Grampa Don spits out the window, and the car hops and rocks, having a spaz attack. The Kauai roads feel like the moon. There's no one going out to Barking Sands but us. It's getting late and the road is lonely.
It is the moon. Just on earth.
The sky will be dead soon. I feel a little afraid but for no reason.
Kitty looks at me and smiles but sees my face and starts to cry. If I had a knife I'd slash his throat. I imagine his dead body lying face-up, in the casket, suddenly awake. Screaming and trying to get out but making no sound. Muted by the birth defect that gave him a busted speaker. I feel bad for him down there, trapped forever under the earth, stuck in his box, screaming. But he'll never do anything with his life anyway.
Maybe it's better to know where he is.
Grampa Don just cut one and all four windows are cranked down. A sweet and sour old-man cloud is sucked out. The blue ocean is starting to seem like a choking face. We're far from the hotel where we're staying and I hate Hawaii. Being here with them.
Last night we went to a Luau and I stared at the pig on the long table. He looked alive. But his eyes didn't move and as I tried to figure out what he was thinking, a big smiling man, in a white apron, cut into the pig with a shiny knife and slid a section of the pig's body right out, like one of those wooden ball puzzles that's made of different sections of wood.
He dropped it on my plate and the pig kept staring forward, unable to fight back. The man motioned me to move on with his bloody knife, and began to cut the pig into more pieces, erasing him.
I looked down at the piece of the pig and felt like throwing up.
Later I brought the piece back and tried to put it where it had been on his body; reattaching his flesh. But by then, he was just bones and a head. The eyes were still facing forward and I pet him a little, seeing my own value as no higher than his, and hating people for what they'd done to him.
Then, Daddy came and dragged me through a bunch of tourists with greasy mouths, lining up to watch the torches and grass skirts. I looked back to see the pig being taken away, its bones passing above the crowd, on a tray, like some terrible crown.
"Barking Sands." Mommy is pointing.
Grampa Don is already out of the car and looking for a place to dump garbage. But there isn't one and he tosses it on the ground saying it will just rot and become a hotel lobby, over time, with enough rain and "fucking tourist money."
He says all the dinosaur bones grew into roads and rental cars after millions of years. He's had four cans of beer since we left the Coco Palms Hotel, where we're staying, and he's unzipped and hosing down a tree trunk.
His ancient nozzle sprays Corona on everything like some poison Daddy uses back in Los Angeles, to make snails' heads explode.
Kitty points to a sign that says this is a holy burial ground. He likes words; their shape, worming together to form meaning he doesn't understand. Grampa reads the sign and keeps sprinkling snail napalm like a punctured can.
"This place is too fucking humid." Grampa Don is wiping his head, like those guys at the 76 station chiseling bugs off the windshield.
Daddy takes pictures even though the sign says no photography 'cause it's a holy place and I guess that's bad. Daddy doesn't care. Mommy smiles and poses under the big cliffs that go up and up and up. Her dress looks like it belongs in a vase. Kitty is crawling on the sand, chasing our footprints like a rabid bloodhound that needs to be shot in the head. I wish I could get away from them all.
It's very windy and sand blows, sticking us with pins you can't see. I cover my eyes and we all lean into the wind. Mommy says we look like arctic explorers going up a snow slope. She wants a happy family. But we aren't.
I hate these trips. Being together.
Grampa Don takes Kitty's hand. Daddy takes Mommy's. A storm fills the sky with black sponges.
Grampa Don lags behind and we all get to the Toyota. It's starting to rain. Daddy starts the car and the mud is turning into dirty, orange glue that grabs our wheels. They spin.
"Zzzzzzzzzzzz." Kitty sounds like a trapped tire.
The car is a mad dog chained to a tree. Thunder shakes us. Lightning cuts up the sky. Something is wrong. The sky is not happy or pretty anymore. The air smells like dead things and angry wind makes all the plants and flowers look like they're bending over to get sick.
