I smiled wickedly as I delivered the zinger. “Who’s a good boy, Mathieu? WHO’S A GOOD BOY?”
“Major General Ryan,” Mathieu said, his voice still cracking, and now, it was his turn to tremble with fear. “By the authority of Emperor and pursuant to the edict issued for your death…”
“Nah, motherfucker,” I finished. “Nobody’s dying today except your men.”
I stepped forward and nodded my head, first in the general direction of Basile, then in the general direction of Kanoa, before standing before The Cabal with my arms crossed over my chest. I was fully visible to them now, fearless in my taunts.
“You ain’t gonna do shit, Mathieu,” I said, snarling, my face visible to them all, “which is the same thing you did when I was your Major General and you were just my puny little Ensign. A badge doesn’t make you a man, Matt. You got a long way to go!”
Suddenly, and with a flying kick, Kanoa managed to send the back row of two Cabal members sprawling across the street. The officer who was at the direct receiving end of Kanoa’s kick got his cheekbone broken on impact, and the pain was so intense and so sudden that he immediately passed out and collapsed onto his compatriot. In turn, his compatriot tumbled backwards onto his right leg, twisting and breaking it before collapsing to the ground in writhing agony.
The other Cabal members immediately turned to face Kanoa, but as they ran towards him, they were stopped dead in their tracks by Basile, who – having picked up the passed-out Cabal member with the broken cheekbone – suddenly hurled their wounded compatriot their way with a loud, tribal-like roar: “YAHHHHHH!!!”
Before they had a chance to duck or think of what to do to help their fallen, they were knocked over by the sheer kinetic energy of their airborne compatriot, falling to the ground like bowling pins.
Basile grabbed the small of his back quickly, then looked at Kanoa. “Man, I’m getting too old for this shit.” He scoffed, then looked towards The Cabal, his slight vertebrae pains suddenly gone. “Fuck you laying there for, pussies?” he screamed. “Get the fuck up and fight, before we fucking kill you!”
Kanoa looked at him curiously. “What? Basile, you don’t even make any sense,” he muttered.
“And when the fuck did you become Confucius?” Basile growled. “Shut the fuck up and let’s finish them!” He stormed towards the fallen Cabal, determined to beat them into bloody pulps with his bare hands.
Kanoa shook his head, disgusted. “Hey asshole!” he called out to Basile as he scurried behind him. “Confucius was Chinese! I’m Japanese!”
“Thanks for the history lesson, Kim Jong Il!” Basile called back to Kanoa, never taking his eyes off the pile of bodies, as he randomly and alternately stomped and kicked at the fallen Cabal soldiers.
Kanoa let out a yelp of incredulity. “ASSHOLE!” he screamed, even louder. “KIM JONG IL WAS KOREAN!”
“I’M AWARE, GENGHIS KHAN!” Kick, stomp, kick, stomp.
Kanoa slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “He was Mongolian!”
Basile laughed, wickedly, then stopped and turned to face Kanoa. “No, he wasn’t,” he said, once again setting himself up for the zinger. “Jesus Christ was Palestinian.” He began roaring with laughter.
One of the Cabal members began to stir, then stood up, wobbling. Kanoa shook his head and growled in frustration, then head-butted him and knocked him back to the ground, before turning to Basile and shaking his head slowly. “I fucking hate you, Basile Perrinault,” he said. “You know that? You’re an asshole of the highest order, and I fucking hate you.”
Another Cabal member stood up, then charged towards the duo. Basile rolled his eyes, then cold-cocked him in the nose, splattering blood and mucus everywhere, and knocking him unconscious. He laughed again, then turned to Kanoa and blew him a mocking kiss. “Thanks, Kanoa,” he said. “I love you too, asshole.”
Chapter Seven
Evanora
“So, that’s it then,” Tommy finished, spinning me around one last time before placing me, gently, on the floor.
I’d heard what he said, and I’d understood it.
But I couldn’t believe it.
