by Jason Carney
What kind of sick fuck does that stupid shit?
Not paying attention to what I’m doing, I trip over the legs of the bargain bin in front of the counter. The large metal basket containing a few hundred movies shifts across the floor. A large ruckus ensues as videos fall from the overflowing bin. The clerk looks up at me and snarls. He starts to get up in a huff.
“I got it,” I say, anxious and embarrassed.
Can you believe this bullshit?
My insides are knotted and confused, but I start to pick them back up, glancing at the covers. I take my time to make it seem that I was headed to the bin all along. Most of the films are compilations of fetish movies. Ugly women beat and fuck uglier men with dildos.
People are fucked up, I think, glancing at the curtain.
I can smell the black cloth and it reminds me of my father’s apartment. There is an urgency now to unleash my fangs behind its cloak. A different form of saliva trickles in my mouth. Speed courses over my muscles like a twitch. My mind is hysterical. I look at another box, trying to keep it all together. This one is a video of lactating women who fuck on film to pay for their new babies. The edges of my sight blur with more disgust.
What kind of sick fuck makes a pregnant woman do that shit?
More giant cocks on big-breasted women, I skip that one. Super-hairy beavers and women with enormous nipples that are four inches erect. I try to laugh. The sound is manufactured and forced.
This is so fucked up.
Things are not going well. I was not expecting these distractions.
I have no idea how I am going to do this without causing a scene. How I am going to explain my failure to my friends? What is going on with me?
For a moment, I try to figure my way out and not a path further in. I look at the clerk, puzzled.
He knows why I am here. He is going to call the cops. I have to be quick.
I consider asking him for a way out of this situation. Then I decide to ask if there are fags back there or not.
He probably gets sick of working around the cocksuckers all day. The thoughts running through my head are not very sound. If he were going to bust me, he would have done it already.
I decide to return to the car, figure that my clumsiness made a bust of the situation. Halfway to the door, I stop, turning back to face the arcade entrance.
“Hey,” the clerk calls me over to the counter. “I am Wendell. Man, you ain’t got to be so nervous if you want to go back there, man. Go on back.” He pauses. “You can smoke in the booths, just make sure to put money in. No standing in booths that aren’t running.”
“Cool,” I say, “anything else I should know?”
“There is a guy back there named Al. He’s in a green shirt.”
“The security guard?”
“No, man, he is just a customer, looking to make friends,” he says. “He will show you where to go. Chill. You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you.”
WHAT KIND OF FOOL PETS A VULTURE?
1987
I STAND WITH THE CURTAIN IN HAND. A delicate beam of light penetrates the greasy air. The cavernous room is pitch black. My eyes adjust. I make out the outlines of shadows; slowly, they become figures ambling down the hallways leading off the main space. Astonished, I see more than twenty men roaming through the blackness. Some notice the light and scurry into the shadows with one another. A few straggle. Those individuals stand by themselves minding their own business.
This large space is a maze of plywood, painted black and divided into booths. Each booth has a door and a number. The one closest to the curtain is number thirty-six. Groans and gravel-mouthed breaths intertwine with loud obnoxious porn soundtracks; every booth gives off its own collage of noise. The sheer lustful nature of the sounds is suffocating. My breath escalates and I feel the surge of my heart as I stand there.
It is darker than hell.
I do not like the dark, never have. The idea of the lights going off, as the degenerates slither toward me with forked tongues, brings a burning sweat to my palms.
I can do this. Don’t flip out.
Completely overwhelmed, I look for a direction. There are two. I can travel right, down a short hall that seems to turn left; or straight ahead, down a longer one trailing off into more darkness. Options noted, I inhale deeply, focus my vision on the darkest part of the room, and assure myself bad things are not happening to me. I release the curtain.
