Erica had forgotten about the joint.
She put it in her mouth, lit it, and passed it to Dawn before exhaling and coughing. The joint went back and forth, both of the girls silent, the crackling fire drowning out all the other noises of the country night. When the joint got too small to hold, Dawn flicked it toward the fire where it landed considerably short.
“What do you know about Walt?” Erica said.
“He’s good looking.”
“What else? I don’t know anything about him.”
“Join the club.”
“So nobody knows much about him?”
“None of us know much about any other one of us.”
“Except we can all do whatever we want.”
“So you know about that.”
“It’s one of the only things Walt’s told me.”
“It’s like we’re all reinvented and nobody wants to talk about where they came from.”
“But isn’t that what people talk about? Their pasts? What made them who they are? Crazy shit they did or saw?”
Dawn was quiet for a moment, pulling out her cigarettes and handing one to Erica. “Most people,” she said.
“Back in the barn, all Walt and Blake talked about were people they’d known and things they’d done. Although . . . I can’t remember anything specifically.”
“Because they just make shit up. They’ve never told me this specifically but I’ve been able to put it together. One of them will say something and then they just riff off each other. I think it’s all fiction. I don’t know how closely you listened. I just tune most of it out now, but it usually just ends up with them talking gibberish. Literally. Like not even the words are important. So what do you think about what you’ve seen here so far?”
Erica didn’t really think she’d seen much except for the barn.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “If you’re talking about what’s in the barn back there, I feel like I should ask you how you feel about it. I imagine you’re at least partially responsible for some of it.”
“Maybe. But it would be too hard to explain. And I think it would be too hard for you to understand.”
Erica felt like the other girl was talking down to her. It made her feel childish and small. Maybe that’s why she said what she said next. Something to try and make Dawn feel bad.
“When we first got here, Walt asked Shump if you were his girl and he said you were all of theirs. Do you sleep with all of them?”
“That’s kind of two separate things you’re asking. First, I don’t belong to any of them. I sleep with who I want to and, yes, I’ve slept with all of them a number of times, sometimes at the same time. So if you’ve never kissed a girl, I’m guessing you’ve never had more than one guy at a time?”
“You’re asking about my past. We don’t talk about our past.”
Dawn smiled. “Good. You’re learning.” She paused. “But, there’s a first time for everything and if you’d ever like to try it, tonight would be a really good night to start. I could totally get off on watching them fuck you.”
Who were these people?
“I feel like you all just talk in circles . . . When you’re not talking gibberish.”
“How so? I just said I’d like to get off while watching the Boys fuck you. I thought that seemed pretty direct.”
“Not that. Everything else. It’s like . . .”
“Religion?”
Erica thought about it but didn’t say anything.
“There really isn’t much point in trying to explain things,” Dawn said. “What we have is a powerful gift. It’s going to take using that gift before you get comfortable with it. And, by that point, you’ll realize how useless it is trying to explain it.”
Lost in thought, Erica took an absent drag from her cigarette. Aside from the things she’d seen in the short time since hooking up with Walt, there was a bigger thing, a bigger feeling that filled her with unease.
“I guess,” she said, “what I’m wondering is . . . do the people who have this gift only use it to do terrible things?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Dead dogs. Dead people. Stolen goods. Do you do things just because you can get away with it?”
“Yes. It serves the self. There is nothing terrible about serving the self. Consider it the best way to avoid failure.”
“How so?”
“Most people who do ‘good’ things to help other people are only doing those things to garner some kind of adulation. So who the fuck cares? If Gandhi and Jesus were interested in only doing good things you wouldn’t know either of their fucking names. They’d be anonymous. And what if they performed their miracles or good deeds or whatever and no one paid a bit of attention? Then they would have just been colossal failures. Think about it. How many people get to do whatever the hell they want? Not many. So, I guess, if you wanted, you could live a life of deprivation but who the hell would choose that? Only the type of person who gets off on being deprived. It’s still that person serving himself. Also, think about one of the reasons you’re able to do whatever you want. Maybe that explains why none of us are particularly altruistic. We are who we are because we’ve been largely ignored. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped so you might as well help yourself.”
Erica watched the fire devour the wood, both things beautiful and transient in their own way. Two things coming together and making a utilitarian spectacle only to leave behind a pile of ash to blow away in the wind or be beaten into the earth by the rain. She started giggling, unable to stop herself. She’d forgotten about the beer and reached down, opening one of the cans and taking a long chug just so she’d have something in her mouth to prevent the giggling fit from becoming an all out bout of lunatic laughter. Dawn opened hers, stood up, walked over to Erica and straddled her.
“I think you’re way crazier than you think,” Dawn said.
She kissed Erica’s forehead on the horizontal stripe.
“Not that I’m talking about my past or anything . . .” Dawn said. “But I think you should try this: Go to a store, take all the money from a cash register, take that money to a homeless person or something. Maybe you won’t even be able to get his attention to give it to him. Maybe you could set it down right in front of him and watch it all blow away. Maybe a lot of us started out wanting to do good things. Maybe a lot of us got tired of wasting our time.”
