Mad Stacks: Story Collection Box Set

by Scott Nicholson

  "I'll be praying for you," she said when he left.

  He humored her. He found that if he humored her once in a while, she was quicker and more generous with his allowance. And she'd only brought up the subject of him getting a job once since he'd been home. So if giving her a lock of hair or hiding in his room while her friends were over for bridge kept her off his back, he was more than happy to oblige.

  Elliott grabbed his guitar around the neck and walked down the hall. May as well get in a few chops before the band arrived. If he was going to be both lead guitarist and lead singer, he needed to put in a little overtime. His mom was putting the vacuum back into the closet as he passed the kitchen.

  "Hi, honey," she said pleasantly. It irritated him, her air of tulips and plug-in deodorizers, the sunshine in her face and the dazzling white of her perfect teeth.

  "Hi " he muttered. "Gonna practice now "

  "That's nice, dear."

  He stopped by the fridge and lifted a six-pack from the bottom drawer before stepping into the garage. It was dark in there, even in the middle of the day. Elliott had painted the windows black to make the place creepier. He tripped over a mike cable and dropped the beer, skinning his knee. He cursed and fumbled along the floor until he found the power strip and flicked it on.

  Twin red spotlights cut through the room, glinting off silver knobs and switches and drumheads and gooseneck mike stands. A fucking rock 'n roll paradise, that's what it was. Elliott felt a shiver dance up his spine. He lit a cigarette and the smoke swirled like a sick ghost.

  The side door banged open and Bennie came in, Bennie the living skeleton, who wore a black leather vest over his too-taut ribskin. He was too hetero for Elliott's taste, but then, Elliott hadn't gotten around to tasting him yet. Bennie played bass, when he wasn't unconscious. He wiped at his eternally-dripping nose.

  "Yo, E-Man," he spewed, "you ready to rock?"

  Elliott nodded. He needed to come up with a good stage name. "Elliott Everhart III" just didn't cut it. He couldn't picture it on the cover of Rolling Stone, alongside the likes of Slash and Axl Rose. Bennie was "Bennie Blade." Fred, the rhythm guitarist, went by "Freddie Krueger." Fred had even worked up some razor-fingered mittens with the ends cut off so he could work the fret board. Pretty cool little gimmick, in Elliott's opinion.

  Sammy the drummer had gone with the one-name thing, calling himself "Fourskins," after the number of drums in his kit. So Elliott was a little jealous, even if he had come up with what he thought was a pretty kicking name for a metal band.

  The Devil's Doormen.

  He closed his eyes and saw the words as clearly as he'd first seen them. He’d never had much of an imagination, but that night, Shortly after he'd come back home, he'd been freaked on a combination of bad acid and Valium. He felt like he was meat-surfing along the edge of an endless razor, his teeth in the imaginary gray breeze and his ears hearing low whispers. And the words had written themselves across the wall, in wet red letters across that baby-shit-green wallpaper. The Devil's Doormen.

  Elliott took it as a sign. He had tried to believe in the devil and do some of that Satanic ritual crap. He even had a book on witchcraft and spellcasting on his shelf. But he found that when you got right down to it, devil worship was just as troublesome and demanding as Christianity. Just more fucking rules, as far as he could tell. Still, it was a useful aura for a rock star, a marketable label, and it drew the babes and studs like . . . well, like flies.

  Elliott heard the squeal of rubber on pavement, then the crash of a garbage can tipping over. The rest of the band had arrived. Fourskins staggered in, looking like he'd caught up with plenty of free beer already. Freddie followed, slapping the inside of his elbow as if he was preparing to shoot up some skag. He stooped and grabbed one of the beers, and foam exploded in his pale face as he ripped the tab.

  Elliott flashed them the goat-head sign in greeting, lifting his hand with the pinkie and forefinger raised and his thumb tucked over the other two fingers. He plugged in his guitar, listening to the screech of feedback as he twisted up the gain. He walked over to a mike as Foreskins flopped behind his drum kit and began rattling his sticks as if they were legbones.

  "Let's get ready to fucking RUM-BULLLLLLLLLL," Elliott bellowed into the mike, and the Devil's Doormen scratched and clawed their way into a stripped-down off-key version of "Hell's Bells."

