Fast forward. 046. Stop.
Graveyard eyes stab, loathe. A cigarette. Tongue tip circling, luring.
A: Why are you so hung up on this?
Q: I'm here to help.
A: People don't help other people.
Fast forward. 057. Stop.
Lips curving softly, sexual predation.
Rewind. 055. Stop.
Smoke lingering in ghoul grin.
A: Yeah, he got off. He got off during, and I guess if you wanna talk legal, he got off after.
Q: He may go to jail. It's not over yet. So, you were a fan.
A: Him mostly. The group. The albums. Him mostly.
Q: He's a hell of a singer.
A: He's got a hell of a cock.
Dirty silence. Dimples kniving cheeks.
Q: That why you gave him what he wanted?
A: He didn't ask me. He asked . . . you know.
Q: What did he say? What did she say?
A: I didn't hear him . . . what he told her. But . . . she told me in the bathroom and we were totally fucked up and I told her she was crazy.
Q: But you went for it. Finally.
A: Obviously.
The floor without carpet. Her eyes circling nothing. Fingers strolling over hair, earrings, layers.
A: I was gone. Fucking gone. It just sort of started.
Q: Were you afraid?
A: I've gotten insane with guys. Whatever. You earn the right to be around them.
Face lost in ravaged glory; confessional.
A: I've been tied up. Gang-whatevered. This one Australian guy, his group was touring with AC-DC, he was a party with a view. Tied me down with guitar wire. My wrists and ankles. Made me suck him and his band off.
Candid shrug.
A: They just left me. I couldn't move. I was just left, to die. I almost got gangrene. The band is very heavy - I'd tell you who it is, but they'd be pissed. They got a new video on MTV.
Lolita yawn.
A: So, what do you think? You like that story? You like imagining me with no clothes on doing nasty stuff?
A thought. A look. The t-shirt lifted to show no bra. Perfect breasts. Scars . . . drunken hieroglyphs covering stomach and chest. One nipple cleaved by healed, bitten skin. Burn marks.
A: I'm kind of in love with all these scars of men I've fucked. It's my scrapbook. Maybe you'd like to leave your picture?
Q: You never minded the pain?
A: I wanted to be with guys.
Q: The good groupies don't mind the pain.
A: The good groupies dig it.
Fast forward. 135. Stop.
Q: So, how did it start?
A: I didn't even know what I was doing. It just . . . what do you mean?
Q: Describe what happened.
A: What did I do?
Q: Yeah.
A: We had sex after they played. Sucked him off. Ate him. Let him watch us. Camcord. Whatever.
Q: Right.
A: Then, he wanted something else. So, he's sitting there doing lines and crystal and whatever the fuck. And he's playing with his dick and. . . so he wanted us to do something different. So, I slapped her on the tits while I was going down on her. Real hard.
Q: How hard?
A: There were welts . . . and the nipples were hard. He loved it.
Q: Did she cry . . . scream?
A: You getting off on this? Your dick getting hard?
Q: No.
A: The things I could do to your body, you couldn't pay enough to find some cunt to do that. You like your dick in a pretty girl's pretty mouth. I'm only fourteen. Did you know that?
Q: Yes.
Microscope eyes.
A: So, what do you want to know?
Q: You tied her down.
A: Yeah. She liked it. So did he.
Q: Then what?
A: I don't know.
Silence. Burial still.
Q: You cut her. What did you use?
A: Razor.
Q: Where?
A barricaded glance.
A: Tits. Face. Stomach.
Q: Were you scared?
A: It was a mess. But I wasn't scared. He loved it.
Q: And you loved him, so that made it okay.
A: I told you, it was her idea. I met her in his room. I didn't know her. I never met her. She was there to get fucked. She got fucked.
Q: Why are you angry?
A: You act like it was my idea. I was just trying to help him get off. I never met her.
Q: No guilt?
A: She was a fucking groupie. We all gotta please somebody.
Q: One last question.
A: Now what?
Q: When you were . . . doing that to her, he actually enjoyed it? It didn't bother him?
A: Guys on the road. They see it all. They lose interest. They need something new. That's what it's about. Keeping them interested. And proving you were there. Getting—something.
Q: A piece of them.
A: Yeah.
Q: Even a scar?
A: It's the ultimate autograph.
Through a connection at the D.A.'s office, who wanted tickets to see Jagger smirk at Madison Square, I got a copy of the murder tape and took it home.
I was done with the article and ready to turn it in. Only thing left was, my editor at Time wanted a sidebar essay on the corrosion of empathy as modem plague, or some equally crippled moralistic overlay. I said I'd take a crack, sculpt the utopian debris. But I didn't want to do it.
I'd had a bad year.
Writing about wars for different magazines. Traveling to where blood, pain, and bodies gathered; chips in death-squad casinos. Interviewing kids who'd gunned down their veins in dying cities with names like where you live.
Watching my own father die in a hospital.
I was drinking too much. Feeling too little.
This murder was so thick with cynicism, its cruel shapes and colors only numbed me more.
I hadn't wanted to write the article to begin with, come anywhere near it. But like she'd said, we all have to please somebody. I was her voyeur. The readers were mine.