Was this really what they’d done to people like him? I thought to myself. Sure, I’d heard about these sorts of things, but how could it be done to someone? Emperor claims to be benevolent, kind…
That’s when I felt Tommy’s scar again, despite his flinching protest to the contrary. After a moment, though, he steadied his breathing and closed his eyes.
And even I had to admit that, while my step-father was many things, benevolent and kind weren’t two of them. And I had no better evidence of this than the scar beneath my fingertips.
“Tommy,” I asked, sincerely, “do you still feel the way you do? Even after the therapy?”
“Therapy,” he scoffed, spitting the word out. “That’s what they call it to make it sound like they were doing me a favor.”
I lowered my eyes. I couldn’t even fathom what he could be possibly feeling, and my heart sank as I replayed the scenes in my mind.
How they deconstructed him, as a person. How they forced him, and others like him, to hate themselves – to turn on each other like starving wolves – to treat their feelings as invalid and sinful, and things to be repressed, to be psied away, and if all else failed, to be carved and scarred into the side of their heads like a scarlet letter.
Another song began – “The Waltz of the Flowers” by, of course, Tchaikovsky, though I couldn’t help but think to myself that they trotted out every goddamn stereotypical classical song, and oh, wouldn’t Faust’s cock-throbbing music have made this party so much more fucking awesome, but how my dearly-beloved step-father would rather suck his own dick that he can’t find than to play even one note of anything but bland, passionless classical music – and he took my hand again. “Let’s continue to dance,” he said, “because they’ll kill us both if they figure out what we’re talking about here.”
The contradanza began again, and I stepped in time from memory – one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three – as we continued to talk about his “therapy.”
I struggled, at one point, to fight back the tears when he told me about his beloved – his Spike.
Spike, he said, was an artist of all kinds – a penciler, a watercolorist, even a writer by turns of trade. Spike, he said, had flaxen hair, pallid skin, and red eyes – he suspected, though could never confirm, that he was an albino of sorts, which only made him that much more fascinating to a young, impressionable Tommy Sherman.
“When you met him,” I asked, whirling and twirling, “did you know that you were…you know…”
“Gay, Evanora?” Tommy whispered. “It’s not a bad word, dear, though we’re certainly far from in polite company. And yes, I was quite aware, but I don’t recall using that precise word at the time. I just knew I loved Spike, you know?”
I nodded my head. Scottish, I thought, that’s the accent. Must be a by-product of the therapy.
The first time they made love was magical, he said, and though it hurt a little at first, the pain immediately turned into pleasure.
I felt a twinge of jealousy at that, because I was – perhaps unsurprisingly – still a virgin.
And thanks to their minds clouded by their bliss – or, perhaps, clouded despite the bullshit going on around them – Tommy and Spike thought they could live an artist’s expatriate life on the fringes of New York, the Percy and Mary of the Bowery, Anais Nin and Henry Miller on the 4, 5, and 6.
But then, one night, after an intensely passionate night that ended with tears from both of them – followed by proclamations of eternal love – Tommy’s father, a high-ranking Cabal officer (though, according to Tommy, “he got there by default and political favor, the worthless bastard” – because apparently, sucking dick was alright if it was done in the pretext of advancing your military career, but not so much if you’re doing it with, and for, someone you love)
caught them lying next to each other, post-coitus, naked and happy, and ordered him and Spike into what was called the “Emperor’s Means and Ways,” in which this so-called “therapy” was part and parcel, and designed to somehow make him feel for women in the same way he felt for men.
Their logic behind this “therapy” was faulty, at best.
“The first night,” he said, stepping in time with me before spinning me around, “they whipped him so terribly and they forced me to watch. The blood that came from his welts was almost purple, and I just remember it looked so shocking against his pale white skin. And I remember – Evanora, may I call you Evie?” – to which I nodded a quick affirmative – “Evie, I remember how hard I cried, seeing him tortured so, but I never – not once – saw him cry. Each time I heard that whip crack down, I cried out in pain, but Spike – my dear, beautiful man – he kept smiling at me, and he kept repeating to me, ‘Tommy, my love, it’s okay – think of me and smile.’ Oh, that beautiful man – how could I possibly think of him and smile again in all that pain?”
