were taking in everything else in the basement.
A few steps separated Harley and Tompkins, and Harley reached up and grabbed the officer’s leg, pulling him down the steps. Tompkins, his shock catching him completely off-guard, went flying headfirst into the center of the room.
He landed between several Rotter children who wasted no time advancing on Tompkins. The Rotters had moved quickly, tore out chunks of flesh, ripped off the top of the man’s scalp and dug out handfuls of brain. Within seconds the man was dead; he’d barely had time to start screaming.
“Oh, God,” Harley moaned, his breath hitching, his empty stomach dry heaving. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he never wanted anyone to get hurt. He was only trying to save the kids—this wasn’t supposed to happen! Slowly he turned and walked up the steps, not wanting to see what the children were doing to the poor man.
Harley stumbled into the kitchen and leaned against the fridge, bent in half, breathing deeply. The light specks had returned and he fought to keep from passing out.
He picked up the phone, dialed his mother-in-law’s number and asked for Sarah. When she came to the phone, Harley was crying.
“You okay, Harley? What happened?”
“Come home, Sarah.”
“Is—is he there?”
“Yes,” he said, fighting tears so he could speak. “Yes he is. Come home, Sarah. I need you. I don’t know what to do.” His fingers clawed at the smooth surface of the wall phone.
“I’m on my way, Harley. We’ll figure this out.”
“Please hurry, Sarah,” he moaned, and slumped down the length of the wall and squatted on his haunches, the phone dangling from his fingers. He tilted his head forward and sobbed into his hands.
From the basement, the little boy’s cries sounded like he was calling for his daddy.
Oral Mohel
“Well of course it hurts. What do you expect?”
“Then—?”
“Look.” Alex wrapped his bearpaws around the formerly frosted mug, the large glass almost disappearing. “Really goddamned stupid, if you ask me. Once you hit puberty, you got all kinds of feelings and nerve endings in your dick. This is why they circumcise infants. But if you want to be a martyr …”
Jack sank against the bar, wishing he was drinking something stronger than beer.
“She ask you to do this?”
Jack sipped. “No. But she won’t marry me unless I do. She’ll only marry a Jew.”
Alex shrugged. “She mean that much to you?”
Jack stared at his beer for the longest time, not sure how to answer. He loved Sarah. Yes. He loved her. That was true—but. But this? How far was he willing to go for her? So they’d have a fucking Christmas tree, right? Maybe a Santa and a Baby Jesus near the mantle. Was this a crime? She couldn’t marry a non-Jew?
But she couldn’t. She’d made that clear, Orthodox family, very religious, very strict. Her father’s approval meant everything to her.
Stupid bitch.
“You planning to answer?” Alex asked. “Or do I already have your answer?”
“I love her. I adore her. The sun rises and sets on her head, man. But this is my dick we’re talking about.”
Alex scribbled something on a napkin. “Call this number. My cousin Herschel, strict Orthodox. He knows this mohel, says this guy’s the best, hardly any pain at all.”
Jack palmed the napkin and tucked it into his pants pocket. The tension that had held him in a deadlock seemed to dissipate, vanished with Alex’s magic words. Maybe there was hope. God—there had to be hope. His dick throbbed with sympathy pain, the phantom pain of the possibility.
*
Sarah, for a Jewish chick, gave good head. Not as good as the Catholic girls, but the Jewish girls tended to be looser. Six of one and all that shit.
“I’m going to do it,” he said, his fingers entwined in her hair, forcing her mouth farther onto his cock. She struggled a bit but was used to it. He felt her throat relax, her gag reflex adjust. All it had taken was a few pukefests
on his cock before she’d finally gotten the hang of it. Well worth some regurgitated burritos to train someone to have almost no gag reflex.
“Mmmph?” she muttered, her eyes jerking upward, trying to find his. He arched his back, his head rolling on his shoulders, avoiding her eyes.
“Convert,” he gasped. “I’m going … to …” He grunted before he could finish the sentence.
Moments later, when her mouth was again free, she squealed. “Oh, baby!” He could tell she was pleased—she’d swallowed.