We all wanted to feel pain that wasn't ours.
I sat in my apartment, with a pipe of smoldering hash and watched the interview tape, again. Her child's face; the traumatizing calm of it.
Then, I put on the murder tape.
I watched it, stunned.
The other girl was tied to the hotel bed, lost on dunes of crack and Huerredura, writhing as she was sliced apart, and the guy, with a ponytail horsing down his spine, masturbated. The camcorder light described it all, autopsy-bleak.
My skin got cold as I watched it, again.
It was a snuff film, minus the obscure, Latin trappings and scraped reproduction. The camera remained stationary, and every few minutes the girl I'd interviewed turned to seduce the lens, with pouty smiles and lascivious eyes, as she cut the other girl up, again and again, creating hideous scrimshaw.
I ran the tape, again, trying to understand what got the guy off about a bleeding girl, tied to a bed, screaming. I ran it, over and over, trying to comprehend. Trying to find the point.
I must've watched it a hundred times, by now.
Unknown Drives
Ahead, the truck pulled onto the road and cut off Don's Mustang.
"Damn!" said Don.
The truck was going no more than twenty-five miles an hour. Don's wife, Kerry, shook her head in disbelief.
"These local farmers must think they own the road," she said. "The speed limit is fifty-five."
Don looked at the rear of the truck. In faded letters, on the wooden cage that surrounded the bed, was written something.
"Field's Produce," Don read aloud," . . . great, he's probably delivering to the next county."
Kerry smiled.
"Well, there goes the vacation," she said, lightly.
"Let's just see," replied Don, under his breath.
He leaned his body to the left, and gradually pulled the
Mustang out into the opposing lane. As he accelerated, he quickly snapped the steering wheel to the right, and the Mustang swerved sharply back into the right lane.
"What's the matter?" asked Kerry, startled.
Don sighed.
"Road work," he explained, pointing to the left side of the road.
At that moment, the Mustang passed a row of hinged, yellow barricades, all crowned with blinking, orange lights. The barricades completely blocked off the opposing lane.
Ahead, the truck was still going twenty-five. There was no way for Don to get around it and it went no faster. Just a slow, never-changing, aggravating twenty-five.
Don looked at the other lane. It was still blocked. He edged the Mustang slightly to the left and looked down the road as far as he could see, then pulled back into his lane.
"Those barricades look like they go on for a couple of miles," he said, with controlled frustration. "They're repaving the other lane."
Kerry nodded understanding, reached to a styrofoam picnic container on the floor and removed a Coke.
"Sip?"
"No," said Don, his eyes glued to the truck. "Not now. I want to pass this guy. He's beginning to bug the shit out of me."
Don could see the back of the farmer's head. The man seemed completely at ease. His right hand brought a thinly smoking pipe to his mouth.
Don made an impatient face and honked several times, holding the horn down.
"Pull over, you sonofabitch!" he hissed.
The farmer ignored the honking. He puffed easily on his pipe and the smoke furled in the truck cab.
"Smug bastard," said Don, looking at the Mustang's speedometer, incredulously. "1 think he's going slower."
Kerry could see Don getting angrier.
"He's just an old man, Don. I'm sure his slow driving is just habit. I didn't notice him slowing down."
"Like hell he didn't," insisted Don. "I could see it on the speedometer."
Kerry tried to take Don's right hand, and he pulled away from her nervously. He glanced at her, mood brittle.
"He's hogging the road," said Don, "I've got to get around him. This could go on all day."
He quickly looked to his left.
The yellow barricades had ended. The other lane was open, again.
"Finally," said Don.
Without hesitating, he pulled the Mustang out and tried to pass the truck. He was just about ready to floor the engine, when his pulse doubled. Both he and Kerry screamed at what was coming, as they swayed fully into the opposing lane.
A one-lane bridge was a few yards ahead.
As the truck lethargically rolled across the bridge, Don slammed on his brakes, putting all his weight on the pedal, eyes widening.
The Mustang skidded loudly and almost slid over a muddy embankment, into the marsh water beneath the bridge.
There was a last cloud of exhaust as the engine stalled.
All was still for a moment.
"Are you all right?" Don asked Kerry, in a throaty whisper. He leaned over the steering wheel, breathing heavily.
Kerry looked over at him, shock still on her face.
"I wasn't expecting that," she said, mouth dry.
Don reached over, hugged her.
"I'm beginning to hate this route," said Kerry, reaching to the glove compartment and pulling out a box of Kleenex.
"I'm in no rush, Don," she said, wiping his face, then her own. "Can't we just drive slower . . .?”
"No," said Don, tensely. "This is the only route through the county, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some old man make me late."
"Your brother won't mind if we're a few minutes late," she said. "Please, Don."
He ignored her and put the Mustang in reverse. He pulled free from the muddy embankment and shoved the transmission into DRIVE. He floored the pedal and the Mustang bolted back onto the road.
"I'm going to pass him," said Don. "All I need is a clear stretch." He looked over at Kerry, as they sped along the highway. She was sipping Coke.
