by Drew Stepek
I sat down on the couch and turned the TV on.
It’s gonna be a Towering Inferno, bro and I’m gonna be OJ. OJ Reynolds. Fucking crazy ass murderer and shit. Hatchet to the fucking skull, bro. Just like OJ.
New message.
Fucking Motorhead, bro. Ace of Spades. We should bring a deck of cards and take all the aces of spades out of the deck. I think there is like 10. One for each Perry.
New message.
How many are there? Perrys? We take the cards and light that shit on fire, bro. Throw them on their fucking graves. Gambit in the fucking house versus the fire department.
I let out a huge breath of relief. It was going to be amazing. At least, whatever gibberish I pounded into the phone sounded like it was going to be amazing at that time.
I watched two hours of Golden Girls and the entire time I was eyeballing the jet skis packed tightly with love and care. I checked the phone for a response from Eldritch about every five or six seconds. Then I made the mistake of turning on the news again.
Melissa in Peoria showed the child’s sketch of the hot rod drawn with crayon flames on the side.
“We believe the suspect or suspects have made their way to Texas.”
I looked back over at the open jet ski and pulled a blanket over my legs from the arm rest of the leather couch.
As I start to doze off, the phone buzzed with a response from Eldritch.
Go to bed. L
For someone who was a callous monster like me, I certainly had an unpleasant conscious that seemed to creep in on me whenever I closed my eyes. And since I didn’t have any heroin, I couldn’t block it out. Maybe it was the blaring reminder that I killed Pinball’s parents and kidnapped her that played out on the TV as white noise as I slept. I was never one to believe that any premonitions or higher powers were real, but I couldn’t help but think that someone was trying to tell me something.
I was in the gymnasium again. The scumbag gymnasium from St. Matthews. The shithole where I was born. Rather than the “healing circle” that plagued me from my other dreams, there were two rows of chairs sitting across from each other. Staring at me from the other side were Bait, Pinball, and two members of my L.A. gang, the Knucklers, Tahoe and Pico. All but Pinball were dead. Standing between the two rows was a headless King Cobra—the vamp who was once my greatest enemy but ended up being closer than a brother at the time of his death. Cobra was holding a mic that didn’t make any noises other than feedback. By my side were traitor Dez, and that cunt junkie hole, The Habit. Next to her, Smiley Cyrus and a few more McCoys. My conscious had put me in really shitty company. Two of the McCoys were whispering into each other’s ears and snickering as their body parts fell from their torsos as if they had leprosy.
The Catholic leader of The Cloth, Father McAteer, was across the room one second and then sitting right beside me the next, bumping into me as he tried desperately to find a vein in his arm. When he did find it, he tilted his head back, plugged his nose, and inhaled through his mouth. I turned away, but I immediately felt sludge on my leg. He laughed as his skin, followed by his bones, melted onto the chair, leaving only his clerical collar. A syringe laid in the goop that used to be him.
Nightmare Dez kicked my foot. “That was pretty dope, huh?” He picked up the syringe and started pricking it into my legs. “This is the new cut. Whoop whoop!”
I waved him away and didn’t answer.
The Habit lifted-up her nun outfit and pointed to the headless King Cobra. Her pussy was talking. “He doesn’t have a head anymore because of you.”
I turned to hear what, if anything, Cobra had to say. He waved his hands like he was talking, but the mic continued to only transmit a distorted whine. Behind him on a blackboard, “The Program” was spray-painted in huge red letters. Suddenly, over the distorted PA system in the gym, I heard, “If you or a loved one was diagnosed with Mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation.”
The TV news had infiltrated my dream.
My attention turned to Bait and Pinball who were dangling their feet down from chairs that were bigger than all the others. “I hate you,” Bait said in Pinball’s voice. “You kilt my parents.” A skinnier, taller Eldritch walked up behind both of them and used his hands to reach behind their ears as if he were a magician producing a coin. In a matter of seconds, he pulled back his hands revealing fistfuls of white gummy bears. Both children’s faces lit up.
