This Town Needs a Monster

by Andersen Prunty

  “Schrodinger’s cat again?”

  “No. Not really. That’s about something simultaneously existing in two states. Not one state. A person who’s dead doesn’t really have anything to do with Schrodinger’s cat. They’re just dead. We’ve been over this.”

  “So . . . never mind.” I shook whatever I was going to say away. “What are we doing?”

  “Going to a party.”

  Dawn and Plopsy were both dressed really well and wore a lot of make-up.

  “I look like trash,” I said. “I haven’t even showered today.”

  “That’s fine. Besides, don’t you always look like trash?”

  “I guess. I never really have a need to wear decent clothes.”

  “I know. I’m surprised you haven’t graduated to sweatsuits yet.”

  “I guess that leaves me room to grow anyway. So what’s the party?”

  “It’s a Republican fundraiser outside of Columbus. I don’t really know the specifics. It’s not like I organized it or anything. I’m just there to help get donations.”

  I could have asked her more about it but didn’t really care. Politics bored the piss out of me. I was just relieved we weren’t picking some young woman up to whisk her away to a gangbang before beating her in the face with the chain.

  I leaned back, lit a cigarette, and cracked the window.

  “Throw it out,” Dawn said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t smoke in here.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Plopsy and I don’t want to smell like white trash. Throw it out.”

  I took a deep drag and tossed the cigarette out the window before putting it back up.

  Dawn cracked the window again from the front.

  “Gotta give it a chance to air out,” she said.

  I settled back in the seat and closed my eyes. Columbus was a little over an hour away so I’d be able to get a decent nap in. If the night was going to be as uncomfortable as I thought it would be then I was going to want my rest.

  It was pretty easy to doze off. There was no music playing and Dawn and Plopsy didn’t say a single word to each other.

  When I opened my eyes a little later, Dawn was looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Did ums get his sweep out?”

  I didn’t respond to her. I kept to myself until we reached a line of cars, most of them Mercedes and Cadillacs and BMWs, pulling into the circular driveway of a palatial mansion, complete with massive white columns and twinkling golden lights. It was the kind of place I’d driven by and wondered who lived there. Apparently it was the type of person who threw fundraisers for the Republican Party.

  “Who lives here?” I asked.

  “Dunno,” Dawn said. “All I know is that I got paid to do a job and I’m doing it.”

  “And the job is . . .?”

  “To enhance the evening.”

  “And that means . . .?”

  “You don’t know what ‘enhance’ means?”

  “I do, but . . . How are you going to do that?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to. Why would you want to concern yourself with something that isn’t your responsibility? Just relax and have fun. You’re learning how to do that, right?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Everything still seems kind of . . . I don’t know, tinged with dread or something.”

  “And maybe some day you’ll come to appreciate that too.”

  “Half the time I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “And maybe you’ll grow to appreciate that too. Mystery.”

  We pulled up to a young valet wearing a black vest and the competitive cold blue stare of a Nazi. We all got out of the car and Dawn handed him the keys. For the first time, I noticed it was a black Mercedes and I felt really oblivious I hadn’t noticed it the entire ride up here.

  “Is that Barcie’s car?” I asked.

  “It was always my car. I decided to take it back after she, you know, died.”

  We walked toward the house behind a small flock of well-dressed, well-preserved elderly people, the cloud of perfume and cologne nearly choking me.

  Dawn handed a cream-colored card to Plopsy and me. I assumed it was an invitation and didn’t open it.

  An elderly man in a tuxedo stood behind a podium or maître d’ stand or something. He smiled at the group in front of us and they passed into the house. Maybe it was a well-known politician and his family or something. I wouldn’t have known.

  The old man gave us a summoning look.

  Dawn approached first and she handed him her invitation. He looked down at it, smiled, nodded, and said, “Have a lovely evening, Mrs. Bando.”

  He did the same with Plopsy and said, “Have a wonderful evening, Ms. Plopsy.”

  Plopsy Plopsy? I thought.

  I approached and handed him my invitation. He started to say something—possibly about how I was dressed—before looking down at the invitation. He applied more scrutiny to mine than he had the girls’ before saying, “Please go in, sir.”

  I joined Dawn and Plopsy just inside the door. They each held drinks in their hands. The man carrying the tray had turned away from them. I quickly reached around him and plucked a drink off the tray. White wine. Not my favorite but it would have to do.

  I looked at Dawn. “What now?”

  “We’ve got work to do,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a place to smoke out back or something.”

  I guessed that was her way of telling me to get lost.

  I wandered through the room. I didn’t know what to call it. A reception area, maybe. I lived in a place without a bedroom or separate kitchen. This house made me extremely uncomfortable. I could see tall French doors leading out to a veranda and I made my retreat toward it. I would attempt to not step foot back in the house for the rest of the night. I kept my head down and tried not to look at anyone.

  Outside, two long tables draped in white tablecloths were arranged in an open ‘V’ pattern. I walked well past those toward a couple of old men standing around a gray pole. As I got closer, I could see it was one of those cigarette disposal things that look like an upside down lollipop.