  "How did practice go today, sweetheart?" his mom asked, setting a plate in front of him. On the plate was a piece of tuna casserole, lightly breaded and perfectly square. Mashed potatoes on the side, smooth as a baby's cheek, and green beans, each bean the exact same length. Elliott shoveled in a forkful of potatoes and talked around the food.

  "Sucked. Freddie was a half-beat behind the whole damned day." Elliott took a swig of beer and licked the gravy off his lips.

  "You boys sounded . . . improved," she said, flashing that Proctor & Gamble smile.

  "Can't get a fucking gig in this town, anyway. All these rednecks around here want to hear is watered-down bluegrass or that wussy horn stuff."

  "Well, it's important to follow your dreams." She delicately wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Stick-to-it-iveness is a virtue. You’ve just got to have faith."

  "Shit, mom. I'm twenty-one fucking years old. Just about

  ready to be turned out to pasture, in rock years."

  "There's a time for every purpose under heaven, honey."

  She reached across the table and patted his hand. Her skin felt like lotioned wax fruit. He ate in silence.

  "By the way, were you in the walnut bureau today?" she said, batting her thick eyelashes. "Somebody left one of the drawers open, and I didn't want to mess with it in case it was you. You know how I respect your privacy."

  Yeah, right, you plastic bitch, Elliott thought? Is that why you keep messing around in my room when I'm gone? Like I wouldn't notice?

  He wiped his mouth on the tablecloth and belched. A speck of green bean shot across the table, sticking to the Dutch windmill saltshaker.

  "Let me go look," he said He stumbled a little getting up.

  This alcoholism was starting to fuck with him, but it was vital to his image. He crossed the living room and started pulling open the bureau drawers. The top two were so clean, with folded linens and neat rows of dinner candles, a mouse would be afraid to fart in them. But when he slid open the bottom one, a sweet coppery odor sucker-punched his nostrils.

  "What the fuck?" he shouted to no one.

  In the drawer lay a rooster's head, ragged red around its hacked neck and one black eye staring sightlessly at Elliott. Its comb flopped limply to one side, and a small congealing clot of crimson pooled under the orange beak.

  It had to be that sniff monkey, Bennie. Bennie had made several trips into the house during practice, saying he needed to freshen up the beer supply or take a whiz. Most likely he'd rummaged under the sink for some aerosols to snort. But he was known to pull a prank or two, when he stirred his scrambled brains together enough to suffer an actual idea.

  "It's got to be that asshole Bennie, Mom. You know, the bass player," Elliott yelled toward the dining room. The shock had worn off, and now he started to see the humor in the situation. Irony, too. He started snickering. He'd have to remember this scene, when they shot the first Devil's Doormen video.

  There was silence for a moment, and Elliot knew she was chewing her food. Chew every mouthful twenty times before swallowing.

  "Well, honey, you know I don't mind cleaning up after you boys, but I wish you would keep it to the garage. What if Mrs. Greensdorf found a mess when she came over for bridge? She'd likely have a fainting spell."

  That was a sight that Elliott would pay money to see. But he was thinking of asking for a new car. The odometer on his Corvette had just rolled over 50,000 miles. So he made up the kind of horseshit lie that she'd expect.

  "Sorry, Mom. I'll tell the guys that the living room is off limits from now on," he said.

  "That would be nic
e, dear," she chirped, like a robin in the heat of spring.

  Elliott went to his room, leaving the dishes for his mother to clean. He wondered where the hell Bennie had found a live chicken. Probably stolen it somewhere, snatched it up from the side of a midnight road.

  That Bennie. He was a laugh riot.

  No way, man.

  Elliott flipped through his composition book, the one where he wrote down song lyrics. Fucking pentagrams on every page, scrawled in red marker across his own cramped handwriting. Somebody had been dicking with his stuff.

  He had gone into the garage before bedtime, to twist a joint and finish off his latest original. "Black Hole," he was calling it, and he knew the chorus went "Black hole, black hole, sucking down my mortal soul." But he'd looked in the notebook to check out the first verse because he thought he'd scribbled three or four good lines. And he'd seen the pentagrams.