Eldritch stared into my eyes. “He gave my mother cancer, Little Ones.” He then grabbed Pinball by her wig. “He gave you cancer. He is cancer.”
Dez moved in closer to share my chair with me. My ass teetered on the edge, his brown teeth scratched at my face as he spoke. “Dunk that doughnut. Am I right? Dunk that doughnut.” It was our call to arms whenever we subdued a pimp or a creep. It meant it was time to inject heroin into their arms before we ripped the appendages off and enjoyed getting high.
Cobra walked over and stood in front of us when I realized that the chair was free again. Dez disappeared, but he left the syringe in my lap. I held it up and looked into the barrel. There was something moving around inside. I looked more closely. It was filled with hundreds of miniature baby opossums. As they had when they unsuccessfully attempted to feed and get warmth from their dead mother, they squirmed around inside the sleeve. Their eyes were closed and they warped around each other to stay alive. In an attempt to release them from their captivity, I smashed down on the plunger. Nothing came out.
“RJ Reynolds, as I live and breathe,” Cobra’s voice called out, reverberating from all around. I looked up. When he was alive, he would say that to me, letting me know that I was in deep shit. His armless and legless torso was now nailed to the blackboard. His killer, The Habit, stood behind him and pointed to a strap on dildo that she revealed by throwing her robe over her shoulder like a matador wearing a cape.
She smiled. “Dag nabbit!” she yelled in her pre-teen television voice. A crowd of derelicts and misfits lined up behind her to take a swing at the fallen king. One-by-one, they took their turn fucking him in the ass. Cobra didn’t speak anymore at all and eventually, he disappeared.
“My name is Dirt and I’m an addict,” Cody said as he took Cobra’s place on a chair.
Dez returned and he was now sitting in my lap. “That was pretty dope, huh?” he repeated. He snapped at my face with his toothless mouth. I shoved his face away and threw him across the room. He slumped into the corner and again said, “That was pretty dope, huh?”
I got up from my seat to walk over to him, not sure if I was going to apologize to him or kill him, but when I reached the other line of chairs, Bait grabbed my arm.
“That’s the father of my baby,” she said. I looked down and she was holding Possie, the mother possum, who was wrapped up in the same brown paper that Cody used to wrap his cocaine.
Then, at the front of the gymnasium, Melissa On Location appeared. She was holding a long gameshow host microphone in her hand. “The girl is Paulina Jenkins, who you might remember from a report last year when her parents pleaded with the public to support a lawsuit against the Peoria Cancer Institute. According to the suit, the Peoria Cancer Institute administered chemotherapy treatments without their consent. The case never went to trial but neighbors have told us that the sick little girl’s parents continued to shave Paulina’s head long after the cancer was undetected in the ten-year-old’s body.”
Reporting From The Studio Don appeared next to her. “That is unsubstantiated, correct, Melissa?”
Melissa’s head popped out of Don’s shirt. “There have been no confirmed reports whether any of these allegations are factual or not.”
Don shoved her back inside of him and asked, “Do we have any leads on the suspect or suspects?”
“Not yet, Don,” she responded but didn’t appear. A projected image of the artist’s rendition of the kidnapper lit up behind Don. “The suspect is a white male, five-foot-five to five-foot-ten. He is heavy set and has long brow
n hair.”
I walked up to the reporters and was suddenly in front of Pinball’s parents’ trailer. The crude drawing of the hot rod was projected against the doublewide’s decaying vinyl siding. As I walked toward the door, Don followed me and started talking with Melissa’s voice. “A neighborhood child drew this picture to show the police a suspicious car that was spotted in the neighborhood.”
Another Don appeared on my right side. “Do the Peoria police have any leads on this automobile?” He pushed the microphone in my face.
The Don on my left was then Melissa. “No one else saw this type of car but reports have come in about a pickup truck. That seems to be a better lead than a drawing that isn’t a real make or model.”
I swung my head from right to left, trying to keep time with the banter. The McCoys were lined up on either side of my path, beyond Don and Melissa. They twirled and swung their weapons around as they had back at the pharmacy.