“You sure?” she asked, scaling his torso, laying her head beneath his armpit. He cupped her breast and rolled the nipple between his fingers.
“Yeah. I decided tonight. I’m doing this thing.”
“You realize what’s at stake here, right? I mean, I mean, well, what we talked about, you know, about—”
God she was giving him a headache. “Yes,” he snapped. “I know what this means. Snip snip, chop chop, or whatever the fuck this boil does.”
“Mohel, sweetie.”
“Mohel, right.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Jack glanced down at her snatch. “Oh really? How would you know?”
*
Sarah and her lack of sweet sextalk pissed him off. Her and her talk of pain-free dick cutting. All dickless women held this bizarre belief that guys are kidding, or overstating the sensitivity in this precious area. So that pissed him off too. Her new haircut pissed him off, using jarred pasta sauce in her lasagna pissed him off, clipping her toenails in bed pissed him off.
Funny how none of these things bothered him before mention of a circumcision.
*
His family took the news of his conversion better than he expected. Aunt Millie, with a penchant for ending every sentence with the term of endearment “you sonofabitch,” a woman who resembled Uncle Sal more and more with each passing day, threatened to go to the Pope to prevent her Johnny from ruining his life. And she’d do it, too—Pope Benedict XVI was, according to her, a distant relative. Jack was sure she really believed this.
Momma handled the news better. She quietly and without much fuss threatened suicide.
“They cut off your willy, you sonofabitch,” Aunt Millie proclaimed, sopping up sauce with half a loaf of Italian bread. Jack made a mental note to get the recipe for Sarah.
“It’s not that bad,” he said, hunched over his plate. It was three in the afternoon and he was being forcefed mounds of pasta fazul and stuffed shells. Did they consider this lunch or dinner? This had never been made clear, not even when he was a kid. Judging from their ever-growing size, he figured they considered this a snack.
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” his mother said, making a sign of the cross. She threw her arms up toward the ceiling and glanced at the stucco. “What did I do wrong? How did I fail you? Please give me a sign, I’ll do anything to make this right!”
“You and Meryl Streep, Ma,” Jack said. “Tied for the award. Listen, Ma. I need a favor. Can you loan me two hundred bucks?”
To Millie his mother said, “Set up the candles. I’ll say a dozen novenas. Go downstairs to that Madame Golenka, the shyster gypsy fraud with the good candles and get me the biggest one she got.”
“Ma? Did you hear me?” He didn’t have the heart to tell her the money was for the mohel.
“Quiet, Johnny. I’m saving your soul.”
“Christ, Ma, can you loan me—”
“Watch your language, you sonofabitch. Don’t take the Lord’s name!”
“Oy.”
*
Jack finally gathered enough nerve to call the mohel. Yeah, Sarah pissed him off. Every little thing she did grated his nerves like they were a hunk of parmigiano reggiano, but he knew this was just an excuse. Knew it, which made the guilt that much worse.
Someone female answered.
“Can I talk to the mohel?” How strange that sounded. Mohel.
“Speaking.”
“No. The mohel. The guy that does the, um.” He lowered his voice. “You know. Circumcisions.”
She chucked. “Yes, speaking. I’m the mohel.”
He detected a hint of southern accent, a slight lilt to her voice. She didn’t sound particularly Jewish. “But—aren’t you a woman?”
“Yes.” Her lisp was slight, but he caught it. Images of this mohel flashed in his brain, the delicate skin that surrounded that southern belle charm. He saw her with a mint julep in one hand and a scalpel in the other. That pretty much killed the fantasy.
“I wasn’t expecting a woman. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”
“I understand.” Ah undahstan. “But I have to say, you’ll never find another mohel like me. Mohalet, actually. That’s what women mohels are called. But I digress. I’ve done this hundreds of times, and I’m the best there is. Precise. Quick. Almost painless.”
“Almost?”
“Let’s be real,” she said, her voice a comforting sigh. “There’s bound to be a little pain. After all, we’re dealing with a man’s most sensitive area, right? The head of the cock is just chock full of wonderful nerves. I can respect that, and I take great care when I’m working on this most splendid area.”
