by Stephen King
He scrambled back from her, blood bubbling from his mouth and snorting out of his nose in fine droplets. His eyes were wide and disbelieving; the idea that a woman had administered this beating hadn't sunk in, perhaps couldn't sink in. He staggered up, glanced in the direction of the approaching voices--they were very close now--and then fled along the board fence, back toward the amusement park. Gert didn't think he would get far before attracting the interest of Park Security; he looked like an extra from a Friday the 13th movie.
"Gert ..."
Cynthia was crying and attempting to crawl to where Gert lay on her side, watching Norman disappear from view. Gert turned her attention to the girl and saw she'd taken a much worse beating than Gert had thought at first. A bruise like a thundercloud was puffing up over her right eye, and her nose would probably never be the same.
Gert struggled to her knees and crawled toward Cynthia. They met and held each other that way, arms locked around necks to keep them from tumbling over. Speaking with enormous effort through her puffy lips, Cynthia said: "I would have thrown him myself ... like you taught us ... only he took me by surprise."
"That's all right," Gert said, and kissed her gently on the temple. "How bad are you hurt?"
"Don't know ... not coughing up blood ... step in the right direction." She was trying to smile. It was clearly painful, but she was trying, anyway. "Pissed on him."
"Yes. I did."
"Bitchin-good," Cynthia whispered, and then began to cry again. Gert took her in her arms, and that was how the first group of women, closely followed by a pair of Pier Security guards, found them: on their knees between the back of the bathroom and the abandoned, overturned wheelchair, each with her head against the shoulder of the other, clinging together like shipwrecked sailors.
16
Rosie's first blurred impression of the East Side Receiving Hospital Emergency Room was that everyone from Daughters and Sisters was there. As she crossed the room toward Gert (barely registering the men clustered around her), she saw at least three were missing: Anna, who might still be at the memorial service for her ex-husband; Pam, who was working; and Cynthia. It was this last which most sparked her dread.
"Gert!" she cried, pushing through the men with barely a glance at them. "Gert, where's Cynthia? Is she--"
"Upstairs." Gert tried to give Rosie a reassuring smile, but it wasn't much of a success. Her eyes were swollen and red with tears. "They admitted her and she's probably going to be here awhile, but she'll be okay, Rosie. He beat her up pretty bad, but she'll be okay. Do you know you're wearing a motorcycle helmet? It's sort of ... cute."
Bill's hands were on the buckle under her chin again, but Rosie was hardly even aware of the helmet's being removed. She was looking at Gert ... Consuelo ... Robin. Looking for eyes that said she was infected, that she had brought a plague into their previously clean house. Looking for the hate.
"I'm sorry," she said hoarsely. "I'm so sorry for everything."
"Why?" Robin asked, sounding honestly surprised. "You didn't beat Cynthia up."
Rosie looked at her uncertainly, then back to Gert. Gert's eyes had shifted, and when Rosie followed them, she felt a surge of dread. For the first time she consciously registered the fact that there were cops here as well as women from D & S. Two in plainclothes, three in uniform. Cops.
She reached out with a hand that felt numb and grasped Bill's fingers.
"You have to talk to this woman," Gert was telling one of the cops. "Her husband was the one who did this. Rosie, this is Lieutenant Hale."
They were all turning to look at her now, to look at the cop's wife who'd had the deadly impudence to steal her husband's bank card and then try to flee from his life.
Normans' brothers, looking at her.
"Ma'am?" the plainclothes cop named Hale said, and for a moment he sounded so much like Harley Bissington she thought she might scream.
"Steady, Rosie," Bill murmured. "I'm here and I'm staying here."
"Ma'am, what can you tell us about this?" At least he didn't sound like Harley anymore. That had only been a trick of her mind.
Rosie looked out the window toward a freeway entrance ramp. She looked east--the direction from which night would come rising out of the lake not so many hours from now. She bit her lip, then looked back at the cop. She placed her other hand over Bill's and spoke in a husky voice she hardly recognized as her own.