I hear a man laugh. Four guys stand off to my left, under the lone black light that marks the exit. The man in the green shirt is one of them. He laughs again. He sees me and nudges a tall, bizarre, wiry man. His white T-shirt and bleached-blond curly hair glow in the heat of the black light. The strange luminescence, highlighted by his heavy tan and light-blue eyes, makes him appear inhuman; his arms seem longer than his legs. He looks like an albino ostrich from outer space. They both watch me with smiles. Their lips, emitting sinister whispers, glow in the dark like bird feathers against the sun. The oils glisten across the hollow fibers in shimmers of pink-yellow-blue. They cackle hungrily. I cannot hear what they are saying, but it is about me.
Fucking faggot pedophiles.
My skin crawls as they scour me with their eyes. The fact that they congregate in groups leads me away from them.
Maybe in the parking lot with Blue Eyes and the other three guys in the car, but alone, I just need one.
I walk slowly down the corridor to my right. The back of my head tingles. I know they are still watching me.
Gross-ass fucking faggots. I bet those assholes have a circle jerk.
The first few booths I pass are empty.
I glance into the open doors. Each one identical: a television monitor, multiple movie channels to choose from, a folding metal chair, a small chain attaching the chair to the wall; a chrome generic paper towel dispenser, hung on the wall at eye level; and an ashtray, exactly like the one at the front door. Most of the tight spaces smell like piss and mildew. Butts litter the floors, some glued to drops of gooeyness.
It is just too fucking weird.
A booth tucked into the corner on the right catches my attention. It is three-quarters open with a man standing on the folding chair. I stop. He looks through a peephole to the adjoining unit. His pants are down. He is going to town. Stunned by the fact that he fondles himself as he watches, I clench my jaw, mesmerized.
There is something about his hands.
To me, his long and sharpened digits resemble talons. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees me spying on him. I do not move. He turns his bearded face to me, unblinking, owl-eyed terror in his gaze. He looks possessed. Without letting go of his penis, he lifts his right leg off the chair. Perfectly balanced, he kicks the plywood door. The black wood slams shut. I move on.
Three doors down the hall, the darkness actually takes shape. The air is colder. I become disoriented, my sense of direction skews, and I do not feel safe. The darkness above me is suddenly loud and alive—as if a million pellet guns are firing at the same target.
It must be pouring outside.
All of the doors on this side are closed. No one lurks. But then I hear something behind me and I turn around. Down at the end of the corridor, the man in the glowing white shirt leans against the booths to the left, smiling.
Getting pretty creepy.
I will choose him.
I stand at a left turn. Suddenly, I understand the maze. The arcade is set up in a big square, four hallways that connect. Lining both sides of every corridor are the pay-per-view booths. There are three doors on the right side and two on the left in this section of the square. The middle booth on the right has a man peeking at knee level into a hole in the door. He taps on the surface, as if he has a secret knock. I stop.
The door opens. The light from the monitor illuminates the hallway. I see a hairy man sitting in the chair, shirtless. Sweat and clumps of coarse hair cover his torso. Pants down, his large erection in plain view. The squatting man scoots into the room. B
efore the door closes, I see his mouth open around the head, cock already in his hands.
I am going to throw up. This place is like being on another planet. I have to get out of here.
“Looks good, don’t it?” The man in white stands a couple of feet behind me. “What’s your name?” He moves toward me.
I move forward without speaking.
Get the fuck away from me, you freak. My stomach flips with what I just witnessed. I turn left again.
This hall leads to the spot where I came in thirty feet away, brighter than the rest. I can see clearly the other three men standing at the black light. The curtain sways as some men exit. Between us are three other men standing in the hallway. I feel like everyone is eyeing me. I stop and peer over my shoulder. The man in white stands smiling, his teeth seem to float in the dark. I feel trapped.
I have to get away from this dude.
I pick an empty booth halfway up, across from one of the three men; I enter and lock the door.
The longest walk of my life.
Out of breath, facing the door, my mind frazzles, unable to comprehend what went wrong.
Blue Eyes was right, I am fucking popular.