There is warm fog. I can't see the ocean anymore. It crashes, attacking.
"What's the fuckin' problem?" yells Grampa Don.
Mommy tells him not to talk like that and he curses at her. Daddy tells him to leave her alone. They start to argue.
I hate their guts.
Grampa Don rolls down his window to look at the tires. I notice something moving through the high sugarcane. He says he hates it here and yells at the mud and the sky and the big sand dunes that bark like wild dogs surrounding helpless animals.
The car tries harder to move. Grampa Don is getting all wet. Mommy tells him to close the window and suddenly he makes a weird noise. An arrow with red feathers is sticking through his neck, sideways. He turns and I see the sharp tip dripping blood on his tank top. There is mud and blood on his face. He can't breathe. There are wet bubbles in his neck.
Mommy screams.
I see feathers moving through sugarcane. Blue ones. Yellow ones. I see brown skin. Hands, eyes.
Grampa Don tries to scream and blood comes out of his mouth and sprays on everything. Kitty thinks Grampa Don is being funny and laughs, but makes no sound. Daddy screams at him to shut up and Kitty starts to cry. His face turns bright red.
Feathers.
We did something wrong. Something bad.
I am scared as they hide in the sugarcane. I know I'll be dead in another minute. I know I can't escape in this mud and rain. I look at my family. Mommy tries to help Grampa Don and Daddy keeps flooring the gas, too stupid to realize it doesn't help. I say nothing as they ask me to help. I do nothing.
I hate them.
An old man and two people who just argue all the time. A retard brother someone should've cut into little pieces a long time ago.
The car is stuck. No matter what Daddy does. More arrows break the glass. We are bloody. We are dying. Rain is pounding harder, pinning us to the mud, and the tires bury us deeper, spinning.
Digging us a grave.
As my family screams, I close my eyes and listen to the sand.
Things To Get
1. Cigarettes
2. Map
3. Gauze
4. M & Ms
5. Lysol
6. Pliers
7. Sprite
8. 2 packs Polaroid Film
9. Shovel
10. CDs: Korn, Celine Dion, Bill Cosby
11. Drano (2 Bottles)
12. Rope
13. Altoids
14. Clamps
15. Salt
16. Card for Mom
17. Duct Tape (2 rolls)
18. Doritos & Salsa
19. Panties
20. Utility Knife (Extra Blades)
21. Twinkies
22. Hacksaw
23. Rubber Gloves
24. Plastic Trash Bags (30 gal.)
25. Ear Plugs
The Edge
Peter yawned.
How long had it been? How many hours since he hadn't been bored out of his mind? He listened to the music squirting through the armrest, up the rubber tube, into his head. Stared out the window.
Thought about his life. How it had all started.
The turbulence was fading and he sighed; too bad.
Clouds tumbled by and he drifted backwards.
Thirty-five years. . .
The doctor had ensnared his doughy head in forceps, and told Peter's mother to breathe rapidly; bear down. The struggle of Peter, slithering from between his mother's thighs, continued for hours. Then, inexplicably, stopped.
The doctor said he'd never seen anything like it. He told her Peter had suddenly stopped fighting expulsion into the world, and coo
perated with the rhythmic kneading of his mother's womb, for "no reason."
Peter watched lights on the big, steel wing blink.
"No reason."
Absurd.
He knew better. Though decades ago, he could remember the precise second of his birth when he'd decided to stop fighting. It was no mystery to him. The whole thing had simply become predictable.
Infant years were no improvement. His mother and father would hold him in their arms and coo, but Peter could remember the sense of well-being lasting only a short while. After that, it became drab and he responded to keep his parents from feeling bad.
But it had been the same story: it just wasn't fun after a while. It was dull. Rewards were over in a moment; their capture hopeless.
As a boy, the tendency eased somewhat. Peter was popular and, after school, always had a swarm of children trailing behind, wanting to play.
But he only went along with it.