"His name is Norman Daniels," she told Lieutenant Hale. You sound like the woman in the painting, she thought. You sound like Rose Madder.
"He's my husband, he's a police detective, and he's crazy."
VIII
VIVA ZE BOOL
1
He had felt as if he were floating above his own head, somehow, but when Dirty Gertie pissed on him, all that changed. Now, instead of feeling like a helium-filled balloon, his head felt like a flat rock which some strong hand had sent skipping across the surface of a lake. He was no longer floating; now he seemed to be leaping.
He still couldn't believe what the fat black bitch had done to him. He knew it, yes, but knowing and believing were sometimes worlds apart, and this was one of those times. It was as if a dark transmutation had occurred, changing him into some new creature, a thing that went skittering helplessly along the surface of perception, allowing him only brief periods of thought and strange, disconnected snatches of experience.
He remembered staggering to his feet that last time behind the shithouse, face bleeding from half a dozen cuts and scrapes, his nose stuffed halfway shut, aching all over from repeated confrontations with his own wheelchair, his ribs and guts throbbing from having about three hundred pounds of Dirty Gertie perched on top of him ... but he could have lived with any of that--that and more. It was the wetness from her and the smell of her, not just urine but a woman's urine, that made his mind feel as if it were buckling each time it turned back that way. Thinking of what she had done made him want to scream, and it made the world--which he badly needed to stay in touch with, if he didn't want to end up behind bars, probably laced into a straitjacket and stuffed full of Thorazine--begin to fuzz out.
As he staggered along the fence he thought, Get her, get her, you have to turn around and get her, get her and kill her for what she did, it's the only way you'll ever be able to sleep again, it's the only way you'll ever be able to think again.
Some part of him knew better, though, and instead of getting her, he ran.
Probably Dirty Gertie thought it was the sound of approaching people that drove him off, but it wasn't. He ran because his ribs hurt so badly that he could only draw half-breaths, at least for the time being, and his stomach ached, and his testicles were throbbing with that deep, desperate pain only men know about.
Nor was the pain the only reason he ran--it was what the pain meant. He was afraid that if he took after her again, Dirty Gertie might do better than just fight him to a draw. So he fled, lurching along beside the board fence as fast as he could, and Dirty Gertie's voice chased him like a mocking
ghost: She left you a little message ... her kidneys by way of my kidneys ... a little message, Normie ... here it comes ...
Then one of those skips happened, a short one, the stone of his mind striking the flat surface of reality and flying up and off it again, and when he came back into himself, some little length of time--maybe as short as fifteen seconds, maybe as long as forty-five--had passed. He was running down the midway toward the amusements area, running as thoughtlessly as a cow in a stampede, actually running away from the park exits instead of toward them, running toward the Pier, running toward the lake, where it would be child's play to first bottle him up and then bring him down.
Meanwhile, his mind shrieked in the voice of his father, the world-class crotchgrabber (and, on at least one memorable hunting trip, world-class cockgobbler, as well). It was a woman! Ray Daniels was screaming. How could you let your clock get cleaned by some cunt, Normie?
He shoved that voice out of his mind. Th
e old man had shouted enough at him while he was alive; Norman was damned if he was going to listen to that same old bullshit now that the old man was dead. He could take care of Gertie, he could take care of Rose, he could take care of all of them, but he had to get away from here in order to do it ... and before every Security cop in the place was looking for the bald guy with the bloody face. Already far too many people were gawking, and why not? He stank of piss and looked as if he'd been clawed by a catamount.
He turned into an alley running between the video arcade and the South Seas Adventure ride, no plan in mind, wanting only to get away from the geeks on the midway, and that was when he won the lottery.
