“Kyle has a teeny-weenie!” Bennie and his cousin sang.
He stood there, his trunks down around his ankles, mortified and frozen, his penis only a nub between his testicles thanks to the icy water.
“Teeny-weenie! Teeny-weenie!” the boys sang. Kyle didn’t think it could get worse and then, as he reached down quickly to pull up his trunks, more than a few of the girls starting singing it to.
Singing it while the rest of them giggled uncontrollably.
The memory snapped off as Kyle brought his head forwards. “Shit. What the hell is going on?” he whispered. The wound on the back of his neck throbbed, as did the one on his hand. He went to put his left hand down once more in an effort to sit up, but was blasted again with the memory of Vinnie as soon as the sting on his palm touched the ground. He jerked his hand back instantly and the memory disappeared.
Kyle squinted. Shifting his weight a bit, he tried to stretch. Another sting, this one on his right shoulder, sang out in pain.
And with it: another memory came. The worst one yet.
She had been his first. A random girl in Canada while he’d been visiting his aunt and uncle, who’d moved there to get away from it all, his aunt to start a small fruit farm and his uncle to work at the local Ford dealership. It was another summer and he was old enough now that Kyle’s dad wanted him to get some “dirt under his nails” and do some honest work. Farming was boring, but Kyle liked his aunt.
After a few days, one of the boys around town who was his age asked if Kyle would like to come to the social, which was like a garage party in the city, but held instead in someone’s barn in the country.
She was an ugly girl, but she’d taken interest in him and seemed downright smitten. But that might’ve been the red cup full of beer in her hand that, as the night went on, never stayed full for long. There was dancing and some talking. Before long she kissed him, but Kyle rebuffed her efforts at first.
“Stop. No. I don’t want to think about this,” he heard himself say from somewhere deep beyond the well of the memory. But the choice wasn’t his and he knew it. His body was far away, amid the sands of hell and the towering spheres of The White City. But he was here. Again. A sad traveler, crossing the timelines of his own sorrows.
A few more beers for each of them and she was ready to leave the barn and Kyle was resigned to take her off someplace to be alone. He’d been dreaming about what sex was like for years now. This was his chance. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he said to his new buddy. Darren. That was his name. Yes. And they had laughed together about how she at least had big tits. Then Darren told him where to take her, off behind some bales of hay behind the barn. But the girl was insistent that they go off into the forest instead, so Kyle had acquiesced.
It was a warm night, fireflies sifting through the air like blinking witnesses to what was about to take place.
Before long their clothes were tossed about and she was lying below him, no longer a happy drunk but one who seemed scared. Each time he tried to enter her she would recoil a bit, yelp, encourage him to keep trying, then say no. At first he listened to her but it was all so confusing.
Finally, it happened. She let loose the tiniest cry and tears filled her eyes, then something was happening and his body was shuddering and he forgot to pull out, like he’d heard he was supposed to. Then, when he looked down, he saw blood and was repulsed.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.” But her face said otherwise. She seemed to be just as overwhelmed by this moment as he was.
“You’ve never… ?” Kyle asked.
She wiped her eyes and shook her head.
“Shit.” He stood up and dressed immediately. Panic gripped him. No condom and he didn’t pull out. What was the matter with him?
“Hey. It’ll be okay. Where are you going?” she asked pleadingly, trying to get her clothes back on.
“This never happened,” Kyle said.
The look on the girl’s face—the girl whose name he never did get, or got and forgot, or dared not remember—was one of palpable hurt and shame. “What?”
“This never happened,” he repeated.
Her eyes, which had just dried, now pooled again with tears. “But I thought you liked me,” she squeaked.
The rage filled him then. A dark thing. Disgust under the cloak of beer and whiskey came next. He was an idiot and she was revolting. This mistake was beyond his comprehension and the possible consequences were all her damn fault. So he lashed out. “You what?” he spat.
Meekly, shyly, she repeated it. “I thought… you liked me.”
Kyle scoffed and she looked up sharply at him. “Listen,” Kyle said, “you don’t get it.”
He stood. She stood. Face to face.
“I was only here,” he said while waving his hand at the patch of ground where they had done the deed, not knowing what to say and clutching at the first thing that came to mind, “because… because beggars can’t be choosers.”
The words reduced her to sobs, and he stomped off towards the road and walked back to his aunt’s farm under the fear of fatherhood, leaving the crying girl behind.
Forever.
“Never,” Kyle said, forcing himself now to one knee. “I never forgot you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
But he did. He meant to be mean, so that this girl would never try to reach out to him again, pregnant or not. To this day Kyle had no idea what had happened. He never stayed in touch with Darren when he left the farm. But the rest of that year he held his breath every time his aunt or uncle called his home to speak with his dad.
He had physically recoiled from the memory and now, sitting back on the road to The White City, he immobilized his stung shoulder and the memory vanished.
The connection was obvious now: somehow the stings were causing his memories.
