by A M Homes
In order that I might get my proper view, the area must be shaved—I abhor pubic hair, it is not a winning thing.
Even my own, I keep cut, trimmed to a neat square, groomed like the green around a monument. And to keep my concentration, to do my best work, to avoid being struck by flailing limbs, she must be restrained. Quite routine. Wrists tied behind the head—in older girls this keeps the breasts pulled back and helps the chest look flat. Legs spread. Ankles bound. She should be racked and stretched, no way for the knees to bend, no quick reflex to defend, no accidental injury to the operator—that is, me. An inadvertent knee jerk to the groin is the last thing I need. For the procedure to commence, I sit between her legs, her mound faces fuzz up.
A simple aside: Another reason I dislike girls of significant age is that uncorked, uncovered, they reek of sexual steam, like something long simmering finally released. I hate the smell of cunt ready and waiting. I want it green, before it is ripe, before it has an odor easily discerned.
Fast as I can, I spray the muff with a heavy load of shaving cream. In the past I’ve doused girls with a chemical defoliant, but they writhed too much, made claim it burned. (Once, some did leak on me and I got a nasty spot through my pants, a raw, oozing sore on my leg.) So, mostly now, I shave. There is something to them watching me while I work the razor, stropping the blade before their eyes—letting them wonder where it will ultimately go. Before I sharpen, I sweep the dull end over their slits, their tits, and into their mouths, and sometimes if I’m feeling frank, I flip it over, cut off a hank of their hair, and tuck it into their mouths—girls like to suck on that, you see them doing it all the time.
With five fast strokes I scrape them down and then real fast do a second round. I slather them with foam, decorate the raunchy rat with Barbasol or the milky white of sweet whipped cream. Again, five fast strokes, I give it the go, taking care on the corners, trying not to nick the lips. Around the anus and close inside there are strays I can’t get to with the blade, and so finished with the shave, I come back with a candle and with its flickery flame melt the rest away—the hot wax dripping on the skin an extra thrill, a hint of things to come.
Stripped clean, you are my girl. I fuck you with my fingers. Spit on the spot and, using the salve of my saliva, slip the initial indexer in. The ivory of my nail, my tiny tusk, scrapes your hallowed hall. Pit of pleasure, I patiently explore, knocking my knuckles on your private prison walls, pushing at the boundaries of flesh. I jam in, each time adding extra digits, sure if I work it right, soon I’ll find you on my fist.
I am at the center of you.
Flick my thumb against the hidden hood, the most tender morsel in its overcoat. I push back that skin, letting out the little lump, my clam, oysterette, what women call their little prick. I suck that snail, eat escargot. Breath escapes you with your cum. You cum and I do not stop, I go on knowing what comes next, the best is after last, there is always more—always something interesting just the other side of pain.
I kiss. Having always wanted to make out with these sacred spots, I brush your lips with my own, blow you with my breath. I kiss so softly you don’t know I’m there. Lip to lip. I kiss this second mouth, part it with my tongue, toothless shark, lots of layers folding and un, becoming quite like tiny tongues. I speak into you, saying things I cannot tell you to your face.
Curl my lip, roll it back, and expose my teeth; fuck you with my face, scraping the liquid of your ecstasy, scraping until your flesh is weak, until you break and begin to bleed. And then I suck that blood, drink you down.
And saving the best for last, I pull out the most favored toy, my precious BB gun—a long-dead father’s gift to his only son. I travel with it tucked inside my bag and rarely use it, but today is special because I’m here with you. So I unpack the would-be rifle, pump it up three times, and put it to you. I blast you once and you buck a bit; the second time you seem still surprised as though no one had ever thought of such a thing. I stroke the barrel and am filled with memories; screaming squirrels, broken bottles, bull’s-eye pucks in widows’ windows. The black paint is chipping. Again, I pull the trigger and then withdraw, leaving you with my ball bearings buried in your walls. You look so perplexed. Oyster, don’t you get it? In your shell I have put three grains of sand. Make me a pearl!
TWELVE
Random swearing in the hall. Things overheard.
