Monster Behind the Wheel

by Michael McCarty

  “I told you, man, I’ve been going through a rough divorce, and your old lady has been helping me get through it.”

  “Lies. You lying fucker,” Frank screamed and pulled the trigger.

  Garth’s head exploded. Blood and gore covered the garage’s walls.

  I turned away, eyes squeezed shut. When I finally opened them and turned around, everything was back to normal. No skull slop splashed all over hell. Just a few oil stains.

  The walk from the garage to the house wasn’t that far—only across a small stretch of lawn—but it felt like a million miles. I couldn’t shake the feeling of night-crawlers-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach dread. Gramps’s words, the vision of Frank killing Garth. The way I’d slapped my own stepsister. Dread.

  Connie was wearing her pink robe and had a towel wrapped around her head. On the kitchen table were two plates, each with a steak, a baked potato, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down.

  The combination of steak, potatoes, and cold beer left my belly feeling happily full. I spent the rest of the evening unpacking my stuff and reading A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, which is really King Lear set on a farm. Connie sat in the living room watching cable TV.

  In the middle of the night, I woke up with an erection. Not exactly an uncommon thing among men. My cock felt like a burning steel rod. I thought I had to take a piss to remedy the problem.

  I didn’t. I was still rock hard. I walked past Connie’s bedroom. The door was wide open so I peeked inside.

  The first thing I noticed was that all the covers had been kicked to the floor. She was sleeping on her stomach, wearing a flimsy purple nightgown and snoring like a drunken armadillo.

  I walked over to the side of the bed and lifted her nightgown. Connie wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  My erection grew even harder. I pulled it out and put some spit on it.

  I climbed on top of her and started fucking her up the ass. I’m not sure why—that’s not my style—but still, it felt good.

  Connie started moaning softly and said, “Oh, Frank . . . Frank . . . yeah, baby . . .”

  I should have been furious, but I kept on pumping and pumping. Finally I came. I rolled over, took a pillow next to Connie, and went back to sleep.

  The next morning, I thought Connie would be pissed at me for waking her up in the middle of the night to get some tail. But she was whistling in the kitchen.

  “Hello, schnookums,” she purred. She kissed me on the lips. “Could you do me a favor? Run to the store and get us some eggs. I’m gonna make omelets.”

  It seemed she wanted me to do a lot of favors since I moved in, but I didn’t complain. Her cooking was fabulous, and I was still happy from the sex. Besides, I was fully dressed, and she was in her purple nightgown.

  “No problemo,” I said, grabbing my car keys.

  Once I was out the front door, I heard a noise like a car motor running, coming from the garage. But that made no sense. After dinner, I had parked Connie’s Lexus in the garage and of course had turned off the ignition. I distinctly remembered putting her keys on the kitchen table next to a vase filled with daffodils.

  I opened the garage door, and the place was filled with writhing blue fumes. I went into a coughing fit and had to step out for fresh air.

  After I was done gasping for breath, I walked back into the garage. It wasn’t as smoky now. Then I noticed Monster was parked beside Connie’s Lexus.

  I hadn’t parked Monster in there the night before. I’d left the car on the street.

  And yet Monster was in here and running. I walked up to the car and opened the door.

  Darrin Wagner’s dead body fell out onto the concrete floor.

  PART FIVE

  RUNNING ON EMPTY

  THE ROAD TO HELL

  the highway is one

  long stretched-out graveyard

  intestines splattered down

  the middle of the road

  hung bodies swing back

  and forth from the overpass

  the median strip is made

  of stegosaurus backbones

  bloody heads are posted

  on the top of exit signs

  the off-ramps all lead

  to eternal damnation

  —Jeremy Carmichael, poem for English composition

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BIRD IS THE WORD

  Connie and I were questioned by the cops for a couple of hours. It appeared that Monster had been hot-wired, but that didn’t explain much. They kept asking the same questions over and over again.

  “Did you know the deceased?”

  “Yes, he was my lawyer.”

  “Why did he commit suicide in your car?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Where were you last night, Mr. Carmichael?”

  “Here.”

  “Is that true, Mrs. Edmondson?”

  “Yes, Jeremy spent the night with me.”

  “Didn’t you hear anything in the night?”

  “No. Why would we? The garage is separate from the house.”

  So on and so forth.

  The police couldn’t prove foul play was involved. It was weird. Weird as hell. But there was nothing linking me to Darrin’s suicide except that he was my attorney and he’d used my car to buy the farm. And we’re not talking an agricultural real estate purchase.

  After the authorities left, so did Connie. She didn’t say where she was going or how long she planned to be gone. She just took the Lexus without so much as a good-bye.

  I ate some cereal. After breakfast I took a shower. The whole incident left me feeling like I was coated with a thin layer of slime. The shower drain was draped with a sad little swirly wad of my hair, so I picked it up and flushed it down the toilet. The window and mirrors were covered in steam, and I opened a window to let some fresh air in and cool off the bathroom.

  I was getting ready to brush my teeth—my remaining teeth, I should say—when I realized I hadn’t unpacked my toothbrush and toothpaste. I went to my bedroom to get them. When I came back to the bathroom, I saw a black crow on the windowsill. The bird stared at me.

