Header 2

by Edward Lee

  Veronica began to cry.

  “There, there, hon. Don’t be upset.” The crinkly bag was offered again. “Here. Have some…Veggie Chips. They’ll perk ya right up.”

  — | — | —

  Chapter 8

  (I)

  The three of them walked down Clag Street—Case Piece, Menduez, and Sung—Case Piece with his antiquated “boom box” on his shoulder. He was jammin’, and what he was jammin’ to was the brand-new CD by PREE-postur-ISS, which was especially appropriate since it featured Hip Hop Christmas songs. “Dig it, my dawgs,” he said, bopping along. He upped the volume:

  “Rudolf the motherfuckin’ reindeer, had a motherfuckin’ shiny nose, and if you ever motherfuckin’ saw it, you would say it motherfuckin’ glows. All of the other motherfuckin’ reindeers, used to laugh and call him motherfuckin’ names. They never let poor Rudolf join in any goddamn motherfuckin’ reindeer games…”

  “Turn that shit off!” bellowed an old woman on her doorstep. The gang turned to glare but resumed walking when they spied the 12-gauge in the woman’s hands. Case Piece turned off the music.

  “Shit. Motherfuckin’ old white bitch ain’t got no Christmas spirit,” Case Piece complained.

  “Yeah!” Sung agreed. “No Kwissmas spiwit at all!”

  “I take a giant chit in her yard tonight, mang,” Menduez promised.

  “Fuck ’em.” Case Piece thumbs-upped. “We ain’t gonna let no motherfucker crimp our motherfuckin’ joy, uh-uh.”

  The moon glazed the old street, painting cracker-box houses. Christmas lights blinked in alternate windows, and from one scrubby yard, a plastic snowman waved. Ahead, a pair of sneakers dangled on some power lines. “Chit, yeah, mang. Tying ta sell more smack,” Menduez said, observing the dilapidated shadow at the phone pole.

  “Sling it, bro.”

  “Yeah, bwo!”

  The skinny Caucasian female addict teetered forward with hollow eyes and a proffered $20 bill. Her arms looked like bones painted the color of lard, but with needle-tracks like lines of black pepper. Menduez slapped the heroin baggie into her hand, then, like a card trick, the $20 was in his own hand. “Chew only buy smack from us, right, woomahn?”

  “Oh, yeah, man,” the stick-girl affirmed. Her clothes were rotten.

  “Chew don’t never buy from no fuckin’ cowboys, right? ’cos, if chew do?” Menduez shook his head. “Chew wind up fucked.”

  “No, no, I’d never do that, man,” the addict assured, shuffling away. She picked at the ass-crack in her rotten jeans. “Thanks, man.”

  “Hey, girl!” Case Piece called out. “Merry Christmas—uh-huh!”

  They all high-fived when Menduez returned to the group.

  “How many skag-bags we got left, my man?” Case Piece asked.

  “All gron, man!” Sung informed.

  Case Piece got back to his bop. “Our gig? Shit. It’s trick as a crown. It’s tip as a top—we drip to that drop.”

  “Yeah, mang. Last week, chit took us all fockin’ week to sell what we sold in one fockin’ day, mang.”

  “Shit, all’s a sudden it seem like this recession be over,” Case Piece regarded hopefully. “Guess my top-dawg Obama, he must’ve fixed the economy. We movin’ skag.”

  Menduez, “Yeah, mang, and we still got three kilos left, I tink.”

  “Yeah! Twee,” Sung verified. “Our gig twop-dwawer, boyz!”

  The three idiots continued walking. Case Piece…well, he rubbed his crotch. “And now we gots our own ‘ho with the trickin’-est bod.”

  Menduez squeezed his crotch, too. “Where dat puta tonight, mang?”

  “Turnin’ twicks?”

  “Naw, she back the crib, baggin’ the next kilo. See what I mean, me’n my dawgs? We got it made in the shade. Paulie and his boyz, they bring it, we sling it, and Highball, she bag the skag and we slag the skag. Right on.”

  Menduez frowned. “Slag? What chew mean by dat chit, mang?”

  “Yeah, Clase Pleece. Rut does slag mean?”

  Case Piece slumped. “Shit. It don’t mean nothin’. I just make it up cos it rhyme.”

  Their laughter crackled down the dark street.

  When they turned the corner, the next road extended in worse repair than the previous. Lots of old triplex tenements and drab apartments with dingy laundry flapping from high rails in the cold breeze. But on the porch of one triplex, several young Hispanic men sat.