Dawn lowered her head and kissed Erica deeply, wrapping her damp arms around Erica’s damp neck. For some reason this felt like different friction than what she had experienced with Walt.
The gravel of the driveway crunched under a speeding car. Correction: a speeding van. Doors opened and slammed shut. A high-pitched scream pierced the night.
The Boys were home.
Fun and Games
Dawn quickly slid off Erica like she was afraid of being caught and both girls stood to watch a silhouetted figure run toward them, the lights from the van shining in the distance. The figure finally reached the light given off by the fire and Erica was able to make out that it was a female. As she charged even closer, Erica became pretty sure it was the waitress from the cafe. She was nude and screaming as she charged toward them.
The girl spotted Erica and Dawn.
“OH DEAR GOD YOU HAVE TO HELP ME! I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING! HELP ME!”
She clung to Erica’s shoulders, shaking her and screaming. She must have recognized Erica or, probably, recognized the markings on her face.
“OH GOD! YOU’RE WITH HIM! YOU WERE WITH HIM!”
Before even giving Erica the chance to help, the girl ran off to Erica’s right, farther away from the van and the fire. Erica wondered if she was going to the house and couldn’t quite see the logic in that. Blind panic, maybe. Erica wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced that. Maybe it was refreshing.
The girl didn’t make it to the house.
She had faded from sight. There was a sound like someone punching an empty
bag and the back yard was glowing with the same clear blue light that had been in the barn. A bank of floodlights hovered like a spaceship in the sky. Erica had to shield her bleary eyes from it.
“You should see this,” Dawn said.
Erica followed her.
The Boys were coming up behind them.
“Man, did you see that bitch go down!” Shump shouted, excited, clapping his hands.
The rest of them, including Walt, were smiling and laughing.
Now they all stood around the perimeter of a hole in the ground. The waitress was at the bottom of the hole and it took Erica’s eyes a moment to adjust before she realized the girl lay on some kind of dark green canvas tarp. Blake and the other boys grabbed the edge of the tarp and began pulling it up. The waitress tried to grab onto it but she wasn’t functioning very well and Erica thought about magicians pulling tablecloths out from under dinnerware. The waitress clung to the tarp and tried riding up the side of what Erica could now tell was an empty swimming pool. She clung to it until she reached the edge and Blake stomped her hands until she let go of the tarp and fell to the bottom. She frantically searched around, probably for a ladder, but there wasn’t one in sight. The more Erica studied the concrete depression, the more she realized it may not be a pool but just some pit made for the express purpose of torture. She hadn’t seen a lot of in-ground pools but thought most of them had a deep end and a shallow end. This looked of a uniform depth Erica guessed was easily ten to twelve feet. There were three oily shadows in the distance that bled toward the waitress and Erica felt a prickly sensation of primal fear and excitement. She was pretty sure they were snakes.
Dawn nudged her and said, “Cobras.”
“Let the fun begin,” Blake muttered.
Erica was enthralled. She’d never seen anything like this in person. Torture footage was all over television but those were mostly things happening to brown people in different countries or game shows featuring willing participants. She was aware of the moisture between her legs and wasn’t sure if that was because of what had just happened with Dawn or what she was watching. It made her think of the fear sweat on the waitress’ skin, gleaming in the blare of the stadium lighting. She wondered what it smelled like and thought, Acrid. While she had never experienced blind panic, Erica had smelled her own fear sweat plenty of times: standing in front of a classroom, waiting for a lie to be believed, any hint of confrontation.
She didn’t want to think about any of that, though.
Deep breath.
Enjoy this. She wanted to enjoy this.
The others were on the perimeter of the empty pool, eyes wide with fascination.
The waitress was nearly in the middle of the pool, still screaming. She hadn’t noticed the snakes yet and made no attempt to get away. Her eyes were barely open and it looked like her legs had been burned in places.
“Get her! Get that bitch!” Shump shouted.
Walt moved over to Erica and said, “I thought you’d appreciate this.”
Suddenly, Erica felt almost angry and said, “Did you fuck her?”
He smiled. “Absolutely not. And now you don’t ever have to worry about that happening.”
“Looks like you got a nice eyeful though.”
“As I mentioned at the restaurant, I do admire her figure. But stripping her down was the other boys’ idea. Can’t say as I blame them. Plus it makes it easier for the snakes to get at her. That’s how much I care about you, baby.”
He nodded toward the waitress as the first of the three snakes, moving rapidly with its hooded head raised, came to a stop before her, snapping quickly.
The girl screamed and shouted, “OH MY GOD WHAT’S HAPPENING!”
Erica grabbed Walt’s hand and nudged his cheek with her free hand until he looked into her eyes.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
She saw not lightning striking a mountain. She saw an empty gray cloud. She didn’t want to be the first one to say it but she could tell he wasn’t getting it.
She tapped him on the rock hard chest with a loose fist and said, “I love you, dummy.”
He pulled her close and said, “I love you too, baby.”