The side door of the arcade opened and someone Norman assumed was a kid came out. It was impossible to tell for sure. He was short like a kid and dressed like a kid--jeans, Reeboks, Michael McDermott tee-shirt (I LOVE A GIRL CALLED RAIN, it said, whatever the fuck that meant)--but his entire head was covered by a rubber mask. It was Ferdinand the Bull. Ferdinand had a big, sappy smile on his face. His horns were decorated with garlands of flowers. Norman never hesitated, simply reached out and snatched the mask off the kid's head. He got a pretty good handful of hair, too, but what the fuck.
"Hey!" the kid screamed. With the mask off, he looked about eleven years old. Still, he sounded more outraged than fearful. "Gimme that back, that's mine, I won it! What do you think you're--"
Norman reached out again, took the kid's face in his hand, and shoved him backward, hard. The side of the South Seas Adventure ride was canvas, and the kid went billowing through it with his expensive sneakers flying up in the air.
"Tell anybody, I'll come back and kill you, " Norman said into the still-billowing canvas. Then he walked rapidly toward the midway, pulling the bullmask down over his head. It stank of rubber and its previous owner's sweaty hair, but neither smell bothered Norman. The thought that the mask would soon also stink of Gertie's piss did.
Then his mind took another of those skips, and he disappeared into the ozone for awhile. When he came back this time, he was trotting into the parking lot at the end of Press Street with one hand pushing against his ribcage on the right side, where every breath was now agony. The inside of the mask smelled exactly as he had feared it would and he pulled it off, gasping gratefully at cool air which didn't stink of piss and pussy. He looked down at the mask and shivered--something about that vapid, smiling face creeped him out. A bull with a ring through his nose and garlands of posies on his horns. A bull wearing the smile of a creature that has been robbed of something and is too stupid to even know what it is. His first impulse was to throw the goddam thing away, but he restrained himself. There was the parking-lot attendant to think about, and while he would undoubtedly remember a man driving off in a Ferdinand the Bull mask, he might not immediately associate that man with the man the police were shortly going to be asking about. If it bought him a little more time, the mask was worth holding onto.
He got behind the wheel of the Tempo, tossed the mask onto the seat, then bent and crossed the ignition wires. When he bent over that way, the smell of piss coming off his shirt was so tart and clear that it made his eyes water. Rosie says you're a kidney man, he heard Dirty Gertie, the jiggedy-jig from hell, say inside his head. He was terribly afraid she'd always be inside his head now--it was as if she had somehow raped him, and left him with the fertilized seed of some malformed and freakish child.
You're one of those shy guys who don't like to leave marks.
No, he thought. No, stop it, don't think about it.
She left you a little message from her kidneys, by way of my kidneys ... and then it had flooded his face, stinking and as hot as a childhood fever.
"No!" This time he screamed it aloud, and brought his fist down on the padded dashboard. "No, she can't! She can't! SHE CAN'T DO THAT TO ME!" He pistoned his fist forward, slamming it into the rear-view mirror and knocking it off its post. It struck the windshield and rebounded onto the floor. He lashed out at the windshield itself, hurting his hand, his Police Academy ring leaving a nest of cracks that looked like an oversized asterisk. He was getting ready to start hammering on the steering wheel when he finally got hold of himself. He looked up and saw the parking-lot ticket tucked under the sun-visor. He focused on that, working to get himself under control.
When he felt he had some, Norman reached into his pocket, took out his cash, and slipped a five from the moneyclip. Then, steeling himself against the smell (except there was really no way you could defend yourself against it), he pulled the Ferdinand mask back down over his head and drove slowly over to the booth. He leaned out of the window and stared at the parking attendant through the eyeholes. He saw the attendant grab for the side of the booth's door with an unsteady hand as he bent forward to take the offered bill, and Norman realized an utterly splendid thing: the guy was drunk.
"Viva ze bool, " the parking-lot attendant said, and laughed.
"Right, " the bull leaning out of the Ford Tempo said. "El toro grande. "
"That'll be two-fifty--"
"Keep the change, " Norman said, and pulled out.