  “Dare day is, dah poo-putt piece’s a chit,” Menduez guttered sinisterly.

  Case Piece grinned at them and pointed his finger like a gun.

  The sullen faces on the Hispanics observed the NSG-3 through indirect glances, then they got up and went inside.

  “More new cowboys, chit. Mexicans, sellin’ dat black tar chit in our town. Fuck, I bury doze cockroaches.”

  “Competition, man,” Case Piece said. “It part’a business, like my top dawg Paulie say.” He slapped Menduez on the shoulder. “Look like you’ll be busy tonight, Menduez. You need to do that doggie thing you do and send those chumps a message. And if it don’t work, fuck, we’ll just pop trunk on the motherfuckers.”

  “Hey, I see a new puppy dog today just down the stweet!”

  “Yeah, mang, I see it too. At house dat asshole Giller lives.” Meduenz prounced Giller as “Geeler.”

  “Aw, that honkie dick? Shit. I ‘member one time, I’se just jammin’ to my tunes walkin’ down the street with my Grape Slush, and that honkie dick, you know what he say? He say, ‘Negroes ain’t allowed on this street.’ Shit. That white fuck. I’m duh Ace Boon Coonest player dare is, I’m a motherfuckin’ thug-king, I ain’t no Negro. Yeah, Menduez, whine’choo snatch that honkie piece’a shit’s puppy and do that dog thing you do?”

  “Chore, mang. No prob-leng.”

  “Time to sky up, dawgs. Let’s bop our butts back to the warehouse. I need my dick deep in Highball’s cash drawer, don’t’cha know. And that bitch better’a done our laundry and washed the fuck-rust out’a our sheets like I tole her, or I’se bust her up!”

  “Shrit, yeah, man!” Sung enthused and rubbed his crotch. “Ret’s get back to the kwib!”

  Menduez kept rubbing his crotch. “Chew guys go on ahead, mang. First eyeing gotta snatch me dat piece’a chit Giller’s puppy,” and then he turned and went down another street.

  “Come on, Sung. Shit.” Case Piece was about to head back to the warehouse but he suddenly stopped and brought a hand to his forehead. He seemed to be experiencing a mental flash. “Wait, wait! I just got me some creative inspiration!” and he looked up at the crisp winter sky, closed his eyes, and began to sing: “Hickory dickery DOCK! In her mouth she suck my SLOP and swallow every DROP! The clock strike five, I’m slappin’ jive! Hickory dickery motherfuckin’ DOCK!”

  Sung applauded. “That gwate, Clase Pleece! You a wegular wapper!”

  “Shit, yeah,” Case Piece agreed. “Keep them words in that genius brain of yours, Sung. I gotta find some way to get it to my man Ice-T. Shit, he make a hit out of it!”

  Indeed.

  The two drug dealers eventually returned to the warehouse, but the first sight that greeted them stopped them both in their tracks.

  “Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo,” Case Piece said, holding out his hand.

  In the darkened parking lot sat—

  “Prawlie’s Rinnebago!” Sung exclaimed.

  Case Piece scratched his Afro. “Shit. What Paulie doin’ back? He and his dudes split hours ago.”

  “We better trek it out!”

  Bright yellow lights could be seen in the Winnebago’s windows, but when they were closer, the forms of three men could be seen: two in dark overcoats, their arms crossed as they smoked, and taller man who wasn’t smoking. Additionally, Case Piece thought he heard something.

  The sounds of muffled shouts?

  The three forms glanced over as the footsteps approached. The two smokers turned out to be Argi and Cristo, the third man, Dr. Prouty.

  They all looked…dismal
.

  “Hey, bros?” Case Piece greeted. “How you be?”

  The doctor spoke up, “I regret to reply that we don’t be very well at all.”

  “Yeah,” Cristo said, his eyes grim. “Some fucked up shit happened tonight.”

  “Oh no!” Sung remorsed.

  “What, cops?” Case Piece dreaded to ask.

  “Naw—”

  “But…where’s Paulie?”

  Argi jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, at the motor home, while at the same moment, that muffled shouting rose again.

  The shouting, unmistakably, belonged to Paulie.

  “Those motherFUCKers! You see what they did! I’m PAULIE FUCKIN’ VINCHETTI, and nobody does a job like that on me! Nobody!” Was there a pause, then a strange, regular slopping sound? “Back in ya go, bitch—yeah, back in! You like that? Huh? Fuck! Those fuckin’ guys! Who do they think they are?” Another pause, another slopping sound. “Fuck it! Back in ya go! What the fuck, huh? So help me God I’m gonna GET those guys!”