  “Shoo,” I commanded.

  The bird ignored me. Then a couple more crows crowded onto the sill.

  I turned on the water in the sink. I heard the flutter of wings. Five more crows had joined the others.

  “You guys are too much,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  I left the bathroom and looked for something to scare the birds away. I saw a broom, but there were too many crows for that. Maybe Connie had a gun somewhere.

  Then I saw a little red fire extinguisher, draped with cobwebs, hanging from its mounting in the hall. I grabbed it and ran into the bathroom. I gave it a good shake to get its juices percolating and then started spraying the crows with white foam.

  They flew off shrieking.

  “Filthy flying rats,” I said, returning the extinguisher to its place in the hall.

  When I came back into the bathroom, the eight crows had returned, but now they were dripping with the white compound. It was as if they were doing a sloppy Al Jolson routine in reverse.

  “What do I need? A flamethrower?” I felt like a crazy street person, talking to those birds as though they could comprehend even a single word of what I was saying.

  I was sweating profusely, and my heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to pound itself out of me, like that chest-busting critter in Alien.

  More crows were waiting in the maple tree in the backyard. They covered the tree like black leaves. The birds made no sound, watching my every move.

  “Fuck it,” I said to the birds on the sill. “I’m just going on with my day. Is that okay with you buzzards? I think I’ll be taking a shit in a few minutes. Want to watch that, too? Charge admission to your buddies in the trees?”

  I started brushing my teeth, with all those shiny dark eyes staring at me. I rinsed my mouth and spit the water into the sink. But the water wasn’t the only th
ing that dropped into the sink.

  All my teeth fell out.

  I opened my mouth and gazed into the mirror. Not a tooth was left. My gums weren’t even bleeding. The holes left by the teeth were already starting to close up. My mouth looked pink and shiny, like freshly chewed bubble gum.

  I felt like crying. I felt like shouting. I felt like smashing the mirror into a million pieces and taking one of the shards and running it across my wrist. But I did none of those things. I just stared into the mirror.

  My teeth had been falling out one at a time, so I’d come to the natural conclusion that they would all fall out eventually, maybe over a period of months. And before that happened, maybe I’d figure out a solution to the whole mess. Maybe get a different job, one with dental benefits. I didn’t expect it to happen all at once.

  But as I stared, this new development suddenly brought a sense of relief. Tooth wise, the worst was over.

  One of the crows flew off the sill. Then the rest of the crows on the sill and in the tree did the same. The black birds flew around and around in a circle in the backyard like a bird tornado. Finally they took to the sky and disappeared in the distance.

  No more birds. No more teeth.

  Now what? I couldn’t go around toothless. I still needed to eat. Smile. Talk.

  I put my toothpaste in the medicine cabinet, though I should have simply thrown it away. Wouldn’t be needing that shit anymore.

  Inside, I saw a plastic case for dentures.

  I knew Connie didn’t wear dentures. They must have belonged to Frank. I opened the box and found a set of fake chompers with big, square teeth. But at least they were clean.

  My dad had worn dentures, and I remember him telling me once that dentures had to be specially fitted. That meant every set of dentures was as individual as the contours of the fleshy curves and bumps inside the wearer’s mouth.

  The thought of wearing Frank’s false teeth made me want to vomit. But I needed to do something. The thought of being seen toothless was equally repulsive.

  I decided to try them on.

  It was a temporary solution until I could go out and get my own. I knew these teeth wouldn’t fit properly, but I’d use them until I could afford to see a dentist.

  I examined the different tubes in the medicine cabinet until I found denture cream. I applied the ooze to the false teeth and put them in my mouth.

  They fit.

  Like a hand in a rubber glove.

  Like a cock in a condom.

  A snug, easy fit.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHA-CHA-CHA-CHANGES

  Later I got a call from Mr. Pizza and put in some hours there. Nobody said anything about my new teeth, but I could tell people wanted to say something. They were bigger than my regular teeth, so certainly they knew a major change had transpired.

  People’s teeth just don’t suddenly enlarge.

  Of course, they were also whiter than my own teeth, so maybe folks figured I’d had my teeth cleaned. Or capped.

  Before leaving the house for work, I’d hidden the teeth in my guitar. I should have thrown them away, like I’d tossed out the others I’d lost. But at the last minute, with a handful of ivory held over the trash, I’d thought, Someday I should have these teeth analyzed by a dentist or a scientist.

  So I kept them.

  It was late by the time I returned to Connie’s place, and she came back about ten minutes after me. She didn’t offer an explanation of where she’d been, but I could tell she’d spent time at a bar. Her eyes were bloodshot and she smelled of smoke. She was carrying a brown paper bag.

  “I went to Wonder Wok,” Connie said. “I didn’t know what you’d want, so I got Mongolian beef.”

  I’d never been there. I usually got my Chinese at the Great Wall off Nineteenth Street, and I usually ordered the sweet-and-sour chicken. But the Mongolian beef was lip-smacking delicious. The beef was spicy and tender, and the vegetables were fresh and crunchy.