“Walk me down. Walk me down. Why my woman always walk me down? Bitch, whore, fucking cunt. Why you look at me like that? Oh, the humanity. What for lunch?”
“You can’t run and you can’t hide, where you gonna go, death row? Ha, ha, ha, ha.”
Prison. Bells. Fourth of July. The pyrotechnic plot. Rumor swirls, the rooster crows, something is up, word is passed down, around, we are due for a visitation; a reward or a shakedown? Nervous with anticipation, the men surreptitiously do a late-spring cleaning, disposing of all illicit stock. When the rising timbre, the tidal wave’s roar, the fiery flush of industrial-strength toilets becomes so violent, so self-determined as to threaten the septic system, an investigation is instigated. The men, well rehearsed, claim the culprit is something served for dinner the night before, if not the fish sticks, then the tartar sauce. The doctor—the man of my so recent acquaintance—is called, and we are ordered to bare our butts, bend over at the cell door and let his proxy’s latex fingers slip us bullets to bind. But as soon as they are gone, the tiny torpedoes of Compazine are fired out the ass, medicating only the toilet water. You can lock us up, but you can’t keep us down.
Due to the overload, the water is shut off for several hours. At 4 P.M. we are given the word that despite the surprising epidemic of gastrointestinal upset, our nearly riot level of anxious activity, despite the stoned and sedated state of those men who were not quick enough to squirt their suppositories—the evening’s events will go on.
In a grand gesture of community relations, of seemingly selfless sacrifice, the denizens of the town nearby have switched the site of their planned pyrotechnics so that we might passively participate. This year they will fire their fanfare due south so that we behind the walls might have something to see. Snacks will be served. Attendance is required.
Eight P.M. Out of our cages and into the hallway. Men hesitant to leave the luxury of home are pulled from their cells by guards in riot gear. We are handcuffed and hobbled, arms and legs joined in giant ropes of chain. Twelve men form a line. The guards, even though they’re getting time and a half for holiday service, aren’t happy. Scared shitless is more like it—they’ve never taken us out at night. Like a conga line we move through the maze, threading through the tunnels and traps, the same old hallways painted battleship gray. With the chink-a-chink-a rhythm of so much chain, the tragic dance of the bound and tied, the shimmying shake of a tambourine, jingle bells, we wind down and around. Right to left, side to side, whatever you do you do it together, in concert with the man in front of you. The extension of the chain is short, and in order not to be pulled and pained, one has to learn the way. Penguins hop. Synchronous swimmers. June Taylor dancers. Slithering snake. We wrap around the yard and are positioned, stretched out in even lines.
“Sit,” the guard before us barks. And we do, lowering ourselves to the ground. It is a herky-jerky thing.
“They’re treating us like dogs, animals, put out for the night,” Kleinman says, scratching himself.
The high carbon arcs of the towers cast a glow over the yard. Bright white. Light, so much light. An opera, a grand opening eve. Ushers-cum-guards work their flashlights like lasers, leading prisoners to their seats. The far stone walls have become a backdrop to the most classical of stage sets—we are the theater.
Through a broken bullhorn, the majordomo addresses us. Only bits and pieces are audible. His cracked address sounds something like this:
“Grateful to the town of ale firing jerks in our face, spiritual if and Owen Overstern, fucking flasher, for aching this onerous gift, the ax you are about to receive, eat candy, m
en, dentist month. Annoy! Annoy!”
Razor wire glitters, glinting like something hungry. I wonder what else it’s caught besides Jerusalem’s flesh and the occasional cat who gets its furry throat slit while the bird it chased takes off—the revenge of flight.
“Treats, treats, pass us some sweets,” Frazier begins the chant.
Volunteers, graduate students in criminology, work their way up and down the rows, passing out the party favors, big boxes of Cracker Jacks, past their expiration date, all of them opened and with the prizes removed.
The lights go off. We are dropped into darkness. There is a steaming hiss, the sudden suck of breath. A hush sweeps the crowd.
It’s been more than two decades since I’ve seen the night. The sky hangs like a velvet curtain. I stare at the stars, picking out Polaris,- the Big and Little Dippers, and Cassiopeia, the queen. I offer them the simpleton’s prayer, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish tonight.”
