"What do you see inside there, Nicodemus?" I asked.
"I ain't tellin' you."
"Are the angels calling to you again? Are the tips of their gleaming strange wings brushing against your face?"
"Shut yer dirty mouth."
I wanted it to be over. "Is that redemption?"
"About as close as it gets most'a the time."
"Yup," I said. "Here, let me help you toward heaven."
"I been waitin'."
"I know you have."
I took the punk from him and gave it back to the woman. She sighed and started talking at the jar, brushing her cheek against it. Maybe it was hers, maybe it belonged to the Works, but for the moment she had something to coddle.
I wrapped my arms around my father and it was like hugging Nell before he fried her to death. I grabbed him by the throat and hauled him down to the girl's pussy and pressed his face into her.
Nicodemus let loose with a ferocious yelp and I held him there, his nose and mouth deep inside where he could get even closer to his savior. He struggled and moaned but he was sporting an erection, and I figured this would be the best way all around. The woman enjoyed it too, I thought, and let out tiny growls of delight and disdain. I shoved him farther down into that mysterious place we were all trying to back to until, at last, he went slack, stooped breathing and went on home.
16
Christ, I needed a drink.
Lala freed the woman from the stirrups and watched her nuzzle the floating fetus, droning lullabies, making promises. In an adjoining room we found the others. I looked at the rows of jars, hundreds of them all carefully sealed and stacked. The punks and their pale, indistinct bodies. Some had been gaffed with tails or sewn together with kittens and fish and squirrel guts.
Of course some were natural freaks. About what you might expect would be born into this environment, by these people in this place, with the city's weight of profane ages bearing down. The drugs had done a lot of damage to their parents' heredity, along with the lack of sunlight and the chemicals in the film and ink, all the poisons. The malignancy and mischief moving in and swirling about through the crowds. These were the children of the Works.
Fishboy Lenny peered into the containers, pressing his scaly forehead close to those unformed faces so much like his own. I remembered now. He hadn't been in the fire. He'd been swimming in the dive tank safe beneath the water. Now Fishboy Lenny tapped on the glasses with his flipper and the fetuses bobbed, turning slightly to stare at him. He gaped and started talking excitedly to them, as if he'd finally be understood by someone.
Lala inspected each face in every jar. It took hours until she found the one she was looking for. Some of the other women had begun milling about and gathering around by then. Lala and I spent the day handing out the punks to the mothers who had offered their sacrifices, willing or not.
Some had made their choice on their own. Others had been influenced by the will of the Works. I couldn't tell which was which, and held the jars up and waited for the women to either walk by or take back what had been left. We returned dozens and still the stock of fetuses rose around us.
Lala lifted her little girl up to the light, with the viscous amber liquid eddying, and she stared upon what she'd given birth to. After a few minutes she put the jar down on the floor and walked away without a word.
The need for liquor grew overwhelming. The punks had been pickled in grain alcohol. I'd gotten drunk on it before. I searched around and found a punk that was almost a complete gaff, mostly plastic doll parts and some rubber cement. I shook so badly by then that I had to hold the jar in both hands, gripping it to my chest until I steadied enough to screw off the lid. After a few swigs I felt much better and more in control.
I was afraid to find Jonah. I could feel him staring at me from one of the rows and I wondered if Nicodemus had been right.
After a few more gulps I supposed it didn't matter. We are driven by a human need, even us freaks. I got up and started searching and when I uncovered my son his eyes were wide and glaring.
I opened the lid of the jar. Somebody had gaffed a pair of plastic devil's horns to his head. I sat and waited.
A man came wandering in. He couldn't have been thirty yet, but his hair was entirely white. His eyes were separate abysses, something like my father's had been. He stared at me with the gaze of a sane man caught up in a madness he never wanted, but who'd learned to feed on it until he could live on nothing else. He was in a place much worse than hell. He was stuck down in purgatory, and he'd made it himself. I knew it was Paynes.
"You look like you might make it out again," he said.
"I'm not so sure I want to."
An unpleasant sound escaped him. Maybe it was laughter. "Not many of us do."
"I suppose I know why."
He nodded. If his own fate didn't matter to him, then mine certainly wouldn't. "Hope you make the right decision."
"Guess we'll know in a little while."
"Good luck."
"Yeah, you too."
About a half hour later Lester slithered in and slowly curled himself up in my lap. I patted his head and a small patch of scales scraped off and his dark eyes brimmed. Fishboy Lenny was still going on, paddling around the room.
The Fedex guy walked by and looked just as miserable as he had before, but at least he was comfortable in this brand of misery. His kids could never knife him in the kidneys now and his wife would never get his hefty insurance policy. After a minute he strayed off and headed even deeper inside what he took to be damnation, and he was happy with that.
