Dark Advent

by Brian Hodge

  Yup, it was the eyes that did it. Those windows to the soul.

  Creepy Carl…

  They only called him that to his face when they were in groups, where there was safety in numbers. Later, when he was old enough to look back on his years as a ward of the state with a certain degree of objectivity, he realized that he heard it less and less as he’d gotten older and taller and stronger. That often, he’d heard it only in his head, an echo out of a rootless, transient past. And the last thing about it he realized was that he’d long since stopped caring what they called him.

  They…

  It was always they, and them. Never we, never us.

  But after he’d found his direction, it hadn’t mattered very much.

  He remembered The Day, as clear as yesterday and as unattainable as the farthest star. How old had he been? Ten, maybe, or eleven? He’d never been quite sure of his age, but The Day, at least, was approaching twenty years past. It was a time of turmoil, of war, of assassinations of politicians and civil rights leaders, of a new president who would one day flee his office in disgrace.

  The country was coming apart, it had seemed to many, and it was all a million miles away to a young boy named Carl Pearson as he stood hands-in-pockets to watch other boys play a game of touch football.

  Touch. He sniffed in disgust. He didn’t want to play anyway, not touch. Not when he couldn’t tackle somebody.

  “Carl? Hey Carl.” Behind him.

  He turned, found himself facing Marty Betts, who was two years older but five inches shorter and probably forty pounds scrawnier. Marty’s narrow face was twisted up with even more anxiety than usual. He was frequently the dumping ground for a lot of the older boys’ frustrations as they tried to make normal lives for themselves and tired of finding it impossible.

  Carl said nothing, and half-turned to watch the game. A spring breeze, both cool and warm, flipped his errant forelock of hair. For these early days came long before he’d gotten rid of his hair, long before he’d begun thinking of himself as Pit Bull.

  “Am I bothering you?” Marty asked.

  Carl twitched an indifferent shoulder.

  Marty smiled, a nervous smile at the very best. Clearly he wished he were someplace else. “Could I ask you something?”

  Next would come the taunts. Were your parents cousins? They had a million of these. But then Carl backed up mentally. They wouldn’t come from Marty, not little Marty, all alone and vulnerable.

  “Go ahead.” Carl rarely shifted his eyes from the game. What would it be like to be out there, running free, a faceful of wind and the pigskin tucked under his arm, leaving a wake of laughter and curses as he dodged everyone who tried to tag him? Returning triumphant to the rest of his team, to slaps on the back and punches at his shoulders?

  “I said go ahead.”

  “Okay, it’s like this,” Marty began, too rapidly. “There’s this new band out, I don’t guess you ever heard of ’em or anything, but they’re called Led Zeppelin, and they’re really bitchin’. I’ve been saving up my money from our chores and odd jobs for weeks just so I could get their album.” Marty stopped to wet his lips, fearing he was losing Carl. “Anyway, I got it yesterday, but last night before I even got a chance to listen to it, Scott Willis broke it. Just snapped it in two over his knee. The son of a bitch.”

  Carl continued his vigil over the game. Scott Willis was out there with the rest of them, whooping it up, his limp reddish-blond hair flapping against his collar. He said his hero was John Lennon, and he even had the little round glasses to complete the ensemble. He was a couple years older than Marty, even. Fifteen, maybe.

  “What’s that got to do with me?” Carl asked, finally turning to face Marty.

  Marty took one glance into those weird eyes of Carl’s and looked as if he liked it better when the tall, goony kid was staring away from him.

  “I was wondering…” Marty said, faltering. “I was wondering if you could…hit him for me.”

  Carl rolled his deep-set eyes up and knocked his shoulder against the maple he was standing beside. He bounced once, twice, then stayed leaning against it. He chuckled, a sound of almost childlike innocence so at odds with what radiated from his eyes, and the set of his jaw.

  Marty dug into his pocket, pulled out his fist. “I mean, hey, I’ll pay you for it and everything.”

  Carl frowned with vague interest, absently peeling bark away from the maple with long-nailed fingers.

