“Really?” she asked. “That’s the story? That sounds like a fuckin’ fairy tale.”
“Davey is here. She says he can provide and he’s already begun providing. That makes her stronger. She won’t be so sick anymore. Not for much longer. Then, when things are back to being good again, we’ll be more proactive. We’ll bring more providers here, or go out and visit them. Whatever it takes to keep her healthy and all of us safe from the world. From places like your wonderful city.”
“You’re making me more nervous than I was in the first place, Brent.” Juno shook her head. “I’m sorry to use your last name as an adjective, but that’s fuckin’ beyond strange. And I need to know this: How is Davey providing?”
Brent walked out of the garage. “You’d have to ask Cadence. I don’t understand it entirely. He’s just providing assistance.”
“What the fuck does that mean? And how?” She got up to follow him. “Is he sleeping with her? Is that what he’s providing? Sexual favours? Is that how he’s making her better? Taking care of her, like you don’t want to, in the bedroom? Is that why she entered my house half-nude, got us out of the way and then proceeded to do ‘whatever’ with him for seven hours? Answer me, you fuckin’ idiot.” She moved herself into his path, blocking him.
“It’s best if we all talk about this over supper, Junie.” He sidestepped her. “You’re starting to think and act irrationally and, quite frankly, you’re coming this close to crossing the line, with respect to good manners and the way in which I’m prepared to listen to you disrespect us all. If you haven’t crossed it already. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” He looked back as he passed the front door and started across the lawn. “We’ll see you at nine tonight. I’ll be done grilling by then. But, after what you’ve said here today, I’m expecting an apology. You can whisper it in my ear or write it on a scrap of paper, but I’m going to expect one if you’re going to be spending the night in my home and accepting our protection. I’m an understanding man, but what you’ve said here today. Some of it was inexcusable.” He paused. “And no one is keeping you here. With all of us idiots. You’re more than welcome to leave. Run away. Maybe that would be best for everyone.”
“Maybe you should run away with me,” Juno snapped. “How many decades has it been since your dumb country ass got laid?”
Brent turned back around to face her. “Excuse me? What did you say?” He shook his head. “Seriously? Please. No more talk until you’re ready to apologise. Your mouth is just making things worse.”
“You like to think you’re better than me, but you’re not,” she said, holding her hands on her hips and pushing her breasts forward while she glanced down. Noting that Brent still found their size and shape fascinating. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been checking me out and copping a feel at every opportunity. And I’m not saying I mind. But you know what I used to do for a living. It was my job to sniff out closet perverts and turn them into regulars. Make them love it so much they shot cash regularly. And, look. I’d be lying if I told you all of your half-assed groping didn’t confuse the shit out of me, since we had seven hours alone this morning, while Davey and your precious Cadence were busy saving us, and you just watched TV and drifted in and out of sleep. Maybe you should quit fucking around and just touch all the parts of me you want to touch. Right here, right now. Like a real man. Do what you want to do to me and show me what you want me to do to you. Let my mouth help fix your problems. Make things all better. I can solve all your issues in seven seconds. Or I can solve them in twenty-six minutes if you want to know what it feels like to cum so hard your knees give out. I can do that for you. In the garage. Out here. I don’t give a shit.” Brent’s free hand clenched into a fist as Juno’s eyes tracked it and she licked her lips. “You can hit me if you want. I don’t care. I can take it. And I can tell you how much I love it. If that’s what you need to get you all the way off. And then, when you’re no longer walking around with a perpetual hard-on, you might realise how half-baked your whole rationalisation sounds.”
Brent’s free hand loosened as he looked her up and down with a mix of panicked lust and absolute disgust. “As long as you’re not charging, I’m sure your services are worth every penny. And I’m still expecting an apology. Three, actually.” Brent walked across the street.
Juno watched as Brent disappeared into his home through the sliding patio door, not looking back. She chewed on her thumbnail as she seethed. A tear of rage, humiliation and fear formed in her left eye. She brushed it away.
