“I guess. Bring it back?”
“Sure.” I grabbed the pamphlet and shoved it into my bag.
I paid for my stuff, went back to my apartment, drank and smoked until I vomited, and went to bed.
* * *
I woke up in my bed but it may as well have been a bar floor. The stench of smoke, along with the nearly floral odor of slightly stale beer, hung in the apartment. I’d drunk the twelve-pack of beer and smoked most of the two packs of cigarettes. I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I should.
I got out of bed, opened the two windows the apartment had, dumped the overflowing ashtray into the overflowing trashcan and ran it down the hall to the garbage chute. I took a shower and made coffee and one of the breakfast burritos and sat at my tiny kitchen table.
White Power Larry’s pamphlet sat next to my laptop. I’d forgotten all about it. I leafed through it as I drank the coffee and ate the burrito. It made me feel slightly ridiculous I was afraid of this guy. There were very few words in the pamphlet. It was mostly pictures of him in various poses. He had his shirt off in most of them, his massive torso and arms decorated with swastikas and ‘SS’es and wolves and skulls and iron crosses. In most of the photos he held some kind of weapon—a battle axe, a sword, several different kinds of guns. I wondered if he’d ever killed anyone. He was probably a lot more harmless than Dawn. If he were truly dangerous, there wouldn’t be a need for the clown costume and all the theater.
What did someone like Stasia see in someone like this? I couldn’t figure it out. She was attractive and reasonably intelligent. I was sure she had a host of mental disorders and probably wasn’t every guy’s type, but it still seemed like she could do a lot better than some narcissistic douchebag who ran on hate. Maybe hate was what they had in common, although in the one conversation we’d had over the course of our drunken evening together, the hate she exhibited didn’t seem to be particularly racist. Maybe he made her feel protected. That was the only thing that made any sense to me.
I had so much fun looking at his pamphlet I felt like his MyFace page would have to be like the 3D version or something. Maybe he didn’t have one. Or if he did maybe it was set to private. But that wasn’t possible. With as narcissistic as this guy was, he definitely had a public profile. He wanted to be seen. Besides, wasn’t the goal of any good racist to recruit and train more racists? So you felt better about something you knew was socially abhorrent?
I flipped my laptop open and tried to bring up the browser.
NO INTERNET CONNECTION
Fuck.
When was the last time I’d paid the bill?
It was at least a month ago.
I could have paid it on my phone but I didn’t really have the money to pay it with. What little money I had in my account I needed for beer and cigarettes. Maybe I could get Dawn to pay it. She probably wouldn’t though. It was a lot better for her if I just remained ignorant and couldn’t do any research. Not that my research had turned up anything too significant.
With my phone’s screen being fucked up, I couldn’t really do anything on it other than listen to music and text. I could have made calls but I didn’t have anybody to call.
What had happened to everybody? I’d had friends in high school. Most of them had moved away. A couple of them had died. Travis had disappeared. I wasn’t on speaking terms with any of my failed long-term relationships. It seemed like a person should acquire more friends as they grew older, that their lives should become fuller and fuller, not emptier and emptier. Everyone was connected via the internet and social networking yet loneliness seemed to be a modern plague. It almost made sense a group like Larry’s could exist. Almost made sense that girls would seek Dawn out to come and beat them with a chain. It made them part of something, at least.
After breakfast, I took my coffee over to the bed, lit a cigarette, and tried to read more of the Murakami.
Once I’d finished the coffee, I decided to take a nap, even though I’d been up less than an hour.
I didn’t sleep long but I had a dream. I was at the end of a long hall. There was an endless row of women sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall. They wore thin hospital gown type things and they all had their legs parted. I had an overwhelming feeling of fatigue, vague nausea, and a sense of duty. I got down on the floor and slithered toward the first woman’s vagina. It was pink and perfect and shaved. I began licking her. She was not demonstrative although she did get wet. She had the familiar taste of pussy with that now almost equally familiar chemical tang underlying it. She tasted just like Dawn. I pulled away from her and noticed, rather than a trickle of pearly girl come, a tiny rivulet of some neon green fluid. The dream had the feel of a video game and this meant I’d advanced to the next level.
I rolled over to the next girl.
The dream seemed to last forever and I was extremely hard when I woke up. My tongue felt super dry, probably from sleeping with my mouth open, something I tended to do more when I was smoking. I tried to generate some moisture in my mouth and glanced at the time on my phone. I’d been asleep less than an hour.
I got up and staggered to the bathroom. Once I managed to collect enough saliva I took down my pants and spit into my hand. I slowly masturbated while imagining Dawn giving me head. It took a while for me to come and by the time I did, I was imagining fucking her in the ass while she lay on her stomach on my bed.
I wiped myself off, zipped up, and washed my hands.
I checked my phone again. It was seven o’clock. Plenty late enough to go back to the Snack Barn. I told myself it was to return the pamphlet to Kren but I really just wanted more beer and cigarettes. I grabbed the pamphlet and headed out into the humid, fragrant evening.