  Marty grinned nervously and unrolled a wadded-up ten-dollar bill. “I’ve been saving this for someday special, for a long time. And I guess that’s now.” Actually he’d spent every bit of his money yesterday on the album and a few games of pinball. The ten he’d stolen this morning from another kid’s room during breakfast.

  Carl was growing more interested with the cash in front of him. “You really mean this?”

  Marty offered it forward, his arm locked rigid. “It’s yours.”

  Carl pondered it a moment or two, working his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Then he plucked the bill from Marty’s fist and stuffed it into his own pocket.

  “Great,” Marty said, relief washing over his face like a spring shower. “Great. When you gonna do it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Carl said, and at last he turned back to resume watching the game, the older boys scrambling one way, then another. “But don’t stick so close now, okay?”

  “You got it,” Marty said with exaggerated agreement, although he wasn’t a bit sorry to scram from Carl, to get someplace safe and watch the show.

  He didn’t have to wait long. The game broke up a few minutes past four-thirty, scarcely a half-hour left to clean up before dinner, favoring muscles that were beginning to ache, maybe affecting a bit of a limp if a girl you liked was around. The players ebbed from the field in twos and threes and fours, scattering toward the various cottages before converging on the cafeteria.

  Scott Willis walked with two others on a path thirty yards away. Carl left the cover of his maple, aiming at a point where their paths might cross.

  Might as well get it done.

  His shadow lengthened in front of him as he neared Scott and the other two, all of them at least four years older, but none of them taller. They ignored him as he drew up alongside, his hands still thrust deeply into his pockets.

  “Scott. Wait up a second.”

  Scott Willis stopped abruptly, turned toward Carl, his face showing irritation as his sweaty hair hung limply about it like a tattered curtain. He planted his feet an arrogant distance apart.

  “Whatta you want, Carl?” His voice was icy. Maybe he’d affected the John Lennon hair and glasses, but he must’ve never heard the Beatles’ call for love.

  Carl glanced quickly from Scott to his two equally annoyed friends and back again. No way would he get out of this unscathed. But he had his commitment to Marty, and now, to himself.

  “I got a message for you,” Carl said.

  Scott said nothing, merely cocked his eyebrows and waited.

  Carl delivered.

  He swung his foot up between Scott’s wide-stanced legs and planted it into his groin with the force of a lumberjack bringing his axe down into the notch of a tree. Scott’s hips shuddered backward and he doubled over with a choked cry. He was still dropping to his knees when Carl brought his other foot squarely into Scott’s face. Scott reeled backward, arms flailing to regain his balance. The little round wire-rimmed glasses went flying, now bent in the middle. Scott hit the ground like a grainbag and clutched the skewed remnants of his spouting nose.

  The two friends were on Carl a moment later, fists raining down endlessly, but Carl managed to curl himself into a tight ball, squatting low. He barely felt their punches, their kicks. He heard a counselor running over, crying out to stop it, stop it right now, I mean it. Under this he heard cries of, “Well, he starte
d it!”

  After the counselor had disentangled them all and led Carl away to the director’s office, his hand clamped onto Carl’s upper arm, he took one look back at Scott and the blood. And he felt good about himself, the first time in recent memory. He’d finally pleased someone, hadn’t he?

  That night he huddled in the corner of his room. He’d been confined here for a month, except when attending school and meals and the bathroom. Big deal. He caressed the paper in his hand.

  The radio, his sole companion, played softly. The tune was a real high-energy number from a new band. Marty had been wrong. Carl knew exactly who Led Zeppelin were; “Communication Breakdown” was already one of his favorite songs.

  Seemed like people were always misjudging him.

  But he’d made Marty happy, and now that was more important by far. Little Marty, who got picked on because the other boys had no use for him either. And who had never, come to think of it, called Carl names along with the rest of them.

  He huddled into his corner, eyes cast upward, seeing past the peeling colorless paint of the ceiling. If he’d been able to pull the walls around him like a blanket, he would’ve.

  Creepy Carl…

  Did you see that?

  He damn near kicked Scott’s head offa his shoulders!