  He'd have to wring Bennie's scrawny neck tomorrow, if the weasel even made it to practice. Staging practical jokes were one thing, but vandalizing Elliott's artistic creations was another. Sure, Bennie was more into that devil worship crap than the others, but that didn't give him the right to rub it in their faces. Sometimes he was so unholier-than-thou.

  Bennie actually believed he'd made a deal with the devil. That he'd traded his soul for rock stardom. And because of his sacrifice, the Devil's Doormen were destined for success. But Bennie wanted the others to join in, too, to hold Black Masses and burn candles and get pentagrams tattooed on their chests. What a load of goat shit.

  Elliott tucked the notebook under his arm and smoked his joint. The buzz sent its blue electricity through his veins. He swayed among the mike stands, lulled by inaudible power ballads. His thoughts spilled over themselves in babbling waterfalls and his eyes played stone red music tricks. He could almost see the shadows moving in the corners of the garage.

  "Wait a sec," he said to himself, his voice small and swallowed by the cavernous dark, "Shadows don't move."

  He held his breath. The room was still.

  "Giving myself the fucking creeps," Elliott said, trying to giggle to himself. But in his nervousness, the laugh came out as a dry gurgle. He edged toward the kitchen door, keeping one eye on the shadows. He almost welcomed the antiseptic white of the gleaming kitchen.

  Under the stale, ordinary fluorescent lights, he could almost convince himself that he had seen nothing. Elliott Everhart, bastard child of night, the embodiment of blasphemy, afraid of the dark? Mister Macho cowering like a little girl in a spookhouse? Badass death-rocker running to Mommy because he had a scary?

  It was a fucking laugh riot. He giggled again, this time with more gusto. He'd finish the lyrics in his room, so he could put on the headphones and bust his cranium with Black Sabbath and Def Leppard tunes.

  His mother was in the living room. She looked up as he passed, and Elliott saw her heart-shaped face, green in the television's glow. A tinny laugh track clattered across the room, probably from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or "My Three Sons."

  "Hi, honey," she said, adjusting the cover of the armrest that had slipped a couple of inches forward. "Turning in for the night?"

  "Yeah, Mom," he said. "Working on a song. You know."

  She smiled, all pearls and pink lips.

  "I'm so proud of my little boy," she said. "So dedicated, so driven. Just like your father, God rest his soul."

  Yeah, whatever, Elliott thought. He was about to turn his back, but then he remembered the new Corvette. Might be a good time to lather the old bitch up. He went into the room and sat in a stiff armchair. It was so clean that it squeaked.

  "Mom?" he said, trying to soften his clenched face.

  "What, dear?" Her eyes were on the flickering screen, dead

  and too-alive at the same time.

  "I just wanted to tell you that it's good to be back. You know being home and stuff. I missed you."

  "That's nice, dear."

  "And you seem happier than ever. You're looking real

  healthy. And nothing seems to bother you."

  Which was so true that it was creepy. She'd always ragged his ass about everything, from the drugs to his bone-buddies' underwear hanging on his doorknob to the soap he always forgot to put back in the soap dish. But lately she'd had the patience of a saint.

  "Thank you, Elliott. I've been praying. For both of us."

  She flicked her dull eyes from the television, then back again. What a ditzy bitch, thought Elliot. As he left the room, he heard her joining in with the laugh track.

  What the hell?

  He'd been dreaming, he was sure. One of those drunken dreams, stumblefucked and grass-green.

  Laughter, thin and rattling, like the studio audience on his Mom’s stupid shows.

  A man’s voice, deep and gravelly, cut through the clatter.

  A squeal came, followed by a cry of pain.

  Mom.

  Elliott fumbled for the lamp, knocking over his guitar in the dark. He turned the switch and the light reamed his eyes. He blinked at the door. Something smelled like rotten eggs scrambled on a steaming sewer grate.

  Mom screamed again, then grunted. Glass crashed at the far end of the hall.

  Somebody must have broken in, attacked her, maybe was raping her right this minute.

  He should have bought a gun down at the pawn shop, but instead he’d gone for a wah-wah pedal. Fat lot of good that would do. But he did have one weapon. They didn’t call it an "axe" for nothing.

  He gripped the neck of the Gibson and swung the guitar in front of him, testing its weight. Heavy enough to bash the brains of a burglar.

