And choked her. And choked her.
She gave up what was left of her life with a shiver and a thrusting of her pelvis, and finally she jammed her buttocks back into me and I felt myself ejaculate, thick and hot and rich as shaving foam.
Her hands fell to her side. I loosened the pressure on her throat but clung to her for a while, getting my breath and my strength back. When I felt strong enough, I let her go. She swung out and around on the rope and her knees bent and her head cocked up to stare blindly at the gap in the trees above, at the honey-golden moon.
· · ·
I left her there and went back to the house and slipped into the bedroom and took off my clothes. I removed my wet underwear carefully and wiped them out with toilet paper and flushed the paper down the toilet. I put the underwear in the clothes hamper. I put on fresh and climbed into bed and rubbed my hands over my wife’s buttocks until she moaned and woke up. I rolled her on her stomach and mounted her and made love to her. Hard, violent love, my forearm around her throat, not squeezing, but thinking about the Phone Woman, the sound she had made when I choked her from behind, the way her buttocks had thrust back into me at the end. I closed my eyes until the sound that Janet made was the sound the Phone Woman made and I could visualize her there in the moonlight, swinging by the rope.
· · ·
When it was over, I held Janet and she kissed me and joked about my arm around her throat, about how it seemed I had wanted to choke her. We laughed a little. She went to sleep. I let go of her and moved to my side of the bed and looked at the ceiling and thought about the Phone Woman. I tried to feel guilt. I could not. She had wanted it. She had tried for it many times. I had helped her do what she had never been able to manage. And I had felt alive again. Doing something on the edge. Taking a risk.
Well, journal, here’s the question: Am I a sociopath?
No. I love my wife. I love my child. I even love my Suburban Husky. I have never hunted and fished, because I thought I didn’t like to kill. But there are those who want to die. It is their one moment of life; to totter on the brink between light and darkness, to take the final, dark rush down a corridor of black, hot pain.
So, Oh Great White Pages, should I feel guilt, some inner torment, a fear that I am at heart a cold-blooded murderer?
I think not.
I gave the sweet gift of truly being alive to a woman who wanted someone to participate in her moment of joy. Death ended that, but without the threat of it, her moment would have been nothing. A stage rehearsal for a high-school play in street clothes.
Nor do I feel fear. The law will never suspect me. There’s no reason to. The Phone Woman had a record of near suicides. It would never occur to anyone to think she had died by anyone’s hand other than her own.
I felt content, in touch again with the lava beneath the primal crust. I have allowed it to boil up and burst through and flow, and now it has gone down once more. But it’s no longer a distant memory. It throbs and rolls and laps just below ready to jump and give me life. Are there others out there like me? Or better yet, others for me, like the Phone Woman?
Most certainly.
And now I will recognize them. The Phone Woman has taught me that. She came into my life on a silly morning and brought me adventure, took me away from the grind, and then she brought me more, much, much more. She helped me recognize the fine but perfect line between desire and murder; let me know that there are happy victims and loving executioners.
I will know the happy victims now when I see them, know who needs to be satisfied. I will give them their desire, while they give me mine.
· · ·
This last part with the Phone Woman happened last night and I am recording it now, while it is fresh, as Janet sleeps. I think of Janet in there and I have a hard time imagining her face. I want her, but I want her to be the Phone Woman, or someone like her.
I can feel the urge rising up in me again. The urge to give someone that tremendous double-edged surge of life and death.
It’s like they say about sex. Once you get it, you got to have it on a regular basis. But it isn’t sex I want. It’s something like it, only sweeter.
I’ll wrap this up. I’m tired. Thinking that I’ll have to wake Janet and take the edge off my need, imagine that she and I are going to do more than fornicate; that she wants to take that special plunge and that she wants me to shove her.
But she doesn’t want that. I’d know. I have to find that in my dreams, when I nestle down into the happy depths of the primitive brain.
At least until I find someone like the Phone Woman, again, that is. Someone with whom I can commit the finest of adultery.
And until that search proves fruitful and I have something special to report, dear diary, I say, good night.
Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches
I love science fiction, and I've always enjoyed alternate universe stories. I sat down one day with the intent to write one. And I did. It’s based on a number of historical interests of mine, and I really enjoyed twisting history, and hopefully twisting the reader.
DEAR HAWK:
Your letter stating that you can’t believe I’m not a Baptist, due to the fact my morals and yours are so similar, astonishes me. How can you think only Baptists are good people and lead happy lives? You’ve known me longer than that, even if most of our contact has been through letters and phone calls.
Well, I might ask you the same in reverse. How can you accept such a silly pagan religion? And if you must consider a religion, why not look back to your heritage, instead of taking on a Hebrew mythology.
And how in the world can you believe being a Baptist makes you happier than others?
I’m quite happy, thank you. I mean I have my ups and downs, but from your cards and letters, our occasional phone calls, so do you. Don’t we all?