  “I’m sorry I took off like that,” Connie said. “I needed to spend time by myself. I mean, a dead guy in the garage, that just—” Suddenly she squinted. “Hon, what’s up with your teeth? Did you have some work done on them today?”

  “You could say that. How do they look?” I gave her a big, toothy grin.

  “Fierce. A real meat eater.” She smiled. “They make you look manly. More manly, I mean.” She cocked her head. “Is it my imagination or are you looking . . . older? Yeah, now that I think of it, you look a lot older. Older than that limpy boy who showed up at my door wantin’ to buy the Barracuda.”

  I nodded. “I suppose so. Pain ages a person, and I’ve been through a lot of pain.”

  Her lips curled down in a pout. “I know you have. You’re so brave; you really are.” Then her lips turned up in a bright smile. “Why, if you keep aging like this, you and me will be the same age pretty soon. But now, when you hit my age, you’d better stop, okay? I ain’t taking care of an old man in an adult diaper.”

  The rest of the evening, Connie watched cable TV and drank beer. I returned to my room and stretched out on the bed to read.

  After a couple hours, a claustrophobic feeling came over me. It seemed like the walls were going to close in. I decided to sneak out of the house and go for a ride. But when I got off the bed, a button popped on my button-fly jeans.

  Apparently all that good eating had taken its toll on my waistline.

  I took off my jeans. But even my underpants felt tight, so I took them off, too.

  My dick looked . . . different.

  Every man knows his private parts better than almost any other part on his body. Chop off his hand and put it with ten other hands—he might be able to find it. Do the same thing with his dick, and he’d find it in a second.

  And this. Wasn’t. My. Dick.

  It was shorter, thicker, uncircumcised, had a mole, and curved to the left.

  I could almost deal with losing all my teeth and some hair. But this was too much.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  I mean, at least I still had a dick. It hadn’t fallen out, like my teeth or hair.

  Imagine taking a shower, and finding your dick nestled against the drain. Wouldn’t that be a pisser?

  I put on another pair of pants and couldn’t get them over my thighs.

  I tried another pair. The same thing.

  It was like my legs had lengthened and my waist and thighs had fattened up. There was no way I could wear any of my old pants. I was now two sizes bigger.

  But in the back of my mind . . . Yeah, I knew where I could get some pants that would fit juuuuust fine.

  I walked into Connie’s bedroom and opened the top drawer to her dresser. Bras, panties, and pairs of panty hose. Wrong drawer.

  I hoped she hadn’t thrown Frank’s clothes away. After all, she hadn’t tossed out his dentures or even the adhesive cream.

  I tried the second drawer, then the third. Bingo. Men’s slacks, khaki pants, and jeans. I slid on a pair of khaki pants.

  They fit perfectly.

  I went to the door, reached for the knob . . . and found myself walking through a city of the dead. Overhead, black crows circled, following my every desperate step, waiting for me to keel over so they could feast on my pitiful remains.

  I kept walking.

  I waded through streets of blood. The sewers were overflowing as the blood rolled and gurgled down the roads. My clothes were stained with more crimson than a ketchup factory. On the sidewalks were piles and piles of corpses. The air stank of sweet-and-sour rot.

  I kept walking.

  I came across graffiti someone had spray-painted on the side of a building. It read: The doomed shall inherit the earth. I think it was meant to be some kind of sick joke. But it was true. Milk goes bad. Leaves turn brown and crispy dry. All creatures great and small die and turn to slime. Ruin always wins in the end.

  Up ahead was a sign. On its bright yellow background were big black letters that spelle
d out Destruction Testing Zone. I felt like that was the sign of my life. I was always testing the boundaries of my own destruction.

  I was unclear of what the sign meant but soon found out. The area I had walked into looked like something out of a gruesome, grainy old driver’s ed film: Brain Splattered on Highway 66 . . . The Flaming Death of Drinking and Driving . . . Hell Hits the Highway . . . you get the idea.

  There were cars crashed against the walls, trees, barricades. Two cars had merged together into a crumpled, crippled mess via a head-on collision. And buried beneath the broken windshields and twisted metal frames were crash-test dummies. The bland-faced mannequins that gushed over seat belts in TV commercials.

  I heard groaning. A low, anguished groaning with a touch of a sad rattle.

  I turned around and saw one of the dummies crawl out of the broken glass. He staggered to his feet, brushed pieces of windshield off his tattered tan jumpsuit, and started limping toward me.

  Another dummy heaved open the crumpled door of the wreck he’d been driving. The door fell off its hinges, and he scrambled out.

  Yet another dummy had been thrown through the windshield and was lying on the ground. The crash had decapitated him. But that didn’t stop him. He picked up his head and moved it around until his dead eyes spotted me. He headed straight in my direction.

  The whole yard was soon filled with crash-test dummies walking or limping toward me.

  Ahead of me loomed a huge building with cracked, shit-streaked plate-glass windows and a sign over the rusted double doors that read, Gymnauseum.

  I ran into the building and found myself standing in the middle of an exercise area with cobwebs covering most of the equipment. I looked out through one of the windows. The dummies wandered right past the buildings. Made sense. Dummies never take care of themselves.

  I turned back toward the gym and looked over the situation.