David continued staring. Juno’s incessant whining and Brent’s calm reassurances from outside fading into the background as he walked toward the kitchen. Toward the last man he’d expected to see. At least not quite so soon, if ever. “Better question,” David said. “What brings you by?”
“What do you think?” Detective Franklin Bowe pushed himself forward from his position resting against the kitchen counter beside the refrigerator. “I told you I’d be talking to you again. What did I trust you with?”
David patted at his jeans pocket, feeling the cassette’s bulge. “This is it then? You’ve come for the tape? We’re all done?” David looked at the door, listening to Juno and Brent continue their debate about whatever it was they were discussing and minding the volume of his voice. “Are Ricky and Paulie? Are they locked up? How’d you manage that?”
“Why do you assume I managed something? You’re asking the wrong questions, Davey.” He walked out into the living room. “Ask the right ones instead. You’ll get much more helpful answers that way.”
“Okay...” David backed up slightly. “Why did you go through this much trouble to kill us? Why didn’t you smoke us the night you dropped us off? After all your blustering about how you couldn’t hold Paulie or Ricky. You must have known they’d be waiting for you when you got back to the city. You must have known they’d want this precious little piece of plastic.”
“What the fuck do I know about Paulie and Ricky?” Franklin returned. “Except they’re going to end up here eventually. One of them, at least. The other one might not last that long. Now, ask me a relevant question. Don’t make me regret all the years I’ve put into grooming you. You’re my favourite monkey. You know that. Ask me.”
David looked deep into Franklin’s eyes, feeling nothing human. Just a desperation and a cold darkness. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who, me?” Franklin moved into the living room and sat on the bench chair nearest the kitchen. “Now have a seat on the bench across from me.” He motioned to where David had been sitting. “Sit back down and I’ll answer that question.”
David sat back down, never breaking his stare. Almost falling over backward in the process. Managing to land his ass on the seat, without looking, on the third attempt. “All right, Franky. Who are you?”
Franklin propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his chin with his index fingers. “Look around you, Davey. Look at your world. Are you surrounded by things you love? Why not?”
David pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Uncle Matt?” Franklin nodded and laughed. “No. You’re not my uncle. My uncle is just an imaginary friend I made up to torture myself when I was younger and couldn’t deal with even worse... He’s just a voice in my head. A coping mechanism. A voice that’s been silent since I kicked the dope. Haven’t heard him since I last fixed.”
“Are you sure? I think you started hearing him well before you started using—”
“It’s not...” David’s forehead beaded with sweat. “Oh man. Is this...? More withdrawals?” His eyes began to float. “No, that’s not how it works. I’ve cleaned up before.”
“Did you get a merit badge for that?” Franklin smirked. “Congratulations on having cleaned up before. That might mean something, but every day you get older. Every day that passes is one day closer to the day you end and the rest begins. And, let’s face it, you never really answered that question before you gave up on figuring it out and s
tarted feeding the monkey on your monkey back, did you?” Franklin pointed with his thumb toward the front door, in the direction of Juno’s irritating whine. “How come you’re sitting in here moping, while your Junie sinks her hooks into another john? You could be hitting that pussy right now. I know that disgusting monkey out there with her wants to. What’s the problem? She don’t get you stiff anymore? That body hides the sickness as well as it can... Still, she’s looking like some creamy cheesecake.”
“Plumb cherry,” David replied. “But she has this annoying habit of opening her mouth and speaking. And how come you’re still so keen on changing the subject? Has there ever been a question you haven’t answered with a question? Scratch that. Have you ever started talking without asking one?”
Franklin chuckled and stood, motioning for David to remain seated. “What the fuck do you care? I can tell you I don’t always ask It questions. Because It rarely feels It’s required to answer. Not like you monkeys. Try it. You’ll see what I mean. Ask any monkey a question and then try to shut It up. Listen... Do me a favour, kid.” David shook his head as he began to stand. Then Franklin’s voice roared. Louder than any sound he’d ever before heard. Louder than Cadence’s first telepathic contact. And a whole lot meaner. “Did I ask you to stand? Stay the fuck seated, you junkie piece of shit or I will end you. Right here, right now. Put you out of your fuckin’ misery and then go outside and skin that annoying, fucked up bag of disease you used to call a girlfriend from head to toe and bury her in table salt.”