Things didn't hold his attention for any length of time. He didn't really understand it. It wasn't as if he were overly intelligent or preoccupied. It was something more fundamental. He just got bored a lot.
His mother and father became briefly concerned when he took unusual interest in the misfortunes of others. For Peter, it was the only thing that seemed to secretly reverse his descents into the inert.
When his parents would take him to the movies, he would sit transfixed during the violent parts, eyes recording every blast and bloodstain. He would stop eating his popcorn at every scream. It hypnotized him.
Ultimately, his parents passed it off as a meaningless phase. "After all," his father was prone to say, in Peter's defense, "violence is part of being human."
Peter's mother would nod in agreement, though Peter didn't feel one way or the other. He just knew he liked watching pain: the only thing that seemed to lift him from feelings of ennui.
By the time he was in high school, he was on constant look-out for anything physically abusing. He was in attendance at every football game and sat as close to the front line as possible; the best view of the violence. He could hear as flesh collided, helmets and bodies battling. He could see players, when they lay on the torn ground, holding broken bodies, faces in agony.
He loved every second, and stared expectantly with each hike of the pigskin, watching for injured players. He would look intently at their hands, which would tighten in pain and clench ruined flesh.
Blood would soak grass, making it look wounded, and Peter would watch, rapt. The sufferers were carried to the sidelines or rushed into ambulances, and once they were removed, Peter always wanted to leave. The game, without injuries, was of no interest.
On his sixteenth birthday, he became concerned for himself and confessed his aberrant perspective to his father. He told him everything bored him except violence and pain.
His father laughed, saying pain was America's national pastime. He told Peter not to worry, and Peter went to the pool outside his parents' condominium, did a few laps, and tanned on the hot cement. He felt lucky, and watched in fascination when a man slipped on the decking and fell into the water.
Blood ribboned from the man's head, and he thrashed for air as Peter dashed to the pool edge to help. But instead, he just watched. The man struggled, in a pinkish swirl and gulped down water. As he looked up at Peter, eyes pleading, Peter perched, stared back. As much as Peter tried to fight it, he was consumed by excitement; pulse racing, shivers bugling through him.
As others pumped water from the man's lungs, Peter licked bottom lip, transfixed. There was no denying it: much as good taste dictated against such obsessions, watching things brutal, violent and painful was his favorite activity.
By the time he'd finished high school, he was regularly attending savage films, prize fights, and wrestling matches. He obsessively scanned news for gruesome crimes; disasters. It made life palatable. By watching or reading about pain and suffering, Peter could go on; remain reasonably interested.
But in time, feelings of boredom erupted more frequently. The passage of time rendered even live violence dull. His problem was getting worse.
He visited a psychiatrist and was told mental release, through vicarious imaginings, was healthy. The doctor asked Peter if he'd ever done anything violent. Peter said no. The doctor said, in that case, he was just experiencing repressed anger. Peter saw him twice more, never went back.
The psychiatrist didn't understand.
No one did.
Peter knew it wasn't just imagination. It was something else; something bad. But he couldn't trace it to anything. He'd had a nice upbringing. And it happened when he'd first exited the birth canal. He knew that wasn't normal; newborn babies didn't get bored.
The malaise was inescapable and, indeed, even as he thought about the condition, he became bored. He tried to think about people starving to death in India, but it didn't help.
He felt lost.
By his twenty-fifth birthday, even human bloodshed no longer helped. He'd hoped something stronger might aid his outlook and headed one weekend to Mexico.
In a crowded bullring, he watched a huge, black bull, with lances buried in its shoulder, struggle against horrid pain for an hour. It helped a little. But it was feeding a hunger with a biteful.
Then, on the drive home, stuck in border traffic, it happened.
A VW had smashed into a Greyhound filled with commuters, and exploded into flames.
As screaming passengers watched the VW driver burning to death, Peter watched with pleased relief. He opened his window and leaned out to see the driver's flesh browning in gasoline flames, and listen to his dying screams.
