Black Neon

by Tony O'Neill

  “Goddamn.”

  “Uh-huh. Only I’ve ever been happy to be on the rag in my whole damn life I’ll tell ya. But now I’m chained up like a fucking dog. If I gotta piss, I gotta do it in the bucket. And don’t let the fact I was chained to a fuckin’ radiator fool ya – it was fucking freezing in there, like a damn meat locker. I didn’t sleep a wink. The worst thing was I could hear all kinds of screams and noises and shit coming from next room. It was El Cortador and his goons torturing some poor bastard with a fucking electric drill. I can hear it as it’s going on, this horrible, high-pitched whining sound… And this guy screaming… I never heard anything like it, Genesis. I guess maybe they got this guy’s family on the phone or something, because the whole time this is going on I can hear El Cortador yelling that they’d better pay up or they’d fuck this poor bastard up beyond all recognition. It went on for hours. Then… I dunno. Maybe the guy died or passed out, but it all quieted down. Can you imagine? There I am, chained to a fucking radiator listening to all of this shit go down, and all I can think is, It’s my turn next!

  “So the next morning, they unlock the handcuffs and drag me downstairs. Put me on speakerphone with my pop. As much as I hated my father, I was so fucking excited to speak to the old bastard that day. I needed to know if mom was okay. I figured that for sure my pop would be able to help me out, you know? Pay ’em off if he had to, or get the cops involved. Something, you know? But right away I can tell that something’s wrong. For a start, from the moment he picked up he’s being real weird with me. I mean, not just the kind of weird you’d expect when your kid calls up telling you that if you don’t pay a ransom someone’s gonna kill her… I mean… it was like he was mad at me or something. He doesn’t get excited, or ask me how I am, ask me where I am, or anything. He’s just… cold. It was like I was calling home after breaking my fucking curfew or something. They gave me a piece of paper to read, saying that unless he paid twenty thousand they were gonna kill me. And he’s like, Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. Like I was telling him the football scores or somethin’ – no emotion. So after a minute of this shit, I can’t take it no more. I stop reading and I ask him straight out. I mean, I’m fucking crying and shit. I’m like, Pop! Why are you being like this with me? Why do you sound so WEIRD?

  Lupita choked a little. It felt like there was a ball of fire lodged in her throat. She swallowed hard.

  “Of course my pop denies he’s being weird, tells me I’m hysterical. But I just knew it. I knew that the motherfucker wasn’t gonna pay. ”

  “He wasn’t? That’s fucking crazy! What the fuck was his problem?” Genesis shook her head. “You’re his kid…”

  “Well, I guess he knew there was no way he could come up with the money for a start. And he sure as hell wasn’t gonna risk jail by getting the pigs involved. Basically, I realized at that point that my pop was acting weird because he’d already written me off as dead. So the guys holding me realized that this call wasn’t going according to plan, and El Cortador grabs the phone and starts in with his whole routine about how if they don’t pay within twenty four hours, he’s gonna start mailing me back to them, piece by piece. I don’t remember much after that. I was in shock, I guess... They just dragged me back to the room and locked me up again.”

  They whizzed past mile after mile of featureless freeway. Genesis stretched, totally numbed by the booze and the Dilaudid.

  “So what happened?” she asked sleepily, “Your father really didn’t pay?”

  “Nope. He didn’t have the money because he’d pissed it all away on the horses. Apparently when he went to Angel to tell him what was up, Angel told him that even if they paid the twenty grand El Cortador’s boys would just keep the money and kill me anyway. That was their style – no survivors, no witnesses. Instead of offering money he tells my father that he’s on the trail of the safe house, and that they’d find me. You gotta remember that Caribe was still on the warpath over what happened with Lucky, so he wanted El Cortador and his guys dead anyway. It wasn’t that he gave a shit about me, you know? I was just a side issue. If they caught up with those guys in time to save me, great. If not, well who gives a fuck anyway?”

  Genesis looked at Lupita with heavy-lidded eyes. She saw a solitary tear roll down Lupita’s cheek. Genesis reached out with her good hand, and touched Lupita’s face lightly. “It’s okay, Lupe. I love you baby,” she whispered.