“I see.” His dick throbbed again, pushed against his jeans, only this time he didn’t think it was sympathy pain. Her voice was hypnotic, comforting. She was a hell of a salesman.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“John Steppolini. Jack.”
“May ah ask why you’re being circumcised now?”
“I’m converting.”
“Ah see.”
“Are you sure you’re Jewish?”
She laughed. “Of course.”
“You sound … Southern.”
“Ah am. Raised in Georgia. Moved to New York six years ago. What’s the matter, Jack? You never heard of southern Jews?”
“Guess not.” A few seconds of awkward silence passed. “So. Mohel. Or mohalet. When can you do this thing? I’d like to get it over with.”
“Next Tuesday.”
That soon? Christ. Sweat tricked down his neck. Five days left to savor his precious foreskin.
Sarah was such a stupid bitch.
*
“You have to get that tattoo removed.”
“What are you, nuts? I’ve had this since I was fourteen.”
Sarah trailed her fingers over the tat, traced the outline of the name.
“No reason to be jealous. Maria and I were kids.”
“It’s not that. Jews can’t have tattoos. I’m not spending an eternity in Paradise without you. If you don’t get rid of it, I can’t even spend an eternity rotting in the ground with you.”
“Jesus, Sarah. I’m giving up a shitload for this marriage. What am I getting out of it?”
“Me.”
He pushed her head down on his cock and wouldn’t let her up for air. He told her about the ceremony next Tuesday.
After she swallowed she said, “Tuesday? How am I supposed to organize this by Tuesday?”
“Organize what?”
“The bris. The party.”
“Party?”
“This is a big deal, Jackie. All your friends and relatives—”
“Whoa—no fucking way. You think I want a roomful of people watching me get my dick slashed? Are you nuts?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You know what performance anxiety is? You know what happens to a dick when people are looking at it? Especially people with sharp instruments? It hides. Retreats like a goddamn turtle.”
“The mohel will know how to … handle it.”
“Oh. That’s very cute.”
Sarah smiled, then cupped his balls while her tongue flicked his nipple. “Who’s this mohel, anyway?”
“Alex gave me the phone number, said she was the best.”
“She?”
“She’s just some mohalet.”
“A woman? What made you decide to use a woman?”
“She’s supposed
to be the best. Very little pain.”
“So what’s her name? Maybe I’ve heard of her.”
“Hadassah.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No—why? You know her?”
“So she’s back in town.”
“So you do know her.”
“Not really. I’ve never met her.” Sarah grinned, shook her head.
“What? What? What’s funny?”
“You sure you want to use her?”
“Well … yeah. I guess.”
“You know what people call her?”
“Now how the fuck would I know what people call her?”
“She’s called the Oral Mohel.”
Visions of this woman in action popped into his head. “Uh.” He licked his lips. “Huh. What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
*
Repeated phone messages went unreturned. Jack tried everything to reach Mohalet Hadassah, without success.
Tuesday arrived and Jack, near hysterics, told Sarah he wasn’t going through with it. “Especially not with her. Not like that. Not how she does it.”
“It’ll be fine. She’s done this dozens of times.”
“Hundreds, actually.”
“See? Her method is just a little … unorthodox.”
“Would you stop with the bad puns already?”
“Calm down, sweetheart. You’ll only make it worse. You don’t want your little turtle retreating.”
Calling his dick a little turtle wasn’t helping matters any. “I’m not doing this. When Mohalet what’s-her-name shows up, get rid of her.”
“No, Jackie.” Sarah put out a bowl of bean dip. “Alexander will be here soon.”
“What? Why? Why?”
“We need a witness.”
“A witness for what? My bloodbath?”
“You’re being silly.”
When Alex arrived, he slapped Jack on his back. “Mazel Tov! Welcome to the fold.” He leaned in when Sarah was out of earshot and nudged Jack’s ribs with his elbow. “So you called the Oral after all. Nice move. Very nice.”
In The End, Only Darkness Page 9