They stalk me like vultures, circling for the kill. I am a dying carcass for their delight. There is a tap on the door. The slide lock screwed into the plywood rattles with each sound. I imagine a beak’s soft pecks, looking for entrails. I imagine a line forming out in the hall. They pass the secret knock to one another so they all will get a turn.
I cannot stay here.
The tapping stops.
“PPPSSSTTT!” comes a voice from the other side. Fingers once again snap the door; the vultures’ pursuit escalates.
“Hey, let me in!” I recognize the man in white’s voice.
This shit is getting out of control.
“Go away!” I say loudly.
There is silence. My mind contorts with fear. I try to remember Blue Eyes’s instructions. All I can think of is that he should have given me another bump. I hear another voice from the hall.
“Chill out, Stan, you’re scaring him. Don’t be so pushy.”
“Whatever,” White T-shirt says. “Shouldn’t come back here if he doesn’t know what he wants.”
“Leave the kid alone. You’re going to ruin it.”
“Don’t worry, boy, if you got a small cock. You’re here to suck them,” he laughs.
“Damn, that is cold,” another voice interjects. “I’m out of here.”
“All of them.” There is a slur to his speech. I can tell he has been drinking. He does not seem so menacing now. I know that weak men bow up reckless with violence under the protection of liquor. The rain fires down harder.
There are a few giggles. I hear footsteps heading down the hall. Inside, I laugh nervously at my predicament.
What kind of man are you? They are the ones here to suck dick, you’re stronger than those drunken fuckers.
I am terrified Blue Eyes will come in here and find me hiding in a booth. I will never live it down if they have to come save me. A moment of truth’s spike of courage takes hold of me. I steady myself for the fight outside the door.
I am not backing down from these cocksuckers.
I open the door. Our foreheads connect.
The green and white shirts look surprised. A shorter, more subservient-looking fellow with very little hair and big ears seems uninterested in the whole situation. He gazes in the direction of the black light. I hear two voices at the exit. The clerk and another fellow raise the curtain. A shard of light stabs the darkness. For a moment, I see everyone’s face.
Fucking scavengers.
They don’t scare me anymore. The man in the white T-shirt chuckles.
“Boo!” a voice utters through a twisted snicker. A man slides out of the open door next to my booth. He tries to startle me. We make eye contact. He laughs under his breath; beads of liquid stain his forehead. I see him clearly; he looks more creepy than harmful. There are four men, but only two concern me.
I will not run.
I smile.
“Fuck y’all,” I say under my breath.
I cannot let these faggots have power over me.
I back up into the booth, waiting to see which one will join me. My heart pounds in the bottom of my throat, no turning back. The shadow of the room envelops me. I don’t have to wait long.
The man in the green shirt steps through the doorway. Surprised that it is not the man in white, I feel a little disappointed. Barely enough room for us both, I slide up against the wall. My knees lock. I reach out and close the door. Secure the flimsy bolt. Position my body on the door and the wall. I panic. I stop breathing. My lungs seem full of water, I am scared to move for fear that it will be a sign of acquiescence. He smiles at me. I stare into the sound of the rain above me.
Everything moves at half speed. I feel light-headed, my breathing rate increasing. We stand there, in a mostly dark closet, separated by twenty inches of space. I do not want to look at him. The silence is so consuming, a nauseating gurgle of warm bile pools in the back of my throat. He pulls out some cash and inserts it into the coin-op slot.
The monitor comes to life, the booth is illuminated.
“That’s better,” he says. His focus is on the control panel as he searches for a film to his liking.
The images move so quickly it is hard to tell what is what. A breast, a mouth, some hair, a pair of eyes, a close-up of penetration, a couple talking, more penetration, an orgy, some credits rolling on a black screen, eyebrows, a man’s head buried in a woman’s lap, a car, two girls fucking, a man’s ass, a hand holding a vibrator—his thumb comes off the button. The screen halts.
A man in a police uniform stands outside a jail cell while a young male prisoner, on his knees, sucks him off through the bars. I cannot take my eyes off the vulgar display.