  He could see the headlines now: "Rocker Rescues Mother." The publicity would probably get him a record deal. And Mom would be so grateful, she’d get him that Corvette for sure.

  He crept down the hall, guitar on his shoulder. He stopped outside his mom’s door.

  More laughter. What the hell?

  And a grunt, a squeaking-squeaking-squeaking, a rhythm tighter than anything Fourskins had ever laid down. The man’s voice again, a deranged chuckle.

  Mom screamed, and Elliott kicked open the door.

  Whoa. Must be a bad acid flashback.

  His mom was propped on the bed, bent over on hands and knees, cheek pressed a rumpled pillow, fingers tangled in the sheets. Stooped behind her was a seven-foot-tall hunk of Alpo with fur.

  Elliott blinked. The two figures were pounding away, Mom thrusting back against the fuzzy red meat behind her. Her slick and sweaty skin was strobed by the flickering television. Dr. Phil was telling a couple to get real, but neither Mom nor her partner was listening.

  The hunk of Alpo pulled away from Mom with a slurping sound. Its eyes opened and stared at Elliott.

  "The fuck’s going on?" Elliott managed to say.

  Mom lifted her head from the pillow and smiled at him. The Alpo Dude grinned, too, but its teeth were much sharper than Mom’s. Its phallus gleamed, slimy and barbed, the size of a twenty-four-ounce beer can.

  "We both needed a man in our lives," Mom said.

  Elliott raised the guitar, his pulse shit-kicking through his veins as if he’d mainlined crystal meth. When he spoke, his voice came out like a fairy squeak. "The fuck?"

  "I found your book," his mom said. She laughed, screamed, grunted, as the Alpo thing slid itself inside her again. "Ah, the lengths a mother will go to make her son's dreams come true."

  Elliott looked past the bed. Jesus Henry Fucking Christ the KING on a goddamned CRUTCH.

  Bennie was suspended from the ceiling by a rope tied around his ankles. His throat was cut, the blood dribbling down his chin, nose, forehead, and along a wet spike of hair into a bucket on the floor.

  "The spells weren't as hard as I thought they would be," Mom said. She sighed as Alpo Dude picked up the pace, knocking the headboard against the wall with his pounding. "Except—ugh—a chicken head—ugh—wasn’t strong enough,"

  A hot wind had risen inside the house. Alpo Dude winked one ye
llow eye.

  "Prayers—ooh—do get answered," Mom gasped. "Especially if you—uh, uh, uh—say them backwards."

  "Holy shit," Elliott said. Alpo Dude was the Main Man, the Big Guy, the Fallen Angel himself. The creature paused in its assault on the woman who had given birth to Elliott.

  "That’s my mom you’re drilling," Elliott said.

  "A deal’s a deal," Alpo Dude said.

  "Deal?" Elliott looked from his mom to the guitar. He was no longer afraid.

  The guitar had grown lighter, and a sick but pleasurable electricity surged through his hands. He moved the guitar down to his waist, partly to hide his own erection, partly to get the neck into playing position.

  Mom squirmed and wriggled, and the smile never left her face. "You don’t have to practice anymore," she said.

  Alpo Dude thrust forward, shouting "Do it, E-Man."

  Elliott plucked an open string, and it shrieked like a deflowered banshee, even without an amplifier. He fingered a D chord and ran his thumb down the strings. Brittle thunder erupted and smoke billowed from his palms. He tried an arpeggio, and it was Page, Clapton, Hendrix, Robert Johnson, and Angus Young all rolled into one.

  A deal was a deal. He’d gladly hold up his end of the bargain, and it looked like Mom was plenty happy with her end. Alpo Dude wasn’t complaining, either.

  E-Man, the Devil’s Doorman, worked his fingers in sync with the banging of the headboard. Alpo Dude’s laughter provided the bass line and Mom’s squeals added counterpoint. As the crescendo rose, he decided to try the vocals for "Black Hole."

  He couldn’t tell whether the sound that tore from his throat was a scream or the first line to the baddest rock song in the history of the world.

  And another star was born.

  THE END

  Gateway Drug Table of Contents

  Master Table of Contents

  ###

  SKIN

  By Scott Nicholson

  Cold.