David slammed back into his seat, looking and listening outside. Not getting any indication Franklin’s outburst was noticed by either Juno or Brent. “That was quite a threat, uncle. And super specific. Did you forget to leave anything out?”
“Did I? Fuck you, you crazy fuckin’ monkey. You tell me.” Franklin grinned. “There’s a reason you’re my favourite.” He grabbed the edge of the table and shook it, looking disturbed. “Figures. Cheap chip-board piece of shit. They couldn’t even set you up with a real wooden table. You could break this thing in half with a good coughing fit.” Franklin knocked on the table’s top on David’s side. “Go ahead, grab it. Wiggle it around. You’ll see what I mean. Not quality craftsmanship at all.” David grasped the edge of the table and looked back up. “Now fuckin’ wiggle it.”
“Okay,” David fired back. “Relax. I’m—”
“Do I seem tense? And start swearing more, like you used to,” Franklin interrupted. “That scared little thing across the street is starting to mix with you to a degree that’s off-putting to say the least.”
“What are you talking about?” David asked as the part of the table he was gripping broke off with a deafening crack and he let it drop to the floor. “And let’s not get off the subject. You still haven’t answered... Man, maybe you are my uncle.”
“How about that?” Franklin pointed at the table and the chunks of it on the floor. “I guess I was wrong about the fuckin’ thing.”
David looked at the floor and then back at the table. It was made of solid wood and the missing chunk left deep cracks that sprawled out across its surface. At his feet, there were hunks of wood in a pile of dust.
“You had a question? Now you know.”
David looked back up. “Someone’s going to notice this. What am I going to do about—?”
“Jesus Christ, that sainted pain in the ass really sunk in fast, didn’t she? ...I mean, didn’t It? Maybe your previous association with It is speeding things up. What the fuck do I know? You’re the first monkey that’s seen me more than once in the In-Between. In a long time. And only because your monkey ass has got some problem I’ll never understand with thinning out the herd. ...Not to mix metaphors.” Franklin touched the table again and the dust from the floor flew up, reforming itself, and the table, to its original condition. “See how easy? Just hit rewind. You can do it yourself now. As a thank you, when the time comes, maybe you can let me have that Ricky fuck who’s been hounding your ass.” David unconsciously nodded, thinking. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”
“When did I see you before? And you mentioned my previous association with her? Are you saying she really is—?”
Franklin looked at the ceiling. “You ever remember your mother being around? I mean really being there. You remember how often you saw... what was It then? Melody? You remember the exact second that piece of shit It was trying to ‘change’ died? Ask It to include those bits when you get your big explanation.”
David shook his head. “My mother? I remember what she looked like. Kind of. She wasn’t around much after we became homeless, which was before I can recall clearly... Drugs or something. I don’t know. But what has that got to do with... Cadence? She really is Melody? I mean, who is this pain in the ass you’re referring to—?”
“Lost and lonely? Your precious Melody? She’s something. Well, It is, anyway. It’s a sad thing really. The way It hides the beauty of Its Angelic form to suit all you monkeys.” Franklin’s eyes looked out through the front window. “Not much time before that syphilitic whore you were fucked up and lonely enough to start banging walks her filthy ass back inside. I thought we’d have seven more minutes, but the disgusting monkey from next door feels conflicted about getting a blow job—tailored to his specific needs, no less—from the one monkey in this town he’d kill to have swallow his poison spunk. If I was you, I wouldn’t touch that disease-ridden bag of feminine discharge below the belt, but I’d take the hummer. I’ll never understand why you monkeys insist on trying to keep the lives in your heads separated from your lives in this playground. Like there’s a difference. Anyway, let’s get down to business.”