Don shoved the mic in my eye. “Did anyone happen to get a license plate?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Melissa disappeared. Don moved in front of me blocking the entrance to the trailer and said, “If you have any information on the abduction of Paulina Jenkins or the murder of her parents, Ronald and Billy Jenkins, please contact the Peoria Police Department at—”
I felt the flicking of fingers on my ear.
“Wake up, bro.”
I shooed the voice and fingers away. “Let me sleep.”
It’s four,” the voice continued.
I massaged different parts of my body and stretched my legs over the end of the couch. The all-over ache felt like someone had pulled my skin off and had taken a hammer to my old bones and muscles. “Fuck off.” I didn’t open my eyes. “Turn off the TV.”
I heard flip flops walk away from me. They stopped. “Where’s the remote?”
I dug around under the blanket that half covered me. “I don’t know.”
The flip flops clicked away a little more and I heard the TV shut down. “It’s off. Get up.”
Then, he proceeded to walk across the garage. I heard the tops of the one of the jet skis close. “I’m surprised you didn’t try and snort all my blow.”
I opened my right eye. “What do you want, Cody?”
“It’s four.” He flip-flopped back over to me. “Like four p.m.”
I picked up the can of a Lone Star that I had been drinking, crushed it and threw it at him. “We sleep late. Sunlight is no bueno, amigo.”
“Yeah, I know bro.” He caught the can and walked it over to the proper recycling bin. “Your buddies are awake. I shot Linnwood Perry a text.”
I planted my forehead into my hand. “Yeah? What did that punk ass say?”
He smirked. “He said that he was glad I contacted him and that he wanted to adjust our arrangement.”
I swung my body around and put my feet on the rug of the makeshift living room. “So he thinks he’s Darth Vader now? What does that mean?”
“It means he wants to meet with me, bro. Today. I told you that he wanted to cut a deal with me.”
I grunted, trying to get to my feet. “You didn’t say anything about me being in Austin, did you?” That didn’t work so I sat back down. I dug around between to cushions on the couch and found the new phone. No more messages from Eldritch since the message about going to bed. “Do you have any more blood? And coffee? Bloody coffee? I feel like shit.”
He walked back to the fridge and opened it. He moved some stuff around on the shelves. “I think I can mix something up for you.”
I reached toward the table and seized the bottle of Oxy. “No more coke. It gives me bad dreams.” I lobbed the bottle to him. “This will make them go away.”
“Vampires dream?” he scoffed as he bobbled the bottle and then caught it.
“Of course we dream.” I scratched my forehead. “I was dreaming about all sorts of awful shit.”
He put a new mug in the microwave. “We need to get ready. I’m supposed to meet him in an hour at some parking structure.”
I used my hand as a visor and looked toward the side door. “Still too early for me to go out there.”
“Oh, yeah. I got you covered, bro.” Not wasting any time, he headed back into the house and returned almost immediately with a ski mask. “You can use this.” Then he threw me some sunscreen. “And this.”
I studied both articles in my hands. “Why do you have a ski mask in Texas?”
“It snows here. Anyway, Braxton and I used to rob liquor stores before I joined The Program. We hit ten in one week,” he bragged. “I kept this one to remember the good old days. You know, before I ran a business and all.” He threw me a hoodie. It was bright red and again it said ‘eep Austin Weird across the chest.
I threw it back to him. “Not a chance.”
“Your call, bro.” He started folding it up. “I just went down the gas station and bought it.”
“Why?” I moaned. “Why in the fuck would you purposely go buy me that shit?”
“Look, bro. I’m trying to help you get revenge or whatever. Quit being a dick.”
I fully stretched out my body and yawned again. My back popped. “Are you fucking with me?” I tilted my head. “Seriously, why are you fucking with me?”
The buzzer on the microwave went off and he pulled out the mug. “I’m not fucking with you. I wanted to get you something to cover your arms.” He tossed the sweatshirt back on the couch.