  Lupita looked over, and smiled sadly. “I know you do, hun. It’s just that I put all of this shit behind me a long time ago… but it’s still tough to talk about it. I don’t make a habit of telling people this stuff. I haven’t told this story in years, and it hasn’t got any easier in the meantime.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Lupita gathered her thoughts.

  “They kept me in the room for… well, I dunno how long. There was no natural light in there. Just that fucking light bulb, which was on twenty-four-seven. A couple of times one of the guys would come in and give me a piece of bread, or some instant ramen. I didn’t eat. I couldn’t. Sometimes they’d start up torturing the poor fucker in the next room again. I never heard screams like that before or since. Like they came right up from that fucker’s soul, you know? Eventually, I guess they killed the guy. I heard… I heard him screaming. And I heard what I figured out later was one of those big fuckin’ electric power saws. Sounded like a motorbike or somethin’. And then… nothing. Just some talking… laughing… the sound of shit being dragged away. I lay there, knowing I was going to die.

  “You know, my mom raised me to believe that there was some kind of logic to all of this... that everything happens for a reason and all of that bullshit. But lying there, chained to a radiator, waiting for my turn with the drills and the saws, disowned by my fucking father even… it suddenly became real clear to me that there was no logic to any of it. None at all. Shitty things happen to good people, good things happen to shitty people. What a sick fuckin’ joke, right? Everything that you think is real, and true, and important… you could wake up tomorrow and all of that shit will be just swept away. Irrelevant. Suddenly, instead of worrying about your homework, or whether your pop is gonna beat you today or whatever, you’re lying there wondering how long it will take you to die once they start cutting you with those power tools.” Lupita laughed a sour laugh. “It kinda puts shit into perspective, you know?

  “When the time came that they opened the door up… I dunno. It’s weird. When I try to think about it, I just see it in flashes. It’s like one of those horrible dreams… the ones that make you almost jump outta bed, but when you try to remember the details it all starts to fragment, and you’re trying to grab hold of it but the harder you think the further away it gets. I remember screaming. I didn’t stop screaming the whole time. Two of them came in and un-cuffed me. I struggled, so one of them punched me in the mouth. Everything went hazy. I could see that fucker El Cortador standing in the doorway. I saw the power saw in his hands. I was thrashing around, screaming myself raw. They were holding me down. I saw him plugging into the wall. One of them was holding a cordless phone right up to my face. Maybe they had my folks on the line so they could hear what they were about to do to me. I dunno. All I can remember is screaming, screaming, screaming. Then one of them knelt on my chest and I couldn’t breathe properly, but I was still screaming inside my head, y’know? They held the arm out. I remember El Cortador leaning over and holding my head still. He kissed me on the forehead, real gentle. I still remember the feel of his lips on my forehead. And then him talking, but I couldn’t hear what he said, I just remember his lips moving. I remember the sound of the saw when he turned it on. I could feel it in my bones. I remember looking at the saw, at fucking blade as it crept closer and closer to me, and then I closed my eyes and everything was black… I could feel the pressure on my chest, and I couldn’t move and eventually I stopped struggling. I just went… limp. I felt the guys moving around, shifting their weight, moving out of the way of
the blade. And then… that’s it.”

  Lupita’s face was streaked with silent tears. She shook her head. When she started up again, it was in a small, hesitant voice.

  “I woke up in the back of a car. That’s the next thing I remember. I didn’t know whose car it was. I was in the backseat. I felt… numb. Like I wasn’t in my body at all. Before I passed out again, I remember wondering where all of the blood came from. Everything was covered in blood.”

  “What happened? Caribe’s men found you?”

  Lupita nodded.