Peter watched as a patrol car pulled up, and police tried to pry the driver from the tiny car. He watched as people yelled at each other to do something. He watched Spanish and English-speaking adults cover the susceptible eyes of children, close to the nightmare. He heard yelling and screaming, and watched it all with undivided attention.
For Peter, it was spectacular.
He was thrilled and found his emotions honestly moved. Before him was life's fragility. Existence at its most extreme. He knew, at that moment, what life was about.
The edge.
He knew from then on, if it wasn't the real thing, it was no good. Organized sports, movies, and memorized horrors wouldn't satisfy. He needed the real article. And if he got enough of it, he knew he'd never have to be bored again. Life was filled with war, misery, mutilation, disfiguring accidents, and other catastrophes ideally suited to his needs.
He'd finally found the reason to go on.
Within a week, he'd seen his fourth car accident. At night, he'd drive onto freeways and busy stretches of road, going back and forth for hours.
Looking; hunting for horror.
One night, he saw a good one.
A family of four was trying to escape an overturned station wagon. Their wretched screams were breathtaking and Peter had watched as emergency workers used blowtorches, crowbars and metal-cutting saws. They worked furiously, as the family convulsed and pleaded.
It interested him for awhile. But he eventually grew sluggish and drove away. Car accidents were becoming passé; the listlessness of life was engulfing him again.
On the drive home, the only way he could rescue himself from apathy was to envision a campus murder he'd read about in the paper. As he imagined a knife slicing a coed's face and torso, he perked up and enjoyed the ride home.
But it was too good to be true, and soon over.
By the weekend, nothing interested him. He'd decided to take a trip, thinking it would slow the sense of his insides sinking. He began to realize true boredom was slow death. Probably worse.
Peter was stirred from thoughts by the stewardess serving dinner.
As the 747 bounced through mountains of cloud, hungry passengers gobbled chicken and lasagna, though Peter ate without interest. The stewardess gathered the trays, and he looked out his little window, watching the sun slowly flatten; a tired eye.
>
A film began and he watched credits roll.
It was a comedy and he yawned.
Laughter rose.
He felt torpid; uninvolved. Nothing compelled him. Stagnation stabbed every cell. He tried to stir himself, remembering an account he'd read of an old woman who'd swallowed Drano. But it was useless.
Then, it happened.
A roar. Ripping sheet metal. A sharp tilt of the carrier's angle. An engine had failed; exploded.
Horror-stricken passengers yanked their headsets off as the jet plunged through blackness.
As it fell, flames dragged behind, and hands clutched desperately. Screams lurched like guttural beings. Faces twisted.
The jet dropped faster, and as the ground neared, passengers embraced in terror.
Peter remained in his seat, peering out the window at the burning wing and onrushing community below.
He smiled.
This was going to be good.
Dead of Winter
Night.
They walk in. Three of them.
Bar a neon nowhere.
Pool balls crack; slain. Whores stare. Yukon howls outside; a starved mouth.
They laugh. Drink. Warm big hands. Don't notice her.
By herself. Waiting. Her glare tracks them. Sees their snowmobiles.
The ugly cargo.
Taps gargle ale. Cigarettes burn alive. Couples dance.
She stares. Breathes harder. Sees their fingernails. Boots, pants.
Beards. Red flecked.
She's waited for hours. It must be done.
Wind shrieks, wants in. Starving creatures cry in hills, trees.
Snow suffocates moon.
A second round. The three. Laughter. Nulled eyes; drowned, empty. Jukebox in tantrum. They don't notice her eyes; the loathing.
Minutes. Seconds.
Storm claws; spasms.
She stares. Concentrates.
One feels sick. Blood leaks from nose. Ears. Face terrified.
The other two. Skulls ache. Anguish spreads.
Heads turn. Fingers point.
She watches, fixes dead eyes.
The three press hands to brow. Collapse. Cry out. Skulls crack open. Blood soaks floor.
Dystopia Page 29