  Carl began to cry, without knowing why, just that they weren’t sad tears.

  He wept, and endlessly fondled the ten-dollar bill, now moist from the sweat of his palms.

  * *

  They were less than five minutes into the match, and already the thing was turning into a fiasco. For all his muscles and glitz, Jack Armstrong was outclassed by the fury of Pit Bull Pearson. It wasn’t supposed to be Pit Bull’s night, not this time. The outcomes had been scripted in advance because, hell, it was all just a show anyway. Nothing rehearsed, no lines memorized, no steps choreographed to the split-second, but it was a show just the same. And to the players, the ending was already known.

  Or, at least the way the ending was supposed to go.

  It was the good guys versus the bad guys in these matches, where the good guys usually won. When the bad guys won, it was only to set them up for a worse toppling sooner or later. This was understood. Good versus evil, and the crowds thrived on it, these sweaty little morality plays where the sword and shield were replaced with leg-locks and armbars.

  This crowd, tonight, was clearly growing agitated. And nervous. Their fair-haired boy, Strong Jack Armstrong, was getting the shit kicked out of him.

  Pit Bull was slowly demolishing him with body slams and dropkicks, with clotheslines and backbreakers, with leg-scissors and Texas compactors and repeated head-slamming trips into the corner turnbuckles. He was Pit Bull, the one, the only, and no matter what Al had told him, this was his night, and he’d make Al proud after all. Because he was headed straight for the top, maybe even after the crown of Hulk Hogan himself.

  Steiner was screaming at him from the corner, waving the leash in the air. He called out words of encouragement that were really coded phrases ordering Pit Bull to back down, dammit, back down and ease off and let Jack Armstrong gain control of the match.

  I hear you Al, I hear you, and I’m gonna take us both to the top, you and me, you and me.

  Steiner groaned when he saw that Pit Bull hadn’t heard or wouldn’t obey. He felt sweat breaking out from his scalp down to the soles of his feet. There’d be hell to pay after tonight, all right. Just what the hell had gotten into Carl? He’d always listened to Steiner before, trusted him as a child trusts a parent. And in a way, hadn’t Steiner been exactly that to him? Hadn’t it been Steiner who’d found him engaging in the bloody bare knuckles matches in St. Louis’s seedier areas? Hadn’t it been Steiner who had crafted Carl’s ring persona? Hadn’t he known that Missouri was one of the leading spots for dogfighting in the country, and likened Carl’s aggression to that of a pit bulldog, one of which he kept as a pet? Carl loved that dog, jokingly referring to it as his brother. And hadn’t it been Steiner who’d shelled out the bucks to get Carl his outfit and pay for the electrolysis so he’d never have to remember to shave his head again? Hadn’t Steiner trained him from scratch?

  And now his creation, his Pit Bull, was raging out of control and stomping on Steiner’s very livelihood. He fell silent and watched aghast as Pit Bull tore into Strong Jack Armstrong with an ever-increasing fervor.

  A sea of faces surged out there in the smoky haze, beyond the reach of the lights burning down on Pit Bull and his prey, and the bald wrestler took a moment to look out at them. An overwhelming majority were booing him, hurling obscenities as he locked Armstrong beneath him, twisting him into a three-second pin, pressing the man’s shoulders to the canvas.

  Even the ref couldn’t deny it now. The night was Pit Bull’s.

  Sweat glistened on his skull as Pit Bull gazed out on the audience, heard the hateful things they were saying. Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl…

  Some things just never, ever change.

  He cocked his head, listening intently, Armstrong still trapped uselessly beneath him, struggling like a squashed bug. There was somebody out there who didn’t hate him. Somebody was cheering for him, somebody liked him. Maybe even Marty Betts himself. And over there, another. And over there. Sure. They’d been calling for blood the whole time. And as long as they hadn’t given up on him, he couldn’t let them down. He owed them, because they gave him his strength, his will, his drive.

  His fury.

  If you want blood, you’ve got it.