His left hand was coming alive in pins and needles. Only a dozen hornets remained. Still. Kyle felt the very real need to get going, to get out of there. He was lying, exposed, on an open road before the city and still in clear view of everything on the other side of the force field. What if The Shaman came back? What if he had just ridden off to get something that could break through the force field?
Kyle looked over his body. There were so many stings: the one on his palm, shoulder and neck, another on his lower back, one on the outside of his right triceps. He would have to try to stand without compressing any of them. But what then? He couldn’t imagine walking like this.
Still, mostly out of building panic, he tried. It was a bad idea. Immediately he collapsed as the wounds and memories fired off all at once, the old ones and some new ones, all of them upon him in a rush of agony so intense that he couldn’t even muster a scream.
It was as if he were being stabbed to death by every bad memory of his life.
THE BREAD MAN sat in his car outside the Denny’s and chewed on a Slim Jim. His work shift was over and behind him. All his deliveries had gone well and he had tomorrow off, so this was the perfect time to do it. He barely made it to the parking lot on time, only about twenty minutes before her shift ended.
When he saw her white Prius still parked next to the newspaper stand outside the restaurant he was relieved. He had known for months now what kind of car she drove, having taken note of it one day when he was leaving after breakfast and she was running out to her car to get something.
He knew her shift from eavesdropping on her conversations with some of the other customers. There was no great secret to how he did what he did. People always talked too much, never really cognizant of whom might be listening. From her little chats while refilling coffees he actually knew a lot about her: she had a parrot (which she had raised and trained to talk and who could say “damn” and “screw you” along with the pre-requisite “hello”), her mother was dead five years now and her father had moved to Vegas, she had a boyfriend named Daryl who was going to trade school over in Shallow Springs and visited every other weekend, and she loved trip-h
op music.
Today she came out right at 12:00 p.m., a jacket over her uniform and a purse on her shoulder.
She hopped in her car, backed out of the space and drove off down the boulevard. For the next two hours The Bread Man followed her; first to the grocery store, where she came out with a bag of things, then to her home, a small white house with yellow shutters, where The Bread Man thought he would get his chance. But no. She came back out too soon, in black yoga pants and a gym top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. So he followed her to the gym, where he parked, watched and waited.
An hour later she came out glistening with sweat while talking to some bodybuilder-type guy who was wearing black Nike sweats and a black tank top. They stopped in front of the entrance, exchanged a few words and a laugh. Then she went her way to her Prius and he walked off to a blue Ford Edge. On the way home from the gym she picked up her dry cleaning and then got gas at the Arco station. The Bread Man chose to pull over at the curb across the street, where he could maintain a safe distance but still see when she left. While filling up she went into the station and came out holding a bottle of water while she noshed on a granola bar.
After pulling out of the gas station she went back home, where she parked in the driveway, pulling all the way up for some reason, leaving room behind her car as if she were expecting someone.
A half-hour later, it was obvious who: the blue Edge pulled up and out hopped Mr. Workout, now in a different pair of sweats and a blue t-shirt.
The Bread Man shook his head. Bitches. They were all whores.
Here was more proof of it. Poor boyfriend Daryl was slaving away at trade school, hoping to land a job someday welding trucks or fixing engines so he could support the girl he loved and start a family, while she was here banging a gym rat.
His rage was immediate. He wanted to kill them both for being cheaters, betrayers, liars. He wanted to chop her into pieces and let her parrot feed on her. He breathed in deeply and counted down from one hundred to zero. Then, glancing up and down the street and seeing only two little kids way at the end of the street tossing a football around, he got out of the car, walked brazenly up the driveway and quietly around the side of the house.
That was the other thing about this gig: you had to be bold. You had to know your shit, yeah. But while people will straight up notice a guy creeping up to a house, they pay little or no mind to someone walking up to it like he had every right in the world to be there.
Once around back he could hear them going at it and he learned something new about the waitress: she was a screamer. She liked getting it, and muscle boy was doing just that: giving it to her good.
Again he paused and counted down from one hundred. It barely worked this time, so he changed his focus.
To The Bread Man’s relief the backyard had a high fence all around it. An empty clothesline stretched between two poles and there were some potted plants on the back porch. The sounds of lovemaking were coming from the window near the edge of the house, which ran nearly right up against the fence. Perfect. He could watch in private.
If, only if, he could see them. That might make him feel better.
Once he got to the window, he smiled. The blinds were slightly open, which was perfect. Too open and he could be spotted. This way, he could see it all and, oh, what a show it was. The waitress was a naughty girl indeed, and by the time she got on top and they finished together, The Bread Man finished right along with them, relieving himself against the stuccoed wall of the house.
Careless! Careless! Careless!
But he couldn’t help himself. She was amazing, utterly perfect, and the angel wings tattooed across her back only made it all that much more exquisite.
Just as soon as he was done, after a short chat, gym boy left, whatever purpose they’d served for one another now complete.
Whore.
The Bread Man watched quietly as the waitress rolled over and rested her head on her arm. She looked pleased, then sad, then tired. Before long, she fell asleep.
As the sun set and darkness came, he waited. By 8:00 p.m. he was getting hungry.
Finally, he watched her awaken to the sound of her cell phone. “Oh shit!” she exclaimed, then jumped up and bolted down the hall to the living room.
The Bread Man moved to the next window and looked through the laundry room into the living room. He could see her answer her phone.
The famous parrot was perched in a cage to her left. She fed it through the bars while she talked with someone. Still keeping the phone to her ear, she walked back into the bedroom and The Bread Man followed along the wall outside.
“Damnit, Sandy. I’m sorry. I fell asleep but don’t worry, I still have time to get ready. Come get me in an hour, okay?”
She threw the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom. Before long, The Bread Man heard the running water of the shower and smiled. The back door, he’d already noticed, had an old lock. After forcing it open, he crept inside and waited quietly in the hall.
When she came out of the bathroom her hair was up in one towel and another was wrapped around her body.
Sitting down at a little makeshift vanity, she was beginning to massage some sort of cream onto her face when he decided it was time.
He stepped up behind her, grabbed the back of her head and smashed her face into the mirror. Swiftly whipping the towel off her head, he grabbed a good, solid handful of hair and bashed her again.
That should’ve done it, but this one had spunk.
He’d dealt with others who had spunk too, but not like this. She spun around, his hand still gripped tightly in her hair, and before he could yank her head back and away, the heel of her right hand shot up, catching him on the top row of his teeth, just south of the mark he knew she was really trying for: his nose.
The bitch had evidently taken her self-defense courses. Had she caught him clean with a shot that hard on the tip of his nose she could’ve shoved the bone straight back into his brain, killing him or, at the very least, rendered him immobile.
He tasted blood in his mouth and imagined them both now as twins; he was sneering and so was she, her initial expression of panic completely gone now, and the blood pouring from the cuts on her face and from her nose only seeming to enrage her. A guttural scream briefly escaped her lips before he punched her in the mouth with his free hand. This stunned her but, amazingly, she kept up the fight.
She went primal and lunged at him so quickly that it caught him off guard. This was getting messy. What if her friend arrived early to pick her up?
As she contorted, her towel fell off, exposing her breasts, which were freshly marked from the recent grip of the gym boy. When The Bread Man saw them, small red welts where the whore had let his fingers dig in, his rage returned.
He pounded her in the forehead, three times, before she went limp, and then he pounded her twice more just for the hell of it.
When she slumped to a ball on the ground, he grabbed a long green jacket from inside her closet and dressed her in it, diverting his eyes from her nudity for fear he would get distracted and never leave the house.
After picking her up, he walked out the back door with her and then remembered something. He laid her on the ground and walked back inside the house and into the laundry room. Using a dishtowel that had been in one of the hampers to grab a bottle of Clorox, he then walked back outside to the spot where he’d ejaculated beneath the window earlier. It was too dark to see exactly where, so he doused the entire area of the wall until the bottle was empty.
After tossing the bottle aside, he calmly walked back to the girl, scooped her up and made his way down the driveway out to the dark street beyond, where he was happy to see that no one was around.
Save for The Other. He was here, somewhere. The Bread Man could feel him, and it was no coincidence that the streetlight in front of the house that was burning bright on the way in was now darkened. This made The Bread Man feel good, almost stress free, even, to the point that he didn’
t even worry about the old lady looking out the kitchen window at him from the house across the street. The Other would take care of her too.
The Bread Man whistled softly as he put the waitress in his car. Once he was in the car himself, she moaned softly as they drove off down the street.
As they reached the end of the intersection, he saw a red VW bug approaching from the opposite direction, music blaring out the windows, a girl inside rocking out to the lyrics.
The Bread Man figured there was a good chance that the girl in the VW was Sandy, the waitresses friend, finally come to pick her up to go out for a good time.
“Too bad,” he said with a big smile. “You missed her by thaaaaaaat much.”
CHAPTER 17
NAPOLEON WAITED QUIETLY, LYING flat against the sand, for The Gray Man to come back. After the weeping, there had been a prolonged silence, as if he’d gone off somewhere, leaving Napoleon feeling lonely in the worst place he imagined you could ever feel alone. Now, too petrified to move, he cocked his ear to the air to listen for any sound of the horse.
When The Gray Man finally spoke again, he sounded tired. We should get moving.
“Sure, now that you’re back, why not?”
We should head east, off towards that white glow in the distance.
Napoleon squinted, unable to see it at first, then making out a small dab of white, barely over the edge of a sand dune in the distance. “That’s pretty far.”
We’ll want to hurry, obviously.
“Why? What could possibly be next?” Napoleon said, his voice tinged with sarcasm.
I don’t think that’s a question you want to ask here.
Napoleon raised his eyebrows and nodded, embarrassed by the stupidity of his question as he began walking. “Where’d you go, anyway?”
There was a moment of quiet before The Gray Man replied. Somewhere to pray.
A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Page 16