“Yeah, that looks good,” says the man with glasses and the green shirt. He peeps at me, tongue between his crooked teeth and thin lips. “What do you think?”
I do not respond. My eyes twitch from the monitor to his face. I don’t know where to look. Slurps and wheezes radiate out from the speakers at full volume; I close my eyes, the echoes paint a picture that I cannot get out of my head. When I open my eyes, the man in green rubs the outside of his jeans; squeezes down tighter on the tip of his tongue. I stand completely frozen.
“Well then,” he says. The channel changes, I can hear a woman’s voice.
On the screen, a women’s long brown hair bounds over a man’s lap.
What am I waiting for?
Bewildered more than angry, I watch the film and ignore my companion. Something about the girl’s face seems familiar. He changes his stance, feet farther apart. He coughs. An anxious grin covers his face, his hands now inside his unzipped pants.
You have to do this.
He looks down at his crotch, then at me as if to suggest I should get to work. I glance down at mine, then right in his eyes. I whisper, “Show me how?”
He smiles and salivates. I ball up my hand in anticipation. My knees twitch, my whole body shakes—a tired swimmer with hypothermia, flailing, lost in rough waters. The enormity of the situation swells, I do not know if I am in control. My knees still locked, every muscle tense; I cannot move my body. We stand face-to-face. I am in the water torture tank from which Houdini escaped, upside down and out of oxygen. This booth the size of a shoe box.
I can smell his breath as he passes my face on the way down. Stale smoke and coffee, the filmy stench is like a festering sore. Suddenly his breath reminds me of my father and a terrified anger consumes me. He puts his hand on my chest. I think of pancakes and thick slices of ham covered in syrup. His touch takes all the breath out of me. I feel like a little boy. My back seizes with pain, I sense fangs crawling over my skin. I am trapped and cannot move, pressed up against the wall. He slides his hands down my abdomen, the button pops open; my mind snaps to the most vivid burn, I feel like I am on fire.
The only thing keeping me from drowning is the video screen. The warm sensation of his mouth is macabre. I am lost in the girl on the screen. She looks so hot and incredibly beautiful; my mind searches for any plausible connection to what is happening. The girl in the video stands and for the first time I see her ass, perfect and round, the shape of a heart. I am fully erect. She opens her legs and a large cock falls out. I realize she is the woman on the red box. I flinch and look down. My father’s eyes, mouth full, staring up at me.
“NO!” I scream at the top of my lungs, awake to what is happening.
In one furious movement, I grab his hair and pull his face back. I jam my left hand down and hear the cracking sound of his glasses. He crumples backward. Seven or eight more blows land on his face. A few bounce off the black walls. My knuckles splinter. My knee pins his head to the wall, it sounds like a balloon popping. The sensations I feel remind me of the little girl I babysat years ago, her flotation ring destroyed, her blue eyes bulging in unison with the twitches of her legs. In the midst of the frenzy everything is still and serene, my mind processing events it has not thought of in years. This is a baptism. I hover above him, my talons exposed. His eyes are squeezed shut; his arms are up, trying to shield himself. My punches turn to kicks.
“Fuck you, faggot!” I yell, lost in rage. “You want to suck my dick now?”
“Stop! Please!”
“Pedophile. Molester.”
He whimpers. My hands brace the wall in front of me for traction. I kick him without mercy. The booth shakes and vibrates like a diving board recoiling from a diver’s release; the plywood wall cracks. The ruckus of the exploding box fills the arcade.
“Dick-sucking faggot! Pedophile asshole!” I yell as I pick up the chair.
Tan and metal, the same kind of folding chair as in my church dining hall. Both chairs take part in acts of salvation. Blood on his face, he tries to scoot under the monitor, nowhere to go. I jab the base of the chair into his body. He wheezes with the impact. He endures this affliction, each new thrust less potent than the last. My muscles are exhausted at the release of my past. I am near the point of tears, the kind that come from happiness, or a healing moment. A weight lifts from around my body. I feel whole.