In answering your question about why I don’t believe more fully, I might add that I’ve been a student, if not a scholar, of religions all my life, and I find nothing to recommend the Baptist over any other religion, no matter what the origin. Only the Aztec and their nasty custom of human sacrifice could be worse, and I’ll tell you, though it’s off the subject, I think the old Chief of this country is crazy as hell to sell them the makings for a nuclear reactor. I don’t care what sort of diplomatic gesture it was meant to be. Those heart-cutters get up here on us and it’s the last powwow, buddy. With just sticks and stones, practically, they ran the Spaniards off, so I sure don’t want to see them with the ability to make the big shitty boom machine, if you know what I mean? They’re tougher than us, I admit it. I say let’s let our technology be our muscle, and not let those mean pyramid builders have an equalizer, because with their attitude about war and sacrifice, they’re going to be a whole hell of a lot more equal than we are.
But that’s off the point, as usual.
On to why I’m not a Baptist. Well, first off, let’s keep this simple. Consult history text if you don’t believe me, though that won’t keep you from twisting them around to suit you, or from picking just those that say what you want them to say (I remember our argument before on the civil war with the Japs, and I’ve got to add, though I shouldn’t bring it up again, how you can side at all with those bastards after what they’ve done to our people on the West Coast is beyond me), so perhaps my asking you to examine historical text isn’t sound advice on my part, and you’re sure to take it as an insult.
But history does show, Hawk, that John the Baptist was not the only religious nut running around at that time, and it was only fate that gave him the honor (a dubious one in my book) of becoming the “Messiah.” I mean a dramatic death like decapitation and having the head put on a silver (does the text actually say silver, I can’t remember and am too lazy to check) platter, and then the fact that the execution was performed at the bidding of a dancehall floozy of the time, and the head presented to her as a gift, does have a certain element of showboating, and that’s just the sort of thing
people latch onto. High drama.
It always occurs to me that Jesus of Nazareth, mentioned briefly in your so-called “Holy Book,” and I believe he was a cousin or something to John if memory serves me, was as likely a candidate for martyrdom as John. Except for fate, he might well have been the one your congregation worships.
He, however, in spite of his many similarities to John, had the misfortune to suffer less than a martyr’s death. He was hit and killed by a runaway donkey cart and knocked up on the curbing with his, how was it put in the book…? Can’t remember, but something like “with his flanks exposed.” Words to that effect.
I believe it was Jesus’ inglorious death, more than anything else, that jockeyed him to a lowly position in the race toward Messiahism (did I make that word up?). He certainly had all the goods John did. Nice fanaticism, pie in the sky, promises of an afterlife, etc. But it seems to be in our natures to prefer bloody, dramatic demises such as decapitation, to a relatively minor death by a runaway donkey cart, the latter casualty being all the more jinxed by the fact that he ended up draped over some curb with his ass exposed, his little deep, brown eye winking at the world.
If we were more open-minded, a religion might have formed where Jesus was worshipped, and instead of the little bleeding head-on-a-platter medallions many of your congregation wear, they might be adorning themselves with little buttocks with donkey cart tracks across them.
Just a thought. Don’t get mad.
The other thing you mention is the Platter of Turin. And I admit to you that it is indeed mysterious and fascinating. But I’ve never seen nor read anything that convinces me that whatever is making itself manifest on the platter—and I also admit it does look like a head with a bleeding stump—is in fact, the likeness of John the Baptist. And even if it is his likeness, and somehow the trauma of his death caused it to be forever captured in the platter, that still does not mean he is the Messiah.
Consider the statue of Custer at the site of The Battle of the Little Big Horn. Many have reported (and I believe it has been filmed) that it bleeds from the mouth, nose, ears and mouth from time to time. To some, this was interpreted to mean that Custer was a Saint and that the statue could cure illnesses. I know from our letters in the past that you hardly believe Custer a Saint, quite the contrary.
What I’m saying is this: there are many mysteries in the world, Hawk, and there are many interpretations. You need only choose a mystery and an interpretation to suit you.
Well, got to cut this short. Got to get dressed. There’s a meeting tonight. They’re having another public execution, and it’s about time. Bunch of niggers are going to be crucified along Caddo Street and I don’t want to miss that. Those stupid black bastards thinking they’re good as us makes me ill. I’ve had my hood and robes starched special for the occasion, and I’m actually getting to light one of the pitch-covered niggers placed at the end to provide light. I also get to lead the local Scout troops in a song. I’m excited.
Oh, almost forgot. If you haven’t read about it, we finally got that troublemaker Martin Luther King, and he’s the main feature tonight. I know from your letters that you have a sort of begrudging respect for him, and I must admit his guerrilla activities conducted with only twenty-two men throughout the South have been brilliant for his kind. But after tonight he’ll plague the South no more.
As I said, wish you could be here, but I know you’ve got a big pow-wow going up there and I wish I could see it. Like to see your tribe strip the skin off those White Eyes slow and easy. They’re worse than our niggers, and I’m only glad the last of them (far as we know) have been eliminated down here.