“And you couldn’t have just gotten a shirt that didn’t say anything on it.” I covered the sweatshirt with the blanket.
“They only had these and some shirts that said ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ and ‘She’s Weird’ with an arrow pointing off the shirt.” He walked back to the cutting board and started mashing up the Oxy.
“‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ would have been fine,” I concluded.
He turned around to look at me. “But you’re not a Texan, bro. Besides, they only had kid sizes.” When he was satisfied with his mash, he started chopping up the narcs.
I was becoming increasingly impatient with my host. My eyes—and everything behind them—were pounding. “Just get that shit ready, please.” I bent over and pulled on the jeans by my feet. “When do we have to meet them again?”
He swept and sifted the powder as he had before, this time a little bit more eloquently. “In an hour, bro,” he said as he dumped the drugs into the mug.
I got up to meet him half way near the jet skis. My body felt like it was a burrito filled with the dried-up remnants of several different kinds of drugs that gave my organs, bones, and muscles an eviction notice.
He handed the mug to me. “You should probably pound this.”
I let my tongue dangle into the cup. “Not bad.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he pointed back to the couch and said, “Grab your gear. The sun isn’t going to set until like seven-thirty.”
I sat back down on the couch and pulled on my new Texan outfit. Then I reluctantly put the ski mask and the sunscreen in my back pocket. I picked up my phone, unlocked and messaged Eldritch.
We’re gonna go meet Linnwood at a parking garage in an hour. He doesn’t know we’re coming.
The phone buzzed back almost immediately.
Not a good idea.
I ignored him and sent another text.
I’ll send you the address. Be there. Maybe tie the kid up wherever you’re hiding out.
He waited a bit to think about it.
L. Did you sleep?
I responded.
Yes.
It was apparent that he knew I was on something the night before, but if I didn’t allude to my texts, maybe he’d forget about it. I responded one last time.
I’m gonna go take a shower.
I turned the music down in Cody’s truck as he pulled out of his driveway. “Dude, what is this dreadful noise?” I rubbed my head through the knitted face mask. I always detested listening to anyone else’s music in cars. It mad
e me want to punch a hole in the windshield.
He turned it back up. “Totally bluegrass, bro.”
“Bluegrass?” I picked up his phone and started scrolling through his music. “Don’t you have any punk rock?”
He grabbed the phone back. “Punk rock? Ha! No one listens to that trash anymore.”
We were headed directly west into the setting sun, so I pulled down the sun visor and covered my eyes. “You Austin poser.”
“Me? The poser?” He patted me on the chest to remind me how he’d dressed me. “How old are you, anyway? The only people who still listen to punk rock around here are ancient.”
I slapped his hand away. “I’m old. I was born in a laboratory inside of a Catholic church. My mom died before I was alive, and I lived on the streets since I was a teen.”
He turned the banjo music back up and wiggled his thumb. “Didn’t really ask for your life story, bro. Live in the moment. Forget the mistakes you’ve made in the past and be glad you’re still alive.”
“Not alive.” I put my head down and let the covered crown of my head take the brunt of the late afternoon sun.
I saw him take his hands off the wheel and do some air-banjoing. He then started brush drumming on his knees. “All I’m saying, bro, is that you should live for today. Admit you have a problem.”
“Did you learn all that bullshit in The Program?”
He put his hands back on the wheel to straighten out the truck. When he was satisfied, he began playing an upright bass, then a fiddle and then back to brush drumming on the dashboard. “Yeah, I’ve learned a lot from The Program. One day, I ended up in a ditch, naked with dicks drawn all over my face. My mom came and found me and took me right to rehab. I have never looked back.”
Growing more bored than annoyed with his preaching, I decided to cut him off at the pass and end the sobriety discussion. “I’m a vampire. I was born addicted to drugs. I never knew my mom because she died before I was stillborn. So, not only did I not have anyone to pick me up in her solid gold Rolls Royce, I didn’t have any money for rehab. End of story.”
He gripped the steering wheel and started humming along with the lead singer’s high-pitched wailing. “I thought you said you weren’t really vampires.”