  “They tracked down the house through some ex-associate of theirs. Caribe’s men stormed the place, kicked the door open right as they were cutting me. I don’t remember any of this, I only heard later. Caribe’s men showed up at the house, killed every motherfucker inside, grabbed me, and torched the place. Well, when I say that they killed everyone, that’s not exactly true. Caribe wanted El Cortador alive. They shot him alright, but didn’t kill him. While the house burned El Cortador was taken off in the trunk of one car, and I was rushed off in another. The next thing I remember is being laid on out a kitchen table. Some old guy in a while coat and a mask was shooting me full of morphine.”

  “Did they try an’ re-attach the arm?”

  Lupita shook her head. “In all of the fuss, nobody thought to pick it up. I guess it burnt up when they torched the house. You know, the thing is I found out later that El Cortador did me something of a favour because he at least cut the arm cleanly. If you cut the artery cleanly it kinda… curls over itself and you don’t bleed out as quickly. I lost a lot of blood, but they were able to patch me up without getting the authorities involved. They took me to the house of some retired surgeon who was on Caribe’s payroll. Lived up in some fancy-ass place in River Oakes.”

  “Jesus. I can’t believe you survived.”

  “It’s not so strange. Did you ever hear about Mary Bell Vincent?”

  “No. Who’s that?”

  “It was a big story back in the seventies. She was a fifteen years old hitchhiker? Got picked up by a crazy bastard called Larry Singleton? He took her up into some damn canyon somewhere, raped her, and cut off both of her arms with an axe. Then he dumped her in an underground drain, just left her there to die. Well, she managed to walk out of there, she got help, and survived. Managed to get Larry convicted too.”

  “That’s incredible. She just walked outta there with both of her arms chopped off like that?”

  “Uh-huh. The shitty thing is he only did eight years for it. When he got out – he was, like, seventy or somethin’ – he went an’ stabbed a prostitute to death. Died of cancer on death row in Florida. But the thing is, that just goes to show you. The human body is pretty fucking resilient. Compared to poor old Mary Bell Vincent, I had it pretty easy I guess.”

  “Eight years for raping and mutilating some poor kid?” Genesis shook her head, “If he’d have been selling dope you’d bet he’d a got more time than that. This country is fucked.’

  “True that.”

  “So what happened afterwards?”

  “Well, it’s all kinda hazy. I was on so many fucking painkillers after they patched up my arm, everything seems a bit like a dream. But the guy who took me over to the doctor’s place was one of Angel Caribe’s men. Guy called Adolfo Alarcon. He was a big guy, chubby you know? So they all called him El Puerco.”

  “Whassat mean?”

  “Like… pork. Like they were calling him “The Pig”. It doesn’t seem as rude in Spanish, I guess. He was sweet. He stayed with me the whole time I was recovering. Nobody could know where I was, Caribe’s orders. Not until I was well enough to go home. They had to make sure that the wound didn’t get infected, the old guy – the surgeon – he was on hand to make sure everything was okay. But it was lonely up there, so El Puerco stayed with me. Read to me. We got to talking. About silly stuff at first. Music. Movies. Anything to distract me. But as the days went on he started to really talk to me. Turns out he was a hit man. But he was a real sweet guy. Very religious, in a weird way. I could tell he didn’t feel good about how he made his living. Talked about going to hell a lot. He kept me company while I recovered. After a few days I was well enough to call home. Pop didn’t even get on the phone with me. My mom was a mess. Hysterical. She said something about how those guys had “ruined me”. Not exactly what I wanted to hear right then, you know?

  “Pretty soon it was time for me to leave, and Adolfo was supposed to bring me home. As soon as we were in the car I told him, I don’t wanna go home. I can’t go home no more. So Adolfo, he says, Here. Lemmie show you something that might make you feel better. So we drive out to this industrial-looking place, out by the airport. There are all these warehouses. We pull up into one, and Adolfo tells me that this is where they have El Cortador locked up. He asked me if I wanted to see him. Don’t worry, he tells me, he can’t hurt you no more. They had him stashed away in this fuckin’ warehouse, apparently they’d been keeping him alive for shits and giggles. And there he is, locked away in a storeroom. He was barely recognizable any more. He’d been burnt, drilled, shocked, the whole bit. By the time I got there he looked like a fuckin’ Halloween costume. I’m just standing there, staring at him. I don’t think he even recognized me anymore. One of his eyes is missing, just a hole covered up with a bloody bandage. The other one is just kinda rolling around in his skull, like his brain don’t work so good anymore. Adolfo asks me if I wanna do the honors. Hands me a gun, and asks me if I know how to use it. He walks me through it, takes off the safety and all of that shit, and helps me raise my hand so I’m pointing the gun right at this fucker’s head. He doesn’t even move. You’da thought he was already dead, if he wasn’t breathing so heavy. Sounded like a thirsty dog. I dunno if he even knew what the fuck was going on any more.”

