Header 2

by Edward Lee

  “Sung,” Case Piece directed next. “Turn on some tunes. Let’s jam awhile.”

  “Oh, shewer, Clase Preece!” and then the Asian turned on the boom box, which immediately blared, “It’s duh ‘hos and duh bitches, my dick-bag itches, here come Dr. Dre, with the Tangeray and duh motherfuck, duh motherfuck, duh motherfuckin’ AK!”

  “Turn that shit off!” Paulie, Argi, and Cristo all yelled at the same time.

  Sung turned it off.

  “Shit, Paulie,” Case Piece said. “Just trine ta get you mellow. But them redneck dudes? We gotta think of a way for you ta break some bad on ’em.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Paulie sputtered.

  “We ain’t been hit that hard in..in, well, ever,” Argi observed.

  “Burns me up,” Paulie blistered. “We gotta do somethin’ back to them that makes what they did to ‘Becca look like babies blowing spit-bubbles.”

  “Dudes lay disrespezzy on you like that? Just you say the word,” Case Piece offered, “and me’n my dawgs? We help you pop hard trunk on the motherfuckers.”

  Paulie winced. “What?”

  Argi’s eyes thinned. “Means, I think, he and his guys’ll help us fuck the rednecks over.”

  “Oh. Well, no, see,” Paulie explained. “We’re Italian. It’s just the way it is. Whatever piece of work we do, it’s gotta be us that does it.”

  “But what are we gonna do?” Cristo pondered.

  Paulie rubbed his eyes. “Shit, man. I don’t know. We don’t know anything about these guys.” He looked to Prouty. “Doc. You’re the smart one. How can we get these guys back?”

  Dr. Prouty gulped. “Ah, well, sir, let me give the query some consideration—hmm. Well, one possibility, I suppose, is thus: we’ll simply venture to their abode. You may recall, the youngster you remunerated money to in exchange for him delivering the DVD player to this man Helton Tuckton. He did give us what seemed to be serviceable directions to the domicile.”

  “Yeah, you’re right! That little redneck kid!”

  “And though he implied that the Winnebago was likely too large and cumbersome to safely navigate the road to Mr. Tuckton’s house, did he not declare that it was only a mile’s distance?”

  “Yeah!”

  Dr. Prouty nodded. “Then we’ll merely dispatch ourselves to the Tuckton residence. If Mr. Tuckton and/or his kin are home, then…” Prouty’s brow shot up.

  Paulie grinned through grinding teeth. “We’ll do an action on ’em that’d make the Devil shit his pants!”

  “And in the event that no one is present at the time of our arrival”—Prouty shrugged—“then we could, say, set fire to their abode, film it while it’s burning, then email the video file to them.”

  Paulie clapped. “Perfect! You’re a genius, Doc!”

  “Great thinkin’,” Argi said.

  Cristo seemed giddy. “And, man, I love burnin’ houses down. And if any of ’em are there, we can even burn the house with them in it!”

  “Yeah!” Paulie’s grim mood swing had reversed. “All right, it’s set. Are we ready? Oh, and Doc? Looks like you get to be camera man again.”

  “I’m…exuberant with the opportunity,” Prouty said

  Paulie chugged some grape soda. “Aw, yeah! I feel much better now, guys!”

  All of the others breathed a sigh of relief.

  The prospect now of revenge thrilled Paulie.

  “You guys skyin’ up now?”

  Paulie winced. “What?”

  Argi made a contemplation. “Think he means are we goin’ to do the job tonight, boss.”

  “Oh. Well, fuck yeah,” the don confirmed. “Why not? The sooner the better, right?”

  “Sure, boss.” Cristo said.

  Paulie looked around. “Where’s the other guy, the pepper-belly? Shit, he’s never here.”

  Case Piece and Sung exchanged a quick glance. “Oh, my dawg Menduez? He out gettin’ blunky with the monkey, you know, doin’ the dop. You hip to that hop? Walkin’ the scag-man bop’n watchin’ junkies cop. He’s mizzlin’ and Mcdizzlin’ and slingin’ and blingin’ and thrillin’ and spillin’n flippity, frippity frop.”

  