The lights dimmed and came up again, and in the following silence, with the dead out of my head, I could hear the rain still coming down.
Jonah arose.
My son drew himself from the liquid and tore the fake horns from his head.
Dripping, he sat before me and hissed, then whispered, and finally preached in a golden voice given to him by a furious yet all-forgiving God.
Introduction to the poetry section
by Michael A. Arnzen
I sat on a poetry panel with Tom Piccirilli once, back in 2000 at the World Horror Convention in Seattle. There were a bunch of us weirdos who write this stuff there, including Mark McLaughlin, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Charlee Jacob, Chad Hensley, and some freak who dressed like a pirate that joined us uninvited from the audience. The powers that be thought it would be a good idea if we had something of a "poetry slam" rather than prattle on about this bastard stepchild of the horror genre, and so we each took turns reading from our work until the hour was exhausted.
It was the first time I heard Tom Piccirilli read.
And while all of us gave it our all, reading some top-notch stuff, Pic's poetry stood out from the pack. It was gritty and realistic, scraping at the pain beneath the scabs we build up on our day-to-day existence. Compared to the more splattery writers of the group, it was more soul-scathing. Compared to the more humorous of us, it was more depressing. Compared to the more supernatural fantasists among us, it was more gritty and real and emotionally true.
Although his delivery was straightforward -- unadorned, if not humble -- it really stood out.
Because he was doing something really original. Really literary. And totally unexpected.
He'd read excerpts from his new chapbook, A Student of Hell. It went on to win the Bram Stoker that year for Outstanding Achievement in a Poetry Collection. I was on the final ballot that year too, for Paratabloids, but I'm not jealous of his victory at all. He totally deserved it. And A Student of Hell "schooled" us, all right. It trumpeted a writer of distinction. We all already know Pic's so damned prolific and so damned good when it comes to his fiction (just try picking up Deep into that Darkness, Peering without straining a muscle -- it's a huge tome that testifies to his massive work ethic in addition to his skill)...but a POET of talent, to boot?
Yes, a poet of talent. You'll see that once you lay eyes on the poems included in this section.
/> And yes, even if you don't like poetry, I know you'll read them. Because of the titles.
I remember when I first cracked open Pic's book, This Cape is Red Because I've Been Bleeding, with an eye toward reviewing it in my e-zine, The Goreletter. The first thing I read was "My First Groupie and How Much I Love Her Despite the Failed Assassination Attempt" -- and I thought, man, what a long-ass title. Quirky, though. Hilarious, even... and he had me hooked. So I read the poem. And it didn't only make good on the promise of that title; it blew me away. It connected with my memory of Pic's poetry reading, because it's about a poetry reading, and it spoke a lot of truth. As a writer, I could identify with what he was saying, captured in the poem's allegory about the relationship between writers and readers. But it's also a poem about poetry. And these particular lines jumped out and stayed with me, because they told me a lot about Tom's approach to verse, if not his quest as a writer:
[me, there...reading] a little poetry—the terse verse doing its thing, the way it's supposed to do, like oil, replete, until a few of the self deprecating jokes started to work. And the rhythm of my voice became the cadence of the room, our heartbeats—for a second there—all in synch, the circuit complete.
This passage says it all. Everything he does seeks to establish that bond that reminds us that we're all the same at root, all victims and villains, all human and horrifying, all suffering and sufferable. You feel sorry for his narrators, who are universally traumatized by their very real pasts or suffering deeply from the existential horrors of everyday life. You'll empathize with the murderers and sinners and sad sacks. He writes with a voice so introspective that one can't deny its honesty; it feels confessional at times as Piccirilli muses about everything from anger to love. He struggles with the limits of the body, the pains that come part and parcel with being alive, and you can't help but identify.
I suspect that poetry writing does something for Pic that fiction writing doesn't. There's an intensity at work in his poetry that echoes the emotional drive behind a lot of his fiction, but it's not quite the same thing. He's a master stylist, but I can't help but think that his style is so sharp because of the struggle he's endured that all poets must endure: the struggle with language and meaning and the self contemplating its own existence through those meager tools. Poetry isn't a slam for Pic so much as it is a wrestling match. He wrestles with words but works without the safe ropes and boundaries of narrative or storytelling that keep a writer in the ring. Some of these poems piledrive language into the ground. Some of them shift the dire grappling into a hypnotic dance. I'm glad this section is in this larger collection of Pic's best work, because it gives us an insight into a master taking meaning to the mat, and looking up at us -- and into himself -- afterward, eyes ablaze in that nightmare space where he (and we) will inevitably come face to face with "me and someone just like me."
I'll get out of the way and let "the terse verse do its thing" to us. Turn the page and listen -- really listen -- to what he has to say.
You're already in the ring and he's coming right at you.