In the distance there is a dull thud. We sit in our stone cage, black box, blind and dumb. A few flashlights play over the crowd. The curtain lifts, the first one clears the wall, a fine white burst exploding into a thousand stars. I try quickly naming them before they disappear: Alice and Amy, Barbara and Betty, Cathy and Caroline.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Bombardiers. Chrysanthemums of light.
Sparkles fall like fairy dust and I am doused in memory. Fourth of July: I set a hundred sparklers in my grandmother’s yard—spend the early evening pushing them down into the grass—and when darkness falls, I call my grandmother onto the porch and race to light them one by one, firing them like the magical spill of a domino line.
“Don’t use all my Blue Diamonds or you’ll be down to fetch me matches come morning,” my grandmother shouts. “I’m using punk,” I call back. “Only punk.”
“That’s right, you’re a punk. Glad you know it.”
“Scorched,” she says the next morning. “You burned my grass, that was good zoysia I had there.”
Another time, older still, I go off into the woods with my secret stash. In broad daylight of an Independence morn, I fire my works at the rising sun, hold the Roman candle in my hand, light the line, and send off balloons of color, sour balls of light, all of it aimed toward that stronger light. There was something sad about sending up at the height of day, sadder still than in the night. I set my sno-cone in an empty field, lit the fuse, and while it rained, danced around the flames, letting them shower me, dotting my skin with bits of glittering light, stinging me like an insect’s bite.
Prison night. Elbow in my side. “You eating yours?” Frazier asks, pointing at my Cracker Jacks. I shake my head and hand him the box. It is better this way. I used to love Cracker Jacks and caramel corn, but just from having it in hand, I can feel how far gone it is, how passe. After so long an absence, so many years, nothing would be worse than eating stale candy.
Mama is home from the asylum. She takes me to the baths—you remember that—and then to a cheap motel. “Widow’s got to watch her wallet,” she says, pouring herself a glass of gin. “My medication,” she calls it. “I am a woman who needs her medication. Here”—she holds out the glass to me—“take a taste, it won’t kill you.”
I shake my head.
She lies down on the bed. “A little nap,” she says. Her head is down on the pillow and she is asleep.
I wash my hand. Soap and water. I wash my hand and arm up to the elbow. I wash my hand until it is burning red, until the skin can’t get any cleaner without being taken off, boiled, and hung out to dry. I scrub myself thoroughly.
My mother lies facedown on the white chenille bedspread, her fingers reading the braille rose, the white relief, the dit-dit-da dashing of Morse code like a somnambulist. My eyes grow heavy and I lie next to her. Her arm hooks around me. Mama and her boy in a close knot. My hand beats, pulses, throbs with the memory of her on my fist. Mama fitted around me. And me pushing hard and harder against her, into her. I reach beneath the blankets and touch myself. When I wake up, Mama is gone. The sheets are peeled back, and in the middle of the pit where Mama had lain, there is a bright blush of red, a thick red streak, blood. I scream. “Blood. There’s blood.”
She is in the bathroom, I can hear the whining of the hot and cold taps. My fault. All my fault.
“My curse,” Mama says through the bathroom door. “It’s my curse.”
And then the door opens and she is dressed, made for the day. “Did you sleep?” she asks. “Dream a pleasant dream?” She speaks as if singing, writing herself little lyrics, little lines. She is fine, like herself, like she has always been, exactly as I remember her. Were it not for my hand, my sore hand, I would think it had not happened at all. I would think it was something that had leapt out of me, a bit of my imagination. Me. It must be me. My stomach turns. It is I who’s slipped through God’s graces and done such a terrible thing. My hand beats, pulses, throbs with the terrible reminder, and yet she seems without these after-effects. I want to lift her dress, snake my fingers, my eyes, into what lies in that lost location, searching to see if beneath its protective costume, its mask, it is truly unaffected, unamused, or whether it is indeed weeping, seeping from the events.
She acts as if everything is as it has always been, as if she is still my mother and I her son.
“You look a little pale, do you need some lipstick?”