  “Man, bloods. Paulie, he sound like he’s whilin’ out. Who he yellin’ at?” Case Piece asked.

  “The broad,” Argi answered.

  “The…” Case Piece’s eyes bulged. “You mean Highball?”

  “Yeah,” Cristo said. “See, Paulie’s real pissed off. You know them guys we pulled some vendetta on?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, tonight they hit us back.”

  “They hit us back hard,” Argi augmented.

  “Yeah! You like that, bitch? I’ll bet you do!” more of Paulie’s muted shouting could be heard. “Back in ya go! Baaaaaaaaack in!”

  “Is he…?” Case Piece began. “He’s not…”

  Argi and Cristo nodded.

  “Shit!” Case Piece broke, turned toward the Winnebago’s side door. “I gotta go in there and find out why he’s whilin’ on Highball!”

  It was Dr. Prouty who took Case Piece’s arm with a hesitant look. “That would be most inadvisable, Mr. Piece. You see, Mr. Vinchetti, at this particular moment, is rather inconsolable.”

  “When shit don’t go his way,” Cristo added. “Paulie, well, see…”

  “Avoiding proximity is the most sound advice,” the doctor said.

  “He’s like a fuckin’ rabid dog when he’s pissed,” Argi finished.

  Thumping could be heard now, like someone’s heels thudding the floor in sheer horror. “I’ll just go…rap with him,” Case Piece found some courage.

  “Go at your own risk,” Argi said.

  Case Piece, in stops and starts, opened the vehicle’s narrow metal door and immediately heard mewling and more thumping. He stepped in, his nose twitching at the awful body odor generated by that obese woman, Melda. The living area was a shambles; more of Paulie’s shouts rocketed forward.

  Case Piece, finally, stepped into the horrific back room.

  Paulie cackled as he plunged Highball’s margarine-slathered head in and out of Melda’s cave-sized vagina. The comely prostitute convulsed, her bare heels, indeed, thumping against the floor. She was nude, of course, her tremendous body flushed, tense, gleaming in sweat. Her hands had been tied behind her back. Then came that great slopping sound as Paulie pulled Highball’s head back out of the monstrous orifice.

  “Ya like that, bitch? Huh?” Paulie gruffed, madman-like as he leaned over to watch her convulsions. Highball’s cheeks expanded, her mouth taped. Air whistled in and out of her dilated nostrils.

  “Paulie? Shit, man. What up?” Case Piece babbled. “Highball, what? She mouth off to you again?”

  Paulie, still hunching, shot a glance backward. “Those fuckin’ guys! You know what they did?” He was delirious. Highball’s convulsions accelerated when Paulie yanked her back up and—

  SHHHHHHHHLUCK!

  —sunk her head back into Melda’s vaginal barrel.

  “Paulie! Come on, man! You’ll kill her! What happened?”

  “What happened?” he growled. “Oh, I’ll show ya what happened!” and suddenly he strode back to the forward room, abandoning Highball. When Melda saw that her boss had left, she relaxed her vaginal muscles and expelled Highball’s head like someone disgorging, say, a meatball from their mouth. The prostitute thunked to the floor only moments before she’d have suffocated.

  Case Piece ran to the living area where Paulie manically fiddled with a laptop computer. “Those redneck mother fuckers emailed this to us!” the don exploded. “Watch!”

  Case Piece stared at the bright laptop screen, and a crude, glaring image stared back: the rear compartment of, apparently, a large step van, and a metal table. A thin man in a tacky jacket, whose head remained out of frame, was now tearing the nightshirt off of a pudgy teenaged girl with frightfully pink hair. The girl shuddered where she lay, her baby fat jiggling, screeching ineffectually through a gag her mouth. The man tied her to the table.

  “Paulie?” Case Piece droned. “What the…what the hell…is this?”

  Paulie’s rage turned his face nearly as pink as the girl’s hair. “Just watch!”

  Case Piece watched.

  On the screen, a gruff redneck voice said, “Here, son. Hold the camera while I’se show ya how ta cut the hole,” and then the image jig-jagged and suddenly a larger man in a tacky jacket stepped into the frame.

  He held a power drill, and locked into the drill’s chuck was a 3-inch hole-saw blade.

  “Watch careful now, boys…so’s ya know how ta do it.”