  Creepy Carl, Creepy Carl…

  “I’m Pit Bullll!” he roared at them, those bastards out there who hated him, who’d always hated him, who’d tormented him all his life, whose voices drowned out the cheers of his friends. He bared his teeth and snarled at them…

  …and dove against Jack Armstrong’s shoulder with the force of a pile driver. He bit through flesh, muscle, feeling the blood rush warm and salty into his mouth, biting deeper until he hit tendon. He flexed his back and neck muscles, jerking backward and ripping away a large, dripping chunk of Jack Armstrong’s shoulder. Strong Jack thrashed beneath him, bellowing out one long, last cry before going limp.

  Pit Bull, the one, the only, leaned forward and spat the grisly prize out of the ring, over the top rope and into somebody’s lap in the front row. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth, ran down his chin, dripped onto his chest.

  The referee hit him then, leaping onto his back from behind, a flea trying to bring down a dog. Fresh hysteria had broken out through the crowd, because they hadn’t expected this, not this, because you pays your money and you gets your show, but not this.

  Pit Bull reached back and grabbed the ref’s skinny arm, flipping him over his shoulder to land flat on his back. The ref hit the canvas so hard it drove the wind out of him, and he could feel his legs draped over the prone form of Strong Jack Armstrong, whose face had gone a cheesy white.

  Pit Bull, now on his knees, gazed down at the ref, whose legs stretched away from him. The man’s head was directly before his knees, and how silly the man looked lying there, gasping for breath in his pale blue shirt and dark little bowtie. To think that this puny fucker had actually tried bringing down the one, the only…

  …Pit Bull.

  You don’t tangle with Pit Bulls, ’cause Pit Bulls bite.

  He raised his big fist high into the air, hesitating an instant, just so he could see the ref’s eyes widen in fear and sudden knowledge of what was about to happen. And the moment was golden, because he could still hear his nameless friends out there, isolated but never silent, and surely somewhere behind him Steiner was urging him on.

  He brought a colossal hammerfist down onto the ref’s nose. Blood spurted onto the sweat-stained blue shirt, and the bridge cracked beneath his fist as easily as a toothpick. Splinters of bone shot backward into the man’s brain.

  Pit Bull gaze
d out at the crowd, nearly misty-eyed. I did it for you. Don’t you see? All for you.

  But the moment of glory and honor was short-lived. The ring was suddenly overrun with wrestlers whose matches were already over and done, and those who’d yet to fight. Tall, squat, black, white, they streamed in to take down this one of their own who had blown his last fuse, subdue him before anyone else got hurt. The way the crowd was reacting, he may very well hurdle the ropes and start in on them next.

  Pit Bull screamed and strained, his muscles quivering with the tension, and he felt himself being dragged away from his moment, his night. Overhead, the lights whirled through a drifting haze of smoke. There were too many of them, and it wasn’t fair, they were ganging up on him again, just like it had always been…because some things just never, ever change.

  “AL!” he shrieked. “HELP ME, AL, THEY’RE TAKING ME AWAY AGAIN, AL! DON’T LET ’EM TAKE ME AWAY! AAAAL!”

  And as he was half dragged, half carried from the ring, he rolled his head toward Steiner and saw his manager still in the corner of the ring, looking older than Pit Bull could ever remember. Al turned his head away. Al was crying.

  A moment later Pit Bull did likewise.

  Because he knew that he was suddenly alone again in the world.

  12

  The day was wrong from the beginning.

  Jason slipped through the glass doors of Kelly’s just before nine that morning and noticed that Marvin Pawley was acting the part of lord and master near the register. Marvin was Kelly’s manager, and Jason worked with him only on rare occasions, since Marvin generally ran the place at night and on weekends. The arrangement suited Jason fine, as Marvin was one of the slimier characters he’d ever encountered. Not that he did a bad job for Kelly—it was simply the way the man looked. Vitalis in his hair, Calvin Klein bronzer coating his wrinkled cheeks, gaudy rings adorning more than half of his plump, sluglike fingers. Jason felt sure if he hadn’t been hired by Kelly, he’d be off in the dusty back lot of a place called Screw-U Used Cars, plastic pennants flapping overhead.