  I stopped and fished my cigarettes out of my pocket.

  The other two men standing around the stand chuckled.

  I lit my cigarette.

  One of the men, the color of leather, said, “Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

  “Pretty sure. This is the smoking area, right?”

  “Aren’t you with the staff?”

  “I don’t think so. I had an invitation.”

  “Oh.” He smirked. “I’m Bob Sanders.” He held out his hand.

  “Brad Renfield.” I shook his hand.

  “Poke Roberts,” the other man said, coming forward. His skin was the color of old paper and he reminded me of a lizard.

  “And what do you do, Brad? Are you in tech?” Sanders asked.

  “Um, no,” I said. “I don’t really do much of anything.”

  “Must be nice,” he said. “You’ll have to give me the name of your consultant.”

  At first I didn’t know what he meant and then I laughed a little and said, “Oh, I haven’t retired from anything. I’m just unemployed.”

  He gave me another glance up and down, the look on his face completely changing. I’d gone from a tech wizard who was too autistic to dress himself for a formal gathering to what I really was—a trashy, unemployed deadbeat. The two men quickly crushed out their cigarettes and went back up toward the house.

  When I finished that one, I lit another one and looked at the continually shifting mass of people. For the first time, probably because I’d tried to keep my head down, I noticed a number of girls milling around. Dawn hadn’t said anything about it but it looked like what I assumed a coming out ball would look like. Most of the men were very old. Some of the women I assumed were their wives were also quite old, but on
the whole the women looked considerably younger than the men. And then there were the much younger girls. All of them wore a slightly similar white shift kind of thing, their hair either straight or done up in braids. They could have been the daughters but I didn’t see any young men of around the same age.

  About halfway through my second cigarette, one of the girls approached me.

  She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with huge green eyes, unblinking. It made me nervous.

  “Want a cigarette?” I said.

  She nodded her head. I didn’t really know if she was of smoking age or not. I just felt like I had to say something.

  I handed the cigarette to her and lit it for her.

  “Having fun?” I asked.

  She didn’t say anything. She just puffed her cigarette lightly, like she didn’t quite know how to do it, and stared toward the house.

  “So . . . are you here with your parents?”

  No response.

  Dawn emerged from the crowd and made a beeline toward us.

  “Serena?” she said when she spotted the girl. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Dawn grabbed the cigarette and handed it to me.

  She grabbed the girl around her thin arm and dragged her back toward the house.

  “You need to get back to work!” Dawn shot a murderous gaze over her shoulder at me. I wasn’t sure if she’d been talking to the girl or me.

  I held up both my cigarettes and nodded at her. I took a drag from the one the girl had been smoking but it didn’t taste right so I crushed it out and put it in the disposal. I polished off the wine in my glass and went in search of more.

  As I waited in line at the outdoor bar, Dawn approached me.

  “You’re not to talk to any of the girls,” she said.

  “Jealous?”

  “Hardly. I don’t want you distracting them.”

  “I didn’t. I thought they were people’s daughters.”

  She laughed a little. “Well, we let them pretend they’re whatever they want them to be but I think most of them would be a little disappointed to have daughters like this.”

  She didn’t really need to say anymore. I got it. The girls were whores. I was hoping they were at least eighteen. I wasn’t going to ask. I started to wonder what it would be like to be with one of them and quickly tried to put the thought out of my head.

  “Just get your drink and go back over to the little smoking stand. Don’t sit at the table during dinner.”

  My face flushed a little when she said this.

  “So I am the help?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some guy asked if I was the help or something earlier.”

  “You’re more like the entertainment.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Just be yourself.”

  Then she took off.

  I asked the bartender if she had any beer. She gave me the same type of scrutiny the doorman had given me and pulled a bottle of Stella Artois—the beer for rich people with no taste—from a cooler of ice, wiped it off, and pulled the top. I tucked a dollar into the tip jar and made my way back to the butt stand.

  I saw Dawn talking to a tall, white-haired man. She held her phone in her hand and looked at him with a very serious expression. He smiled briefly, as though humoring her, and directed his attention toward the phone. The smile dropped away and one of his hands shot to his forehead.

  I moved a little closer, careful to remain behind Dawn, so I could hear what she was saying.

  “. . . and that’s why the campaign would really appreciate whatever contribution you could make.”

  “My wife, Marilyn, has the checkbook and obviously . . .” He waved a thin, bony hand at the phone.

  “Right. You wouldn’t want her to see this. Fortunately we also take credit cards or I could even write you a receipt for good old American cash.”

  The man reached into his blazer and produced a wallet. He quickly looked around, probably to make sure his wife wasn’t nearby, and handed a black card to Dawn, who swiped it on some sort of gadget she had on her phone. Was that called a dongle? I didn’t know. Probably. Leave it to America to come up with names for things that were even more ridiculous than what the names represented.