Another thing just hit me about this Baptist business, and I’ll go ahead and get it off my chest. Here we are getting rid of the whites and the niggers, and you and some others have adopted their silly religion. I admit that our own is pretty damned dumb (Great Heap Big Spirit, ugh), but doesn’t that kind of thing, accepting their religion, give the lowlifes a sort of existence through us? Think about it.
Guess while I’m bad mouthing them, might as well admit I’m against the trend that wants to drop all of their ways, as some of them would just be too difficult to adopt. This two moons and two suns bit is just ridiculous. With automobiles that method is no longer correct. What used to be a two day trip is now only a matter of hours. And this switch over from their language to ours, the use of Cherokee writing for all tribes, is going to be a pain. I mean we’ll all be speaking our tribal languages, translating the writing to Cherokee and when we all get together how are we going to converse? Which language will we pick? Cherokee for writing, because of their good alphabet, makes sense, but which will be the superior tribal language, and how’s it going to go down with folks when one is chosen over all the others?
Oh, to hell with it. This old gal is going to have to get to stepping or she isn’t going to have time to get dressed and moving.
Best to you, Running Fox
By the Hair of the Head
This was my attempt to write something quiet and sneaky and creepy. I wrote it specifically with Charlie Grant and the anthology series he edited in the 1980’s, Shadows, in mind. I wanted to write a story that had the feel of the old Alfred Hitchcock TV series, and I think I did just that. It could be called a story of witchcraft. A ghost story. A story of psychological suspense. It sort of depends on the reader.
THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS GREY and brutally weathered, kissed each morning by a cold, salt spray. Perched there among the rocks and sand, it seemed a last, weak sentinel against an encroaching sea; a relentless, pounding surf that had slowly swallowed up the shoreline and deposited it in the all-consuming belly of the ocean.
Once the lighthouse had been bright-colored, candy-striped like a barber’s pole, with a high beacon light and a horn that honked out to the ships on the sea. No more. The lighthouse director, the last of a long line of sea watchers, had cashed in the job ten years back when the need died, but the lighthouse was now his and he lived there alone, bunked down nightly to the tune of the wind and the raging sea.
Below he had renovated the bottom of the tower and built rooms, and one of these he had locked away from all persons, from all eyes but his own.
I came there fresh from college to write my novel, dreams of being the new Norman Mailer dancing in my head. I rented in with him, as he needed a boarder to help him pay for the place, for he no longer worked and his pension was as meager as stale bread.
High up in the top was where we lived, a bamboo partition drawn between our cots each night, giving us some semblance of privacy, and dark curtains were pulled round the thick, foggy windows that traveled the tower completely around.
By day the curtains were drawn and the partition was pulled and I sat at my typewriter, and he, Howard Machen, sat with his book and his pipe, swelled the room full of grey smoke the thickness of his beard. Sometimes he rose and went below, but he was always quiet and never disturbed my work.
It was a pleasant life. Agreeable to both of us. Mornings we had coffee outside on the little railed walkway and had a word or two as well, then I went to my work and he to his book, and at dinner we had food and talk and brandies; sometimes one, sometimes two, depending on mood and the content of our chatter.
We sometimes spoke of the lighthouse and he told me of the old days, of how he had shone that light out many times on the sea. Out like a great, bright fishing line to snag the ships and guide them in; let them follow the light in the manner that Theseus followed Ariadne’s thread.
“Was fine,” he’d say. “That pretty old light flashing out there. Best job I had in all my born days. Just couldn’t leave her when she shut down, so I bought her.”
“It is beautiful up here, but lonely at times.”
“I have my company.”
I took that as a compliment, and we tossed off another brandy.
Any idea of my writing later I cast aside. I had done four good pages and was content to spit the rest of the day away in talk and
dreams.
“You say this was your best job,” I said as a way of conversation. “What did you do before this?”
He lifted his head and looked at me over the briar and its smoke. His eyes squinted against the tinge of the tobacco. “A good many things. I was born in Wales. Moved to Ireland with my family, was brought up there, and went to work there. Learned the carpentry trade from my father. Later I was a tailor. I’ve also been a mason—note the rooms I built below with my own two hands—and I’ve been a boat builder and a ventriloquist in a magician’s show.”
“A ventriloquist?”
“Correct,” he said, and his voice danced around me and seemed not to come from where he sat.
“Hey, that’s good.”
“Not so good really. I was never good, just sort of fell into it. I’m worse now. No practice, but I’ve no urge to take it up again.”
“I’ve an interest in such things.”
“Have you now?”
“Yes.”
“Ever tried a bit of voice throwing?”
“No. But it interests me. The magic stuff interests me more. You said you worked in a magician’s show?”
“That I did. I was the lead-up act.”
“Learn any of the magic tricks, being an insider and all?”
“That I did, but that’s not something I’m interested in,” he said flatly.
High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale Page 23