  The screech of the drill was bad enough but worse—far worse—was the sound of the next process, when the large man pressed down on the girl’s face with his hand and applied the high-rpm hole-saw to the center of the top of her skull. Eventually, the circle of bone and scalp was removed, revealing a clean-cut hole, and the hole itself now revealed a circle of raw, whitish-pink brain.

  “Now,” the faceless big man said, “we gots ta cut a slit fer our dicks,” and then he produced a formidable knife and inserted it into the aforementioned hole. This event caused the gagged girl to reflexively twitch.

  “Yessir! See, when ya do it right—like I just done—she don’t die right off. It’s always best they still be alive when ya first put’cher bone in.”

  “Hot dog, Unc!” celebrated another off-screen voice. “She is! She is still alive!”

  I’ll’se go first’n show you boys how it’s done,” the voice said next. “Son? Here. Point the camera down…”

  The camera-angle deflected to the man’s crotch, where he’d already extracted his quite uncircumcised penis. He masturbated dexterously until an erection was achieved, and it was then that he…

  Well, the dutiful reader can guess.

  What Case Piece watched on that screen for the next series of minutes was something he could never have fathomed in a million years. Amid this redneck perverto circus came caterwauls of the most robust sort, a dialect-riot of hoots, Rebel yells, and exclamations such as, “Now hump that head, boy! I say hump it!” and “”Yeah! Yeaaaaaaah! Ain’t no better feelin’ than that’a yer dick stuck all the way inta a gal’s brain,” and “There it is, there it is! How’s that feel, baby? You like all’a my nut squirtin’ in yer white-trash head?” and “Holy shit, Paw! That there might be the best nut’a my life!” etc, etc.

  When the film ended, Case Piece simply stared.

  “See!” Paulie yelled. “See what those rednecks did!” He banged his fist so hard on the utility desk, the laptop jumped. “That fat kid was my step-daughter!”

  “Your-your…”

  “Yeah! They cut a hole in a 16-year-old’s skull and fucked her brain!”

  Case Piece’s jaw vibrated. “That-that some hardcore jack-down, Paulie, some super-groaty gross-out shit, man…”

  “You’re tellin’ me!”

  Case Piece stood slightly dizzied from what he’d just seen. “That shit they do? That’s even grosser than you guys stickin’ people’s heads in that fat woman’s giant cunt. Them dudes? They is tough.”

  “And—fuck!—t
he worst part is, we’re the kings of hardcore snuff! Me and my guys! And these hillbillies just beat us at our own game!” Paulie kicked the wall and bellowed. “And did you see that resolution? Goddamn! Even their fuckin’ camera is better than ours!” and at the peak of this next tirade, Paulie lurched back into Melda’s room, enfrenzied. He picked Highball up again and sunk her head back into Melda’s agape vagina.

  “Paulie! Man!” Case Piece exclaimed. “Why you goin’ ape-shit on Highball? She didn’t do nothin’!”

  “I know,” the don cracked. He cupped his hands under the prostitute’s armpits and pushed hard. Highball twitched as if being electrocuted. “I’m mad! When I get mad, I gotta-I gotta vent my frustrations!”

  “Come on, Paulie. That ain’t right. She our ‘ho. She got the toppest trick-time bod on the street. Can’t kill her just ’cos you’re mad.” Case Piece dared put his hand on Paulie’s shoulder. “Listen, bro. Fuck this. Let’s go inside so’s you can cool off. Then we’ll think of a way fer you ta get back at these dudes…”

  Paulie let the consideration sink in, and, just as Highball was re-entering death throes, he let her head fall out. “Yeah, yeah. I…guess you’re right.”

  Highball shuddered on the floor, eyes fit to pop out. When Case Piece pulled the duct tape off her mouth, she lurched, arched her back, screamed, then passed out.

  “Come on, Paulie. Let’s get in the crib,” the black man urged. “Get you chilled.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Paulie said desperately, running his fingers back through his hair.

  “‘Bye, Case Piece!” Melda said.

  Case Piece took one aghast glance at the morbid woman—whose fat-bulged face grinned ludicrously. Drooling, she flapped a fat, dirty hand.

  “Uh…yeah,” Case Piece said and ushered Paulie out.

  In the warehouse “day room,” Paulie sat on the bedraggled couch, wringing his hands. Argi, Cristo, and Dr. Prouty stood in nervous silence. Case Piece grabbed a soda from the battered fridge and gave it to Paulie. “Here, blood. Have a grape drink. It’ll make ya feel top.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the don replied.