They kissed deeply while the waitress screamed and then turned their attention back to the empty pool or the torture pit or whatever.
The waitress maybe didn’t notice the snakes until the second one struck her just below the breasts. She ran toward the perimeter of the pool, the three snakes now in an almost orderly line, slithering after her. She clawed at the wall of the pool, screaming, now completely out of her head. The snakes struck her repeatedly, angrily hissing.
Somebody had brought the beers back from the barn and they all watched the snakes strike her. Erica held Walt’s hand and stayed pressed against his moist heat, his musky scent. Eventually the waitress passed out, either from fear or toxins, and collapsed onto the dirty bottom of the pool. The snakes got bored and slithered away.
A gunshot clapped beside Erica and she jumped, clutching Walt tighter.
Two more shots were fired and all the snakes lay dead in the bottom of the pool.
Walt tucked the gun into the back of his pants. She hadn’t even been aware of his movement.
She’d completely forgotten about the gun.
Boys and Girls
The group moved closer to the fire and kept drinking. Once the adrenaline rush had waned, Erica began to feel tired and maybe a little nauseous, probably from the booze and pot. They briefly went back to the barn to snort either cocaine or crystal meth, Erica wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it provided a jolt of electricity, hitting her in the brain and traveling through her skeletal system. She felt like she could do anything. At some point, Jask said he was going to go down into the pool to “get that bitch,” at which time the group moved from the fire and back over to the pool where they collectively waited for Jask to return with the twelve-foot ladder. Erica grew bored with this and went over to the fire where she smoked cigarettes and made out with Dawn. The next time she saw Jask, he had emerged from the pool but she didn’t see any evidence of the girl. Instead, he had a cobra in each hand, whipping them around his head and shouting, “Snake party!” It started raining and someone, maybe Blake, suggested they go into the house. The inside of the house was as dilapidated as the outside. The single light she’d seen from the outside was in the living room, the only one of which looked remotely livable. There were a couple of king-size mattresses on the floor and a couple of smaller ones pushed toward a far wall. The waitress, who Erica was pretty sure was dead, lay in one of the king-size beds. A very old man lay sleeping or dead in one of the smaller ones. He reminded her a lot of Granny. Erica wondered if Walt was going to shoot him in the head, too. Eventually they all ended up in the bed with the dead waitress and the Boys were all over the girls and Erica wondered if they could ever be the Girls. And she briefly imagined what that would be like. If they would gain their power by letting these drunk and psychotic guys do whatever it was they wanted to. Erica wasn’t sure. She wasn’t going to stop them. Everything felt too good and, besides, it gave her a chance to feel Dawn’s skin beneath her fingertips and to feel Dawn’s fingertips and hands on her skin. Erica hoped that if they were to become the Girls it would either be achieved by being themselves or an honest triumph of the intellect. Using her sexuality seemed too easy. She thought, maybe, that’s what the Boys were doing. Some primal display of masculinity. And, obviously, Erica was turned on by it, mainly because she thought this was not them being themselves but them putting on a show for she and Dawn. It felt endearing. Everything seemed to reach a height of frenzied movement, grunting, and moaning, all felt and heard through a chemical distance, and then there was quiet and the lighting of cigarettes and, before going to sleep, they went out into the barn and dragged all the corpses over to the fire, which they had to feed with furniture from the barn. By the time they finally went to sleep, Erica was moderately paranoid and didn’t want to sleep in t
he same room with that old guy. She felt like he’d come from the cave that had threatened to swallow her up earlier and he was just a dry husk containing something else and it was just waiting for them to go to sleep before it crawled out. She tried to say all of this to Walt but fell asleep before she could make any of it make any sense. She couldn’t recall ever being this tired. She couldn’t recall ever doing this much in a day. Wasn’t sure she’d done as much in her entire life as she had today.
When she woke up, the old man was gone.
The Morning After
Everyone else was gone, too. It was just she and Walt. There was a burnt smell in her nostrils and her skin felt crusted over with smoke, sweat, and body fluids, only some of them her own. The meager light poking in through the windows revealed the house to be in an even worse state than she’d thought yesterday. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be in the bed another second. She rolled out, wearing a more disheveled version of yesterday’s clothes, and stretched. Walt’s eyes were already open. He watched her.
“Morning,” she said.
“Good afternoon.”
“What time is it?”
“Late.”
“Any place we have to be?”
“Not at all. Ever, really.”
Erica’s muscles felt stiff and achy, but she welcomed it. “I’m starving,” she said. “Can I take a shower here?”
“We’ll get something to eat. You could take a shower here if it worked. I think there’s a pond somewhere on the grounds.”
“Gross.”
He hopped off the mattress not looking at all like she felt. His clothes were still clean looking. His hair wasn’t messed up at all.
“Last night . . .” she began.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Is every night going to be like that?”
“It could be if you wanted it to.”
“I’m not sure I could handle it.”
“Then it doesn’t have to be. It’ll just be me and you for a while, I think.”
Sociopaths In Love Page 5