Gethsemane was a quiet town and tonight was no exception. I didn’t pass a single pedestrian. I didn’t see any cars on the street. It was like the whole town was in a coma.
When I reached the convenience store, I was glad to see Kren behind the counter. He stood behind the register staring intently down at his phone, which seemed to be roughly twice the size of mine. He didn’t look up or acknowledge me. I was the only person in the store.
I went back to the beer cooler, grabbed another twelve-pack, convincing myself I was being responsible by not getting the case, and took it up to the register.
It took him a couple seconds to tear his gaze away from the phone and glance at me with eyes as stoned red as yesterday.
“Oh, hey, man,” he said. “Sorry. I’m, like, really high right now.”
“I’m not in a hurry. Can I get two packs of Camel Blues too?”
He reached over his head and grabbed the cigarettes, dropping them on the counter. He tried to ring me up but had a hard time.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
“That’s all right.”
“I guess you can just have it.” He seemed frustrated.
“I’d give you something but I don’t have any cash.”
He waved the notion away. “I know I can’t work the credit card machine.”
“I brought this back for you.”
I placed the pamphlet on the counter.
“Aw, man, I’m . . . not really interested.”
“No, I’m not a racist. That guy with the swastika tattoo left it here yesterday. You let me borrow it. You asked me to bring it back. Remember?”
“Not really. I guess I could review security footage later.”
“It’s probably not that important.”
“You wanna go out back and get high?”
I wanted to remind him he was already too high to run the cash register but I think I also wanted someone to hang out with who wasn’t me.
“Sure,” I said.
“Maybe then I’ll be able to figure out this thing.” He motioned to the register. “Follow me.”
He stepped out from behind the counter with a bobbing, loping gait and I followed him toward the restrooms. We went down a short, dim hallway and he opened a door with an EX
IT sign glowing above it. The door shut behind us and he sparked up the joint.
I pulled a can of beer out of the pack and handed him one.
“Oh, thanks,” he said around his exhale.
He handed the joint to me and I took a satisfying drag, feeling instantly relaxed and looking forward to being back in my room, sitting on my bed and thinking fuzzy thoughts while sipping beer, smoking cigarettes, and listening to music without words.
“I’m Brad,” I said after exhaling.
“Right on, man. I’m Kren. It’s like Ken with an ‘R’.”
“Yeah. The nametag.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” he laughed.
We finished the joint and continued sipping our beer in the short lifeless alley.
“Man, I think I’m gay,” Kren said out of nowhere.
“That’s okay. No judgments here.”
“I don’t know many other gay people around here.”
“Yeah, there probably aren’t many. Just go to Dayton.”
“That’s too hard.”
“It’s like fifteen miles away.”
“I think I’m too stupid. You want a handjob?”
“No thanks, man. I just jerked off like an hour or so ago. I don’t think I’d do anything.”
“That sucks, dude. Did you come a lot?”
“Not really. I’ve been jerking off quite a bit lately. Might have something to do with it. Low reserves.”
“You want to give me a tug job? I haven’t done that yet today.”
“I don’t have anything against it but it’s not my thing. My heart wouldn’t really be in it. I mean, I have a girlfriend.”
“Yeah, I hear you. Fuck! I’m gonna go take a come as soon as I’m done with this beer. Sometimes it burns though. Is it supposed to burn?”
“I don’t think so. You maybe should have that checked out. It’ll probably pass.”
I lit a cigarette and smoked that while I finished my beer. I offered Kren one but he didn’t smoke cigarettes.
When I was finished, I said, “Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Right on. It was cool hanging with you.”
“You too.”
I turned to walk toward the opening of the alley. Kren tugged on the door we’d come out through.
“Fuck, man. I’m locked out!”
I stopped and turned back to him. “You could probably, um, just go in through the front?”
He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“Right! Duh. See, I’d never be able to make it to Dayton.”
* * *
Dawn called a few days later, disrupting what had become an established routine. My phone ringing always slammed me with a sense of panic and I tried to remember when the last time I’d heard it ring was.
The night Travis had called.
The panic seemed warranted.
I tapped the answer icon and said, “Dawn.”
“Did you watch the video of you and Stasia? I emailed it to you.”
Her voice was breathy. You never really know how a person sounds until you experience their voice isolated from everything about them. Not even a voice can be heard objectively.
“No,” I said. “I lost my internet. Which video? The one in Barcie’s room or . . .”
“That one. I’m thinking of sending that and the photos to White Power Larry. I’m getting bored.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“Maybe I won’t.” She took a deep breath. My hand went to my stiffening cock. Part of the routine she’d interrupted had been an at least once daily masturbation session. Always while imagining her. I wondered if I could keep her on the phone long enough to jerk off.
“Why do you keep threatening me with that.” My voice had already thickened and grown a little shaky.
I unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, sliding them and my underwear down a little as I stood and made my way over to my bed.
She took another deep breath.
“I’m helping you,” she said. “It’s a motivational tool. I need someone who’s going to do what I ask him to do. I mean, you would tell me I don’t really need to hold this stuff over your head, but how can I really trust you? I’ll keep threatening you with the photos and you’ll keep helping me do what I do.”