–Michael A. Arnzen, author of GRAVE MARKINGS, GORELETS, and 100 JOLTS
From WAITING MY TURN TO GO UNDER THE KNIFE
A Long Island Tourist in New York
by Tom Piccirilli
I was trying to find the Empire State Building–
it's right there in the sky, no way to miss it,
but somehow I did–I'm walking but don't recognize
any of the street names. I mean,
c'mon...Gansevoort Street?
Somebody's gotta be fucking with me...
and I'm getting the killer glare from everyone
who passes by–I turn a corner and she's on me–
sweet, slim, got her hair in a ponytail,
wearing fishnets,
some kind of shiny plastic skirt, these shoes
with...Jesus!...with four inch heels,
and she still only comes up
to about my shoulder. She asks if I want
a date,
and I start thinking, What's showing
at the movies? Any good restaurants around here?
How far are we from Lincoln Center? Might
she enjoy the Opera?
She asks if I'm a fop and I say,
Hell no, I'm a hundred percent
Italian-American red-blooded hetero male, baby!
Oh...a cop!
I'm still on the date question, wondering,
Is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey at the Garden?
I imagine her with a pretzel in one hand
and one of those
little spinning blue flashlights in the other.
She says, half-n-half is only $50. It'll make me scream,
or we can do the whole thing and go
around the world for $200.
I look at her trying hard
not to show exactly how anal-retentive
I am about things like this,
but finally I've just got to ask,
If half is $50
and the other half is $50,
shouldn't the whole thing only be $100?
She asks if I'm from Idaho or Kansas
or one of those fucked-up cornfield places,
and I tell her, No, across the river.
I live on Long Island, about 50
minutes away by train.
She says she'll shove a lit candle up her ass
for an extra $40. Or I can cream on her chest
and wipe off in her hair for an extra $50.
Or I can pee on her in the shower
for $500.
It's a dream that dies hard, but
I'm beginning to realize
that maybe
the circus is out.
In Bed With It
by Tom Piccirilli
Her sister called and told me to get over there right now,
something wasn't right. There was a panic in her throat
I'd never heard before so I hiked it down there,
thirty blocks in the killing summer heat
at 2am, knocked and could hear her
in there sort of humming to herself,
giggling, the kind of giggle that sets
the iceberg loose down your back.
I thought I could be a movie lead and kick the door in–
tried it three times and could feel
my Achilles tendon about to go. I limped four flights down
to the super's apartment in the basement. He said the door
was probably open, she always left her door open,
did I even try the door? I clambered back up the stairs
and tried the knob and walked in.
There were all kinds of pills and powders around,
but she seemed calm in the center of the bed,
writing in a marble notebook, the tip of her miraculous tongue
jutting from the corner of her mouth. She looked all right
but never glanced up. I started to say her name
and she cut that giggle free again.
It was August, maybe 99 degrees in the room, and still
I shivered
like they were doing the Tarantella on my grave.
Beside her were five other marble notebooks,
a college ruled yellow pad,
some scrap paper, all of it covered.
I thought, this is either a magnum opus
or a madhouse mess.
I grabbed the notes and sifted through them,
seeing page after page of indecipherable scrawls
with an occasional word appearing
here and there:
EXPIATION
EFFECT
BEGET
GRACE
REDRESS
BREEDING
and a few times, among the incoherence, my name.
Stick figures that had been gone over so many times
that they'd shredded the pages and must've bled the blac
k pens dry.
She wouldn't stop. I took her by the shoulders
and she wouldn't stop.
I outweighed her by 80 pounds and I put myself to the test.
I couldn't force her back an inch,
and she still wouldn't stop. I talked, I whispered,
I went on, snapping my fingers in front of her nose
and she never looked up. I found the sister's number
and gave her a call. She said sit tight.
She must've known, they all
must've known, because an hour later the boys came
by and gave her a needle
and she fell over like she'd been shot by a sniper
from across the street. They packed her up
and dumped her on the stretcher
and left without a word.
It is something to say you've been to the rim
and looked in and felt the black ocean
trying to haul you down. It is something to say you've
been depressed, that you have issues you can't get over,
that you are too sensitive, that you have anxiety attacks,
that you need the feel-good legal drugs. That you've visited
the psychiatrist, that you read the bestselling self-help books.
It's something else to be
in the presence of madness
and know four nights ago
you were in bed with it.
Paradise
by Tom Piccirilli
The cab driver asks, Where you from, man? And I tell him, Right
here, been away for a while, but I'm back.
Why?
To bury my mother.
Oh, he goes, my heart grieves and is with you, I buried my old lady too,
right up here, this way—
as we approached a cemetery that was shrugging over the narrow city streets,
some of the gravestones toppling down the hills to land, crashing, in
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