Her hand dips under her dress, her legs bow slightly, she pulls out fingers dipped in rust. She paints blood across my lips.
Strontium red stains the sky.
One if by land, two if by sea, you fuck me with your history. Thomas J. and the nation’s birthday—it’s like Marilyn singing to JFK. I come real close and whisper breathless in your ear, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you merciless fuck, on this the anniversary of your Independence Day.” Seventy-six trombones at the big parade, and the only horn we hear is the farting bleat of the tower tuba when someone tries to escape. We, the captured and convicted, are kept bound and chained so that we might not destroy the fragile foundations of this great society—there is so much subtext between the lofty lines. I have memorized the document my correspondent sent—I have gone over it replaying the words of our most independent declaration:
“When in the course of human events…”
A sick trick you play, keeping us jailed on Independence Day. Better it would be if we stayed inside and passed it oh so quietly. Better yet, let’s pretend—as we so often do—it never happened.
Revolution! Light flashes against the false horizon, the old stone walls. The ramparts are being bombed while we are held inside, a secret cache, war’s prize. Regiments of proud perverts have been rounded up, recruited from every backroom bar, brothel, and jolly house up and down your stinky streets, and they’re here now on the distant shore preparing to charge these steely gates. Inside, we rattle our chains, our holy cuffs, and pray aloud that our side wins. Dark victory.
A blue mum explodes in the sky. Clayton, in the row ahead of me, turns and winks. He looks at me and licks his lips. I curl my tongue around a haul of spit and fire it straight at him.
Amber, amber, white. Again, chrysanthemums of light.
She writes: I’m kind of a romantic, are you? Despite my weirdness, I’m pretty old-fashioned.
Alice, darling, dear one, where are you?” A woman’s voice calls through the woods.
“I’m hiding,” Alice answers.
“Where are you?”
“I’m hiding.”
“Sweetie, pumpkin, darling, where are you?”
“Hiding.”
“I’m driving into town to pick up a few things. I thought I’d buy you a little something. Do you want to pick it out yourself? Where are you?”
“Coming,” she screams, quickly gathering her quiver, her bow, and remaining supplies.
She takes off up the hill, leaving me naked, tied to the tree. “See you later,” she calls to me.
&n
bsp; The ease with which she abandons me is thrilling. I am naked in the New Hampshire woods, tied to a tree. The rough bark rubs my buttocks raw as I wiggle trying to free myself. I have been bound and tied by a wicked wood nymph. I writhe. My tumescence rises farther still, stimulated by my situation. A breeze stirs the trees, sweeping over, tickling me. I sneeze first, then cum, shooting off aimlessly into the afternoon.
Confused. I am confusing her with another one. I am lost in time. I begged myself not to play this game, she is not that girl but some other one. Are they all the same? How many were there, can my fingers count that high? Memory is such an elusive thing. I had none until the letters arrived, and now I am like a man unleashed. Until these days, this high holy night, it was as if my history had slipped away from me. I remembered nothing—but never told them that, too embarrassing. I played along, quite ashamed at the recalcitrance of my recollection whenever official inquiries were made, a gentle tap, tapping on my mental door, “Excuse me, sir, we want to ask about one more. Did you do it, yes or no?”
“God, yes,” I’d declare, convinced that their criminal concoctions were quite conservative compared to what crimes I’d convinced myself that I’d committed. “God, yes,” I’d confess to anything, sure that in fact I’d done far worse. Far, far worse.
And now I wonder…
Am I losing my mind or just getting it back? Suddenly, I know too much, can all too well recall the details of my atrocities.
There is an elbow in my rib. “Stop mumbling,” Frazier says. “You’re talking in your sleep.”
I turn to Frazier, rattle my chains, and say, “She left a butterfly outside my door. Hoary Elfin is its name.”
A gold report divides the sky.
High, so high. I am the sky, the jet-black night. It is me turned inside out. I am taking this great salute as a tribute to my years, my fine accomplishments. It is so. It is such. Thank you. Thank you so much. Free. Free within myself, unbound, time to spread the word around. Soon I will be out there further still, tap, tapping on your windowsill. It is time for me to take my leave. Here, there is nothing left for me.