“But what if what you’re doing is illegal?”
“I don’t do anything illegal. I give people what they want. No one does anything against their will. That’s the beauty of it. It’s like fitting puzzle pieces together.”
“Through blackmail.”
“You want the photos destroyed. I want you to do some things for me. It’s not blackmail if I’m not asking for money.”
“Regardless. It’s unnecessary. That’s what I’m saying.”
“I’ll decide what’s unnecessary.” She paused before saying, “Are you jerking off right now? You sound weird.”
I thought about lying and wondered what the point would be.
“Yeah.” I made an attempt to sound normal.
“Do I turn you on?”
“You know you do.”
“It’s never gonna happen,” she said. “Besides, I told you, I don’t like cock.”
“Then why are you married to a dude?”
She didn’t say anything.
“I know you’re not Sheriff Bando’s daughter.”
I stroked myself harder and faster.
“I know you know. Barcie told me. Way to do your research.
“When I was fifteen I fell into a bad place. I had always been a good kid and I had good parents, if a little overbearing. They both had degrees and made good money and I was their only child. They wanted me to be just like them. But I knew from a very early age I didn’t want to be just like them. I wanted more. I wanted everything. I’m not talking about material things. I’m talking about experience. I wanted to experience everything. They had all the material things you could ever want but they had a deep emptiness inside of them. Do you know how hard it is to get away from that yawning emptiness? It’s like a black hole, a huge cosmic vacuum trying to suck everything around it into it. So I got out. I met a guy who lived in Cincinnati. He wasn’t a nice guy. But after being around him for a few days, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. He had it. He had that secret knowledge. He had that endless thirst for experience and we did everything together. The summer I was with him, I spent every day in my upstairs bedroom, drunk or doped to the gills, whatever I wanted. I never wore clothes. I would just lie on the bed and watch daytime TV as an endless stream of guys came to meet me. I didn’t have to do anything. They didn’t want me to do anything. I would just lie there and spread my legs and smoke cigarettes and watch TV. And they would fuck my little pussy. Some of them were rough, some of them were gentle, and I never came. Sometimes I’d see ten or twenty guys a day. They’d fuck me and throw their condoms in a trashcan beside the bed and leave. Most of them came back. It was exactly what they wanted until they decided they wanted someone else. And I was okay with that because there were always hundreds of men to take their place, but no one could take my boyfriend’s place. At the end of the day I’d take a shower and put on something nice and meet him in his room. We did everything to each other. I let him go where the other men never went. He had the biggest cock and I let him slide it halfway down my throat. I let him fuck me in the ass even though it felt like he was ripping me in two. I wanted to be covered in his come, inside and out. I let him tie me up. I let him hit me until my skin was red and bruised. I liked it when he bit me.”
I turned and came onto the bed, trying not to call out or grunt or anything.
Dawn continued.
“I asked him if it ever bothered him that I was with so many other guys and he said he liked it. He said it was his way of absorbing them. Anyway there was some trouble and he had to disappear. He said he had to go back to the stars for a while and my life got a little darker until I was returned home and Sheriff Bando was assigned to keep tabs on me. He was an all rig
ht guy but my homelife felt like a prison. I told him I would give him anything if he got me out of there. My parents went missing when I turned seventeen. The courts decided I was old enough to live on my own. When I turned eighteen, Bando asked me to marry him, and I said yes. That was all he wanted. The young trophy wife. Between my parents and then him, no one knew about my past and they probably never will. And that’s all I give him. Poor guy. I know he probably wants more but he’s too much of a sweetheart to ask and I’m not sure if I’d give it to him anyway.
“So, see, I trust you with that story. Have you come yet?”
“Um . . . yeah.”
“Which part?”
“When you were, uh, talking about your boyfriend fucking you.”
“I’ll pick you up in half an hour. There’s something I need you to do for me.”
* * *
In my post-orgasm stupor I thought about the wild story she’d given me. It had to be a story. Dawn was tough and manipulative, sure, but she still didn’t seem to me like someone who’d led a particularly rough life. She seemed pretty driven, so I supposed she could have put a lot of work into being the type of girl she wanted people to perceive her as.
I watched the street from my apartment window. I thought I saw Kren walk by on the sidewalk, but couldn’t be completely sure. Maybe he was on his way to work. I hoped whatever Dawn had planned included beer and cigarettes. She texted me almost exactly thirty minutes after she’d hung up with me.
I went down to meet her. A morbidly obese girl sat in the passenger seat. She looked about Dawn’s age. I got in the back.
“This is Plopsy,” Dawn said, motioning to the girl.
“Hi, Plopsy,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, just stared glassily out the front window.
“Plopsy’s not real talkative. She’ll be taking Barcie’s place.”
“Sure,” I said. “Barcie. Who died.”
“Yep.”
“She did die, right?”
“Pretty sure. I went to the funeral. For all intents and purposes, she’s dead to me.”
“So she’s not dead?”
“She is until she’s reborn, I guess.”
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