I pursed my lips, looked over and saw my mother smiling beatifically at us. She couldn’t hear a word we were saying. I smiled, nodded my head at her, made an exaggerated OMG HE IS SO HAWT face before turning back to Tommy, who knew enough to whirl me around, so the back of my head was facing my mother and we could continue our conversation.
“And then one night, they dragged us into the same room and cuffed me to the wall – and you know, Evie, I never saw these chains before on the wall, God knows how I missed them – and forced me to watch them sodomize him. Over, and over, and over again. And all I could do was cry, Evie. I couldn’t see them hurting him so badly – and still, he never cried, Evie. He would call out in pain a few times – he wasn’t an animal – but every time he would look at me, he would smile and say, ‘Tommy, my love, it’s okay – think of me and smile.’”
I shuddered. “And did you?”
“Of course,” he said, almost wistfully. “To this day, when I think of him, and all the love we had together, I smile. He was part of some of the best times of my life, and I will always – always – love him for that alone.”
But the pain was too much for even Spike to bear, and one night, while he was covered in piss and shit – his own, and that of the Cabal members whose job, apparently, was to subject him to every degradation possible – he kissed Tommy, still chained to the wall, one last time before impaling his neck on a spear that he’d fashioned from one of the toilet plungers these bastions of evil had sodomized him with not long before.
His last words, of course, were “Tommy, my love, it’s okay – think of me and smile.”
Rose looked across the room, her eyes following Evanora’s dance steps in tune with the music. She forced her lips into a thin, wan smile.
“My Evanora Joy,” she said out loud to no one particularly. “I saved you, baby. You’re alright, now.”
The voice that reverberated back in her ears almost buckled her knees out from under her. “At what cost?”
Chapter EIGHT
Jamie
Have you ever touched someone and instantly felt unclean – like you needed to take a long, hot shower and scrub yourself with lye and bleach after the fact?
That’s exactly how I felt after I grabbed Mathieu Sherman by the nape of his neck. I could feel the pestilence emanating from the pores of his skin.
Admittedly, I was a little biased in the matter – Mathieu took away everything I held dear, so his mere name was, in my mind’s eye, evil.
But all that evil, negative energy I felt didn’t stop me from tossing him up against a flickering streetlamp. Mathieu let out a loud grunt as his back snapped into the lamp and his head let out a sickening, audible dinging sound, and almost on instinct, I checked to see if there was any synovial or spinal fluid leaking from any orifices. When I confirmed that, in fact, he was in possession of all his faculties (I was disappointed, trust me), I ding-ding-ding-ed him again for good measure.
And as the poor, sorry bastard winced in obvious pain, I advanced on him with what had to be a murderous look on my face (I could tell that it was bad, because Basile quickly advanced on me in response).
I held Mathieu up by the nape of his neck, then jarred Mathieu’s face towards mine with my other hand.
“Give me one good reason not to rip your fucking head off your neck, Sherman!” I bellowed as bits of spittle flew into Mathieu’s face.
Mathieu’s eyes widened in terror as he shuddered uncontrollably. Still, he tried to put on an air of invincibility. “You know Emperor will never let you get away with this,” he said, his voice cracking. “You can’t keep killing members of The Cabal and expect that Emperor won’t find you! I’m a high-ranking officer! I’m a Major General! I’m the first one they’re going to come looking for!”
I could feel my rage mounting.
“BULLSHIT!” I roared, tossing Mathieu again and again into the streetlamp. Ding, ding, ding. “Wrong answer, Sherman! You wanna try it again?”
“Take it easy, Jaime,” Basile said calmly, traces of his Louisiana Bayou accent bubbling to the surface. “You don’t want to kill this one. Not yet, anyway.”
“THE HELL I DON’T!” I roared as he tossed Mathieu into the streetlamp again. “Where the fuck is Kanoa?”