"Just let me try a couple more times," he said, reassuringly. "I'll quit if it's no good. I promise."
Kerry looked at him, smiled weakly.
"Good," said Don, coming up behind the truck. "Then let's leave this fucker in the dust and get on with it. We'll show him."
The truck was rocking slightly, in front of them. It still didn't waver from twenty-five.
Don watched the truck in fascination, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
In the truck, the farmer was still smoking his pipe. He adjusted his hat as he drove, shrugged his shoulders a bit.
Sensing the time was right to pass, Don pulled the Mustang into the other lane.
It was no good.
A truck was coming from the other direction.
Don pulled back into the lane; waited again.
"Almost," he said to Kerry. "Next one."
He edged every few seconds to the left, so he could see the oncoming traffic.
". . . shit," muttered Don, as several enormous, foundry trucks passed on his left.
"Look!" interrupted Kerry.
The truck was braking, and signaling for a right-hand turn. It began to curve slowly to the right.
"Patience," said Don, with an ironic smile, "that's all it took."
Not missing his chance, he shoved the pedal to the floor, and the Mustang roared around to the side of the truck. It streaked along the opposing lane and Don gripped the wheel firmly. He began to roll down his window.
"Take that Coke, now," he was smiling at Kerry.
But it was too late.
From the right side of the farmer's truck, off a side road, in Don's blind spot, came another enormous foundry truck. He and Kerry ran directly into it, and were thrust bloodily through the Mustang's windshield. Their bodies landed on the road, and pools of deep-red blood formed hideous perimeters around them.
The Mustang suddenly caught fire, and explosions of hot metal ransacked the silence of the countryside. Flaming colors of orange, red, and blue were everywhere.
Several pasture animals looked on, chewing and kicking their hooves. The fire began to go out, and the Mustang sizzled and groaned.
The truck pulled up in front of the farmhouse, and the farmer got out and knocked his pipe against the muddy running board. Chunks of burned tobacco tumbled out, and he walked to the kitchen door.
He entered, and his wife was standing at the stove, stirring a boiling stew. He filled his pipe with new tobacco.
"How was your day?" she asked.
He held a match to his pipe bowl.
"Good day," he said. "I got me one."
Deathbed
Sometimes, when it is very dark and still, and the moon and stars send their light to this valley, it makes me want to cry. The peace is so elegant Yet, I have seen such sadness here.
The blood and treachery that seek this place have always stunned me. Never frightened me but always made me wonder. All I can do is wish such things would never happen. Here or anywhere.
The people who try to help me come, too.
They bring their concern and their medicines. But I know it will do no good. Each life has its own time and I have had a great deal more than most.
I cannot always feel the pain but I always know. Such a helpless feeling. To empty, bit by bit, hour by hour. It makes me sad sometimes.
My legs hurt most of all. I wish the people who try to help me could at least take away the pain.
But I know they cannot. I have accepted that. Still, I almost never sleep. I am very tired.
Strange.
To be so old and to feel death so close, yet to know thieves and opportunists want things from me. I suppose I will never understand.
Each wants something different. Each sees what they want to see. And it all comes and vanishes so quickly.
I have no answers to these things, only questions. Perhaps that is the point.
They will be here soon.
If only I could s
ee as I once did, I would know for sure.
Then again, it does not make such a difference to lose one's senses. All these years things have stayed very much the same.
The lovers come, hand in hand, to visit with me, whispering as they stand near, making promises and plans. I always bless their love. How could I not?
The old people who visit me alone, because their loves have ended, sadden me most. Usually their companion has died and I can see their loss as they get closer. I feel their pain when they come so near.
I have never had a companion, yet still feel their hurt and emptiness. I try to give them what strength I have. Maybe it helps. The voices are almost here.
I hope there are children. I like them the best.
They always ask so many eager questions. And always about time. It is so difficult for them to understand how something they cannot see can change things. I feel it, too.
I especially love it when the children walk to me and their eyes grow big.
It always makes me remember.
And sometimes, as they stand between my paws and stare up at my crumbling face, their sweet smiles make me wish I could go back those thousands of years, in my beloved Egypt, and be young one last time.
Dust
Two minutes since he'd blinked.
He clutched his coffee, frozenly.
Sweat trickled.
His eyes followed as the dust drifted onto the booth table, warm and slow. He grabbed a menu and propped it against the window, blocking the klieg of sun. Quickly scanned the coffee shop for angry eyes. Eyes that didn't understand. Stupid eyes, shifting in blank, doomed faces.
He lifted the bleached mug, sipped coffee. Suddenly tasted a crawling tickle on his tongue.
It was in there.
He spit the black liquid onto the table top and watched the dust floating. Swimming.
Multiplying.
There was no way to stop it.
He'd tried; every day he'd tried. Even harder at night. Trying desperately to sleep when the sun had gone down, and the dust hid in darkness.
He would lock his apartment tight, doors and windows sealed, and go to work to capture the marauding downpour. Standing in a corner of the room, not moving, flashlight gripped. He would listen and wait for minutes. Once for hours; not wanting the dust to sense his presence.
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