“Franky. Uncle. Whoever you are. If you’re trying to get a rise out of me, you waited too long. Junie can blow anyone she wants. It’s none of my business anymore, and none of my concern. Back on track. You never—”
Franklin touched his index finger to David’s lips and, though he continued speaking, no sound came from his mouth.
“Is the answer really so important? ...Yeah, she’s something, though,” Franklin continued. “And at some point I’ll take a ‘thank you’ for the fact that you still have clean, fully functional genitalia and never once knew a second of suffering from the smorgasbord of venereal diseases you should have contracted banging that trollop, cute as you think her bouncy little monkey ass is.”
Thank you, David thought. Franklin grinned as Cadence questioned why David was thanking her.
Then Franklin severed Cadence’s channel. “It’s the most precious thing, calling Itself Cadence now, isn’t It? But It’s lost. Truly It’s lost. And here’s all you need to know about me. I’m the darkness you’ve lived with since you first saw that simple girl you thought you knew. And well before you scared It off, when you started to feel funny between your legs and you let It into your heart. It’s not your fault It got scared and ran away. And, though you think you might know why It fled, you don’t have any idea, believe me. It loved you, sure, but that was only part of the reason.” Franklin paused. “You didn’t know It loved you? Hell, you’re a monkey, and It thinks It is half the time. I have to cut you a little slack.”
Must you refer to me as a monkey? Would it kill you to knock that off for three minutes?
Franklin looked at him with disdain. “Why? What can you humans do that a monkey can’t? Believe me, kid. It’s a compliment.” David stood, holding up his hands and shaking his head. Franklin waved him back and continued. “You could have written It off. You didn’t have to start snorting the shit you were moving to forget It. That’s why God gave you a cock and balls. So you could make lots of bad decisions and eventually forget. But, as much as it’s your fault, It really did... does love you. And that scared It so bad It lost Its way. Well, worse than It already had. It was starting to recognise Its way back Home, you see? Which means I was on my way Home too. And It thought you ruined everything putting that child-prostituting monkey It was trying to ‘save’ in a body bag. Not that there was a
body to bag. You know that. You saw it disappear. But that wasn’t the way Home. It might realise that by now. All the time It spent trying to fix that broken monkey was just trading one form of punishment for another. You want to know where that miserable fuck ended up?”
David squirmed. Franklin touched his index finger to David’s lips again, bringing his voice back and warning him to keep it down. “Of course I do, you crazy—”
“Am I the one running my mouth? Who’s crazier? Daniel’s still rotting in the Beneath. Brains all over walls that, technically, don’t exist to an even greater degree, now that they bulldozed the bugger-hole he was living in. So they could put up condominiums or some shit. He’s still there though. If you were to go back now, you could see him. No sparkling clean walls anymore. No sparkling clean lobby, now, I mean. The fun thing is, when I take someone from the In-Between to the Underneath, they never die. That abusive bastard is still hurting. Still in agonising pain. Head in a million parts and aware of every sensation. And he’ll never get used to it, because I randomly distribute, give, and take away pain in intervals of time that... What the fuck ever. That’s a trade secret. You don’t need to know.”
“What do I need to know, then, uncle? I thought we were running short on time.”
“Short? Time is relative,” Franklin replied.
“Is that why you look a thousand years old?”
“Is that the best you’ve got? Watch yourself, monkey.” Franklin felt at his face. “Be happy I did you the courtesy of putting your cop buddy’s head back together before I came to see you. ...But that’s not important. Just know this. I’m the shadow you’ve been hiding in. I’m the darkness that took all your enemies away and, when I knew you didn’t want them gone, puked them back out where I found them. Not in the same shape, of course. Hell, not even in the same mental condition. But I returned them to live out their pathetic monkey lives in various states of mental torture and physical pain. Interesting statistic: Twenty-seven percent of them died unusually and horribly and the rest committed suicide. Thought you’d like to know that. Hope it don’t make you feel bad. If it helps, the ones that offed themselves have it a lot better in the Above than the ones I’m holding onto. The ones you didn’t want to come back.”
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