“I’m right here!” Kanoa called from down the road, pacing before the pile of groaning and injured bodies. “I’m making sure none of these guys come for your ass!”
“By yourself?!” Jaime called back. “Basile, what the fuck are you doing, man? Go help Kanoa!”
“You can’t take this Sherman character all by yourself!” Basile roared. “Besides, you need this jackass! As a high-ranking officer, he has information we need, you crazy motherfucker!”
“Yes! Yes!” Mathieu cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’ll tell you whatever you want! I promise! I swear! Just don’t kill me, please!”
“Is this fool crying?” Kanoa called out. “For the love of fuck, please don’t tell me that this fool is crying.”
Basile shook his head. “Oh, he’s crying alright. I can’t deal with this shit. They do not make high-ranking officers like us anymore.” He looked at Mathieu with disgust, then got all the way in his face. “THE FUCK YOU CRYING FOR?” he roared loudly in Mathieu’s ear. “YOU PIECE OF SHIT! All the people you fucking killed, and all those people you fucking psied until all that was left of them was a fucking shell – how about you cry for them, you fucker? Fuck you crying for yourself for? Your death, unlike the so-called life you condemned these people to, is a thing of mercy!”
And as Basile finished his speech, I couldn’t help but turn my thoughts to my beloved Angelique – she, of course, being one of the ones that Sherman had killed to try to prove himself worthy of the Cabal badge.
How proud must you be of yourself, I thought, to gun down a pregnant woman in cold blood – to watch her bleed out as she grasped her stomach and pleaded for the life of the unborn son she was carrying. Her baby – my baby – our baby…
“I did what I had to do,” Mathieu said, between hiccups and tears, “I did what I had to do!”
I didn’t say anything.
I could hear her on the wind.
Jamie.
I breathed in deeply, smelling the scent of lilacs, then pulled Mathieu up close to my face as he let out a pathetic yelp. “You still didn’t answer the question, Sherman,” I said, lowly and with an evil undercurrent.
“What, sir?” Mathieu asked, still crying. “What was the question, sir, Major General, sir?”
“The question, Ensign, is that of one,” I growled, then shouted, “WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I LET YOU LIVE?”
Jaime…
Her voice, again. The revenant, again. Angelique, again.
I tried to remember what she taught me while she was alive.
No matter how bad things got for her – no matter how badly she’d been hurt, let down, betrayed, and double-crossed – Angelique found
the good in everything, and in everyone. And she most especially, always, saw the good in me – she was the only one who could talk me down from any ledge I was climbing, and she was the only one who could calm me down whenever I was enraged, like I was now.
Jaime, she said again as a whisper on the wind. Jaime…no…
And the louder her voice became, the harder I banged Mathieu’s body against the street lamp – ding, ding, ding – anything to drown out the voice that persisted in getting louder and louder…the voice that only I could apparently hear…
Chapter Nine
Emperor
None of the populace realized that the system of government that served them so well was being compromised (they were lost too deep inside the manufactured drama, it seemed, of The Bachelor and Love & Hip-Hop) until it was too late.
“Too late,” of course, came in the form of the rise of the Imperial Court, ruled with an iron fist by a man -- me – and all I would be known as, now and forever, was Emperor.
I could not, would not, tolerate the weakness that had become prevalent in the once-great United States.
The race mixing. The homosexuals. The pagans.
The godless lot needed a new God to believe in, and I knew – nay, believed, myself – that it would be me, and only me, to be their new God.
Listening to rock’n’roll had only succeeded in creating a vagrancy – children, wounded animals, who believed that they could somehow manifest their dreams. Dressing the way they wanted led to wanton sluttery – men and women who slept with whomever, whenever, without regard for the disgusting diseases or the children they’d left in their wake.
More’s the pity for me that I took on a Puerto-Rican-from-the-Bronx and her bastard daughter, one of the products of that “New York City rock’n’roll scene.”
The Gathering: Book One of The Uprising Series Page 7