  I couldn’t risk getting any closer without being noticed, especially with how I was dressed, so I continued walking back to the smoking area.

  What was on Dawn’s phone?

  Was it more blackmail?

  Or was it some kind of emotional reel of something like abused dogs or starving children in Africa or amputee veterans of war? I could certainly understand the man saying he didn’t want his wife to see any of that, but I didn’t think Republicans cared about those things. Maybe it was an emotional reel of people enjoying free education or free healthcare or walking down a street where no one was carrying concealed firearms. That might get a Republican’s blood boiling.

  As I got closer to the smoking area, I pulled my cigarettes from my pocket and heard a disturbance near a row of shrubs toward the back of the property. I wandered back a little farther, just in time to see Plopsy punch one of the younger girls in the face.

  “Mr. Cuatro likes bruises,” she hissed.

  She mechanically punched the girl two more times in the face. I thought about asking her to stop but then thought about the chain. I’d already gotten the chain a couple of times and didn’t want it any more, especially in the face. I entertained the thought of saving this beautiful young girl from Plopsy’s fists and escaping into the night and her ultimately begging me to fuck her. But I felt like in the end she would be vapid and boring and right now just kind of wanted to move out of view of Plopsy so I wasn’t somehow enlisted to help beat the poor girl.

  Bob Sanders stood by the butt stand. It was just my luck the one guy here who enjoyed smoking as much as me was also the biggest douche.

  “Hello, Brad,” he said.

  “Bob. How’s your evening?”

  “Quite splendid so far.”

  I pulled a cigarette out and lit it.

  “I forgot to ask earlier,” Bob said. “You said you didn’t work. Are you living off some kind of trust fund?”

  This was a really invasive question and I felt like he must know the answer or he wouldn’t be asking.

  “No,” I said. “I’m just poor.”

  He smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

  The next couple of minutes were awkward and silent.

  Then Bob said, “You know, I’m glad you’re here. You remind me of why I’ve worked so hard to achieve what I have. I’m living a dream, boy. Living a fucking dream. I’ve done things and will do things you’ve never even thought about. Don’t let people tell you money can’t buy happiness. The only people who ever say that are poor people.”

  “I’ve never said that,” I said absently.

  “Good! Maybe there’s hope for you yet. I’m about ready to enjoy a fine dinner and then a couple of hours in the company of a fine young woman.” He picked out one of the milling girls in white and said, “I swear, it’s like they create these girls in a lab somewhere.”

  I didn’t know if he was looking for a pat on the back or waiting for me to match his exchange of lechery but I didn’t really have anything to say.

  “Of course,” he said, “sometimes concessions have to be made. Which brings me to something of a proposition.”

  I tried to think of what this old man could possibly ask from me and couldn’t really think of anything.

  “My wife has certain . . . fantasies.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. I brought my free hand up to my forehead and massaged my temples.

  “I don’t really do that,” I said.

  “Really?” he said. “The pretty young woman with the phone said you would be more than happy to cooperate. She also said for me to tell you, ‘Jingle jangle.’”

  The chain, I thought.

  I knew where he was going with his re
quest and could only manage to think about the female equivalent of this man, some overly coiffed emaciated grandma.

  “I’ll cut through all the nonsense and get right to the point. My wife fantasizes about being raped. Although, I’ve tried to argue with her on this point. I don’t feel it’s really rape if I’m buying the rapist. I think it’s a pampered rich girl fantasy. If she really wanted to be raped, she would just go wander around Niggertown on a Saturday night. That, I think, would be rape. Although I guess it would still be debatable if that were what she was actually looking to have happen to her. Plus she’d probably get AIDS.”

  He took one last drag of his cigarette and popped it into the disposal.

  “Her name’s Fiona. She’ll be sitting to my left at dinner. She will get up under the auspices of using the restroom before the food is even served. My Fiona doesn’t really eat, especially not in public. Then, you know, make a game of it. I’ll certainly be having my own fun after dinner. Don’t let me down, Brad.”

  He turned to walk away and doubled back.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Your young lady friend said to give you these.” He reached into his pocket and produced two blue pills. “I’m sure you’re plenty virile but, well, sometimes nerves can get the best of you.”

  I held out my hand and he dropped the pills into my palm before turning and drifting back up toward the house.

  Jingle jangle.

  A shudder ran through me.

  I continued smoking until I saw people making their way to the large tables.

  In the interim, I was approached by a number of people, most of them older, all of them well dressed, about only half of whom were smokers, and they asked me questions like:

  “Do you buy your clothes at the thrift store?”

  “Do you have indoor plumbing?”

  “Do you use public transportation?”

  “What’s it like to rent?”

  “How many illegitimate children do you have?”

  “What’s it like not to have insurance?”

  “Do you wish you’d gone to college?”

  I got it. I was the token poor person. Some kind of ridiculous clown these people would have never approached outside the safety of their confines. Was this the main reason for Dawn bringing me here or had all those questions arisen from that initial conversation with Bob Sanders. I could ask Dawn about it later, but knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer.