Now I knew the way to Motorcar’s house like I’d been there a thousand times. This time though, I parked even further away, over on the next street near some trees at the corner of someone’s yard. I popped the rear hatch and laid out my purchases. Then I grabbed a plastic one-gallon gas can I had back there. It was empty. I removed the nozzle and cracked the eggs into the opening, careful to get all of the yoke and white into the hole. I threw the eggshells onto the ground. I added the bleach and screwed the nozzle back on. Then I shook the can and shook it some more. I felt like a mad scientist. I was a mad scientist. I closed the hatch and headed for Motorcar’s house.
The neighborhood was dead asleep, so I didn’t even worry about anyone seeing me traipse across a front lawn carrying a red gas can. If they hadn’t noticed the mannequin incident, they weren’t going to notice this. And like his neighbors were gonna defend a perv? They were probably all watching from their windows earlier, cheering.
The limousine was parked facing out. He must have been a real talented driver to be able to back such a big car into such a tight space. Prick. I crouched by the front fender and looked around. All clear. I undid the cap on the gas can nozzle and stood up. I slowly poured the egg and bleach mixture into the vent that runs along the hood in front of the windshield. I poured it all the way across for a nice even flow. When the can was nearly empty, I shook what was left onto the driver’s door handle. If Farns was right, the bleach and would chemically break down and react with the rotting eggs in a way that would create the a horrific, gut-twisting odor. And its stickiness would make it impossible to clean, forever stuck in the nooks and crannies of the car’s metal insides. It was going to stink, a reeking hell stink forever and ever. It’d make skunk spray reminiscent of a jasmine tea party in a rose garden. Talk about a zinger. Now Motorcar’s motorcar was ruined. Now he’d get fired from his job, just like I got fired from my job. He’d probably have to pay the limo company for the damage. The permanent stink damage. I laughed as I walked back to my car. I tossed the gas can into the trees and wiped my hands on the grass. I drove around the block and pulled up in front of Motorcar’s house and stuck my head out the window.
“Pervert piece of human shit!” I yelled. Loud. I honked my horn. “Piece of human shit!” I kept honking. “Piece of human shit! Ha ha!” I headed down the street and proceeded to get lost in the subdivision.
Maybe he won’t even notice the stink right off. Maybe tomorrow morning when he heads out for work, he’ll think it’s just another day. As he’s driving down the road, thinking about how he got sexually assaulted by a green mannequin and shot at with a flare gun and bitch-slapped the night before, he’ll notice something smells funny. Some type of rancid skank, but he’s not sure what. Of course, he doesn’t know it’s a mixture of putrefied chicken embryos and a toxic chlorine compound, but he knows it stinks, it darkly, darkly stinks.
His hands feel sticky, so he stops somewhere to wash them. But when he gets back in the limo, he smells it again. Did something die in here? he asks himself. He shrugs. He looks under the car. As the morning goes on and it gets hotter and hotter—it’s expected to get into the mid-nineties—he notices the smell getting worse and worse. Hell!—it’s coming in through the a/c vent. It’s inside the limo and outside. Oh my god! Did a dead animal crawl up inside the motor and die? It doesn’t smell quite like a dead animal. It’s worse.
He goes to pick up his first customer, a banker in downtown Richmond who’s taking a client out to a fancy lunch. The banker comments on the smell right away. “Smells awful in here,” he says. Motorcar laughs nervously. He doesn’t know what to say. He is sweating. He is sick from smelling the smell all morning. He is beginning to panic.
Within a week he’s out of a job. He knows I did it—and he looks at his pervert life and wants to kill himself for the damage he caused me. His mom kicks him out of the house, and he ends up living out of a grocery cart under the on-ramp to the bridge. Talking to himself. That’s my cold plate special right there: Daniel Motorcar is now an insane bag lady who foams at the mouth and lives under the on-ramp to the bridge, talking to himself, cussing at the wind. He doesn’t have to smell the bleach and eggs smell anymore, but he himself smells. He smells of fear. The fear rises off of him like steam. Anyone who comes anywhere near him can tell he’s afraid. He’s afraid of the sun. He’s afraid of the moon. He’s afraid of mannequins. He’s so afraid that I’ll come back and ruin his life some more that he hides in the shadow of the on-ramp and whimpers for his mommy. This is my everlasting glory.
As I found my way out of his neighborhood, I still felt the same. No catharsis at all yet. Nothing. I stopped at a stop light and closed my eyes and tried.
Zero.
It was Farns’ and Shred’s fault. It was Motorcar’s fault. Mom’s fault. Dad’s fault. Reinhaus’ fault. I wanted to pour stink solution over the entire planet and run.
I told myself it would come eventually. The joy of revenge will grow inside me like a seed sprouting into a wonderful flower. I just had to give it a couple hours. The closer I got to Shred’s neighborhood, the more I wanted a drink. I wanted forty-three crystal sharp vodka drinks. I wanted to swim down deep in the vodka ocean, toasting the flying space robots, the waterproof electric death-bots that lived at the center of my night terrors. In the sleepy ocean of electrified vodka where they thrived.
My head felt like it was filling up with industrial adhesive. I am such a stalker psycho freak.
No, I’m not.
Yes, I am.
No, I’m not.
Probably. Am.
Psycho stalker weirdo murderer.
I was at a stop light. I wiped my forehead with my sleeve. I wasn’t breathing right. I took in a deep draw of heavy, humid air and exhaled slow. Jealous of Motorcar’s other victims? What the hell was that? Maybe it was time to just face the truth and kill myself. But what was the truth? It was a mysterious mush that the human eye was prohibited from focusing on. Like a bowl of gray mashed potatoes as viewed from a half an inch away.
No.
Yes.
No.
But I didn’t even know exactly what I was saying “No” or “Yes” to. Everything hurt. The blue landmine and adrenaline had all completely worn off and the pain of the ass-kicking was calling at full volume. I should be in a coffin somewhere. Getting some rest. Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe yes not. A lush, velvet-lined comfortable coffin and some sweet, sweet rest. Now that would be nice.
Way nice.
22
I crept into Oregon Kill. I felt like I had been through a war. I was looking for Shred. I was going to make him eat his own stupid green face paint. As I played back the scene in my mind, seeing Motorcar get abused by them did become a bit more enjoyable each time. But I couldn’t let Shred get away with interrupting my confrontation. When I got to his house, I somehow found the strength to jump out of the car and bust into the place. I don’t know what I was running on at this point—the fumes were long gone.
“Evan Henders!” I yelled, bombarding my way down the hall.
“He ain’t here,” Kenny said from his roost.
I looked anyway. In the bedrooms, in the studio. I tore through the living room and looked in the kitchen.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” Kenny said.
“None of your beez-wax, Gimpington.”
“Did Farns shoot that pervert guy with the flare gun?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I was headed for the hallway when one of Kenny’s aluminum crutches hit my back.
“Ouch!”
“Fuck you.”
It didn’t really hurt in and of itself, but it hit a bruise. I picked it up off the floor.
“Thanks, Leg-boy.”
“Where you going with that? Hey—I need that!”
“I thought you gave it to me.” And I headed down the hallway.
“That’s not cool, man!”
I went out the front door and threw Kenny’s crutch into
the little front yard. My head was going 10,000 miles per nanosecond. I got in the car and the green mannequin scared the shit out of me. I was really on edge. I needed to name her. How about Mrs. Greenstreet? Done. I figured I’d drop her off on Summer’s front porch and then go see Summer at the Ditch. I turned onto her block, and sure enough—there was the gang of Hillites blasting hip-hop on the corner. Close enough to see me carrying the Mrs. Greenstreet up to the house.
I had nothing for them to smell. I was too numb. Besides, my face looked like Frankenstein after falling face-first off a speeding truck—maybe they should fear my ass. And I can always swing Mrs. Greenstreet at them and scream like a rabid hyena. I could imagine that working. A mannequin is a dangerous weapon, as I had learned earlier. I’d seen what she could do. I got out of the car and pulled her out of the back seat and took her up to the porch. I set her next to Summer’s front door and went back to the Hyundai. All I heard was one “Art fag.” No attack. No rocks. I won. And those sons’o’bitches better watch it or I’ll beat their heads to putty with a mannequin leg. Yeah.
I got back in the car and it occurred to me that this had been the strangest night of my life.
I made some lights and I was at the Ditch in less than five. Everything in this town was so close together. Like the distance between my face and that iron fence the night before. I looked at it as I drove by.
It looked hard.
I parked and went inside. Summer was behind the bar drawing a beer. The beer taps looked giant in front of her. The Ditch was pretty much empty, only about five or six people. They were all in the other room, where the bands play, but they had tables and chairs in the mosh pit, so I guess there was no band tonight. The place seemed so crisp and sharp—so different from the bourbon aquarium I was swimming in last time I swam through there.
Summer looked up.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey!” she smiled. “Hold on one second.”
She took the beer and a mixed drink off the bar and went through the rear passageway of the brick dividing wall. Then she came back through the other archway and right up to me. In spite of everything that had happened, the buzzing energy of her cuteness turned my knees to a buttery liquid.
“So what happened?” she said, grabbing my hand. “You look awful!” She sniffed the air. “Is that bleach?”
“You’re not gonna believe this.”
“What? What?”
“Well, I went over there, and I was in the guy’s front yard, getting ready to chew him a new bunghole for what he—”
The phone behind the bar rang. “One second.” She went around and answered it: “Ditch.”
I sat down at the end of the bar. Summer finished the call pretty quick and came back.
“Okay, sorry about that. Want something to drink?”
“Do you have coffee?”
“Not right now, but I can make some.”
“No, no. I’ll have a Coke.”
So she got me a Coke.
“So,” I continued, “I got the guy to come outside, and I’m getting ready to really give him a piece of my—”
Someone from the lounge area came up to the bar to pay their tab. Fuck!
“Sorry,” Summer said.
My neck was getting hot again. I rubbed it with my hand, which just made it made it hotter. When would I learn? Summer finally finished at the cash register and the people left.
She smiled. “Okay.”
“So, I’m right in the middle of saying my spiel to guy, and Shred and Farns show up!”
“No!”
“And Shred was covered in green paint and he attacked Motorcar with one of your mannequins. A green one.”
“What!”
“Mrs. Greenstreet. I named her.”
“That’s a good name.”
“The whole thing was totally insane. I’m having trouble, like, believing it happened.”
“He said he was borrowing her to use as a prop for his band’s show. Mmm.”
“He put on a show, all right. He totally ruined my confrontation.”
“That is so fucked.”
“And after that Farns shot a flare gun at his head.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I thought it was a real gun and I tried to stop him. Shoved the corkscrew into his arm, but it surprised him and he pulled the trigger. The flare went off right by Motorcar’s head.”
“Unreal.” She was taking it all in and looked a little amused. “What did Shred do to him with mannequin exactly?”
“Motorcar was on the ground and he pushed her into his back, stuck her arm up his crotch from behind, going in-and-out. And he was yelling stuff like: How do you like it!”
Summer covered her mouth. “Holy shit.” She started to laugh.
“You think that’s funny,” I said.
“No, no. I know. I’m sorry. It’s not funny, it’s just very…Shred.”
“The whole thing was a waste, anyway. I feel exactly the same. It hasn’t changed a damn thing.”
“Well, give it some time.”
“Time? I’ve been waiting fifteen years to do this and it got fucking ruined!” Then there was a moment of bad silence.
“You didn’t get to say anything to the guy?”
“No, yeah—I called him a pervert and yelled ‘fuck you.’ And I bitch-slapped him.”
“That’s pretty good.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s not too bad.”
She patted me on the arm.
“Then I went back to his house and skunked his car with an eggs and bleach mixture.”
“Awesome!” She high-fived me.
“Mrs. Greenstreet is safely back on your porch, by the way.”
“Thank you. Is she okay?” She grabbed my wrist. “I mean, seriously, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, aside from feeling like a fleet of garbage trucks ran over my face. And then backed up over the rest of me.”
Some customers came in. Summer said hey and called one of them by name. She knew everybody. They sat at one of the tables and she went to take their drink order. At that moment, I was hit with a wave of triple déjà vu, something from the night before of getting my ass kicked, something to do with Summer, all mixed with the feeling that somewhere in the big gothic antique mirror they had up behind the bar, I’d been a patron of the Ditch for about eight hundred years. On one hand, the feeling was nice, comforting somehow. But I felt my chest filling up with white hot panic. My ankles were throbbing. I had to get out of there.
Summer got back and started making drinks. She seemed to be ignoring me, even though I knew she was just working. I downed the rest of my Coke and said I gotta go.
“But you just got here.”
“I need to go talk to Shred. I’m feeling a little…I’m just gonna go.”
“Come by later. I get home about two-thirty.”
“Okay.”
Wow—I had a date. Maybe this night wasn’t turning out so bad. For being the strangest damn night of my life, anyway. I stopped at 7-11 for a big steaming cup of rotten black coffee. It was joy to my lips. As I paid up at the register with the last of my dimes, nickels and pennies, I realized that I never paid Summer for the Coke. She probably wouldn’t have charged me, but I should have offered. Or left a tip. I was such a psycho stalker thief wingnut douche. God! No, I’m not.
Am.
Not.
23
I really wanted to wring Shred’s green neck. I burned down Laurel Street and back into Oregon Hill. I thought my little car was going to have a fatal heart attack, if I didn’t have one first. This time I crept into the house. Kenny was asleep, thank goodness. I went and got his crutch from the front yard and set it by the sofa. I looked in the rooms and no Shred. I hit my knee on a bicycle wheel leaning up against the wall and it fell over. I heard Kenny.
“Who...uh…” he said, in a sleepy monotone. Then I think he went back to sleep.
I went and sat in the Hyundai to wait for Shred. It
seemed like an odd thing to do but I was feeling odd. I figured if the Hillites attacked, I could just drive over them. No, I wouldn’t do that.
Yes, I would.
No, I wouldn’t.
I drained what was left of my coffee and felt a little better, but not really. I still couldn’t believe Shred and Farns had ruined my life. I smelled my bleachy hands. How could I do all that to Motorcar, and still feel totally unsatisfied? Worse, even. Enough time had gone by, I should have felt something by then. Something other than tired.
I sat there. I still wanted to rip Shred’s face off, but with each minute that sludged by, I was getting less and less mad at him and Farns. Didn’t have the energy. I put the keys in and tried to find a radio station, but I didn’t have the energy for that either. Maybe I should just drive around, but I was so freaking tired and I didn’t have that much gas. I was coming to the only logical conclusion. There was no denying it anymore so I might as well embrace it. Life sucks. After a while, I finally started to cool down. At least I stopped thinking that every car going by was a cop coming to arrest me for attempted murder, assault, stalking, harassment, destruction of property.
The tapping on the windshield sounded like an avalanche. It was Shred. Scared the crap out of me. I wasn’t asleep, but I was in some dazed zone between awake and asleep. I kicked the steering column with my kneecap. It was about the third bruise on that same spot, but at that point I was oblivious to pain.
“What’re you doing out here, Jar?” He sounded oddly calm and measured.
“Jesus—you scared the shit out of me!” I put my hands on my head and tried to remember who I was.
He had washed most of the green off, but there were still patches of it in his hair and around his forehead. The green and the way he had chopped off chunks of his hair made him look like the victim of an electro-shock therapy session gone wrong. I followed him into the house. He headed down the hallway, but I stopped him by his studio door.
Cold Plate Special Page 19