He drove half a block and then pulled over, realizing that if he didn't get the goddam mask off his head right away he was going to make things exponentially worse by puking into it. He scrabbled at it, pulling with the panicky fingers of a man who realizes he has a leech stuck on his face, and then everything was gone for a little while, it was another of those skips, with his mind lifting off from the surface of reality like a guided missile.
When he came back to himself this time he was sitting barechested behind the steering wheel at a red light. On the far corner of the street, a bank clock flashed the time: 2:07 p.m. He looked around and saw his shirt lying on the floor, along with the rear-view mirror and the stolen mask. Dirty Ferdie, looking deflated and oddly out of perspective, stared up at him from blank eyes through which Norman could see the passenger-side floormat. The bull's happy, sappy smile had wrinkled into a somehow knowing grin. But that was all right. At least the goddam thing was off his head. He turned on the radio, not easy with the knob busted off, but perfectly possible, oh yes. It was still tuned to the oldies station, and here were Tommy James and the Shondells singing "Hanky Panky. " Norman immediately began to sing along.
In the next lane, a man who looked like an accountant was sitting behind the wheel of a Camry, looking at Norman with cautious curiosity. At first Norman couldn't understand what the man was so interested in, and then he remembered
that there was blood on his face-most of it crusting now, by the feel. And his shirt was off, of course. He'd have to do something about that, and soon. Meanwhile ...
He leaned over, picked up the mask, slipped one hand into it, and gripped the rubber lips with the tips of his fingers. Then he held it up in the window, moving the mouth with the song, making Ferdinand sing along with Tommy James and the Shondells. He rolled his wrist back and forth, so Ferdinand also appeared to be sort of bopping to the beat. The man who looked like an accountant faced forward again quickly. Sat still for a moment. Then leaned over and banged down the doorlock on the passenger side.
Norman grinned.
He tossed the mask back on the floor, wiping the hand that had been inside it on his bare chest. He knew how weird he must look, how nuts, but he was damned if he was going to put that pissy shirt back on again. The motorcycle jacket was lying on the seat beside him, and at least that was dry on the inside. Norman put it on and zipped it up to the chin. The light turned green as he was doing it, and the Camry beside him exploded through the intersection like something fired from a gun. Norman also rolled, but more leisurely, singing along with the radio: "I saw her walkin on down the line ... You know I saw her for the very first time ... A pretty little girl, standin all alone ... Hey, pretty baby, can I take you home?" It made him think of high school. Life had been good back then. No sweet little Rose around to fuck everything up, cause all this trouble. Not until his senior year, at least.
&
nbsp; Where are you, Rose? he thought. Why weren't you at the bitch-picnic? Where the fuck are you?
"She's at her own picnic, " ze bool whispered, and there was something both alien and knowing in that voice--as if it spoke not in speculation but with the simple inarguable knowledge of an oracle.
Norman pulled over to the curb, unmindful of the NO PARKING LOADING ZONE sign, and snatched the mask up off the floor again. Slid it over his hand again. Only this time he turned it toward himself. He could see his fingers in the empty eyesockets, but the eyesockets seemed to be looking at him, anyway.
"What do you mean, her own picnic?" he asked hoarsely.
His fingers moved, moving the bull's mouth. He couldn't feel them, but he could see them. He supposed the voice he heard was his own voice, but it didn't sound like his voice, and it didn't seem to be coming from his throat; it seemed to be coming out from between those grinning rubber lips.
"She likes the way he kisses her, "Ferdinand said.
"Wouldn't you know it? She likes the way he uses his hands, too. She wants him to do the hanky panky with her before they have to come back. " The bull seemed to sigh, and its rubber head rocked from side to side on Norman's wrist in a strangely cosmopolitan gesture of resignation. "But that's what all the women like, isn't it? The hanky panky. The dirty boogie. All night long. "