  “You shot him?”

  “Uh-huh. You’d think it should have felt like closure or somehin’, but it didn’t. Not really. This guy was so out of it; it didn’t even feel like I was killing the same bastard who’d done all of that shit to me. I felt like I was putting down an old, sick animal. After I blew that fucker’s brains out, it occurred to me that I had maybe done him a favour. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Nuthin’. It was just a weird feeling, you know?”

  Lupita stopped herself from saying more. If she followed this line of self-examination any further she might inadvertently reveal of herself to Genesis that she’d prefer to keep hidden. What she couldn’t say, maybe couldn’t even articulate if she tried, was the curious sensation that killing El Cortador had given her. As the contents of his head sprayed across the concrete floor she experienced an adrenaline rush that she recognized later – when she first injected crank – as being comparable to a narcotic rush, although more nuanced, with more depth than any drug high. Even though this man had been already half-gone, the sensation of having the power of life and death over another human being, the idea that a subtle application of pressure of her finger on the trigger had wiped a human being – all of his memories, experiences, wants and desires – clean off the face of the earth was a profoundly moving experience.

  Although she tried not to think about it in the months that followed, some unspoken part of her knew that one day she would be invariably drawn to exercising that power again. With each successive life that Lupita snuffed out, the notion of abstaining from exercising this incredible power became increasingly hard to swallow.

  Instead of saying any of this, Lupita gathered herself quickly and carried on, “The next thing I did, the very next thing, was I told Adolfo that I loved him and I wanted to be with him.”

  Genesis raised an eyebrow. “Really? You really liked this guy?”

  Lupita shrugged. “I dunno. I needed an out, and I got the feeling that he did too. I’d noticed the way that Adolfo had been looking at me, fawning over me, the weeks he’d been waiting by my bedside. I mean, t
he guy was a professional fucking killer. I don’t think he made a habit of volunteering to play nursemaid, you know? I mean… I liked him, don’t get me wrong. He was kind to me. At that point in my life… I mean, that was love, or at least it was close enough, you know?”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me that I was crazy. He gave me the whole speech about how I was fifteen and he was fifty-three. He told me I was delirious. But I could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.”

  “So what did you do?”

  An uncomfortable look came over Lupita’s face.

  “Look Genesis, I knew that one way or another I wasn’t going home. I did the only thing I could think of. I made him feel guilty. I looked down at that bandaged stump and I asked him he didn’t like me because I wasn’t a complete woman no more.”

  “And that worked?”

  “Uh-huh. He called his boss from a payphone, told him that El Cortador was dead and that he was going to take some time away. Then he and I split town. That was the end of that. Adolfo knew that he could never go back after pulling that shit with his boss. You know, I really did fall for Adolfo as time went on. We could relate to each other. When he was in his early twenties he got shot, right in the groin. They had to amputate a ball, and part of the penis. So he knew what it felt like to be incomplete. He couldn’t have sex without using a prosthetic dick. In a weird way I think the fact that he didn’t have a penis of his own helped. I’ll tell you one thing, Genesis hun. He ate pussy better than any other man on God’s earth, I swear. And he was the man who taught me how to shoot. It was Adolfo who turned me on to good music. I dunno… I dunno how I ever would have gotten over what happened if it hadn’t been for Adolfo.”

  “So you did love him?”

  Lupita shrugged. “I was fifteen. At the time I felt that I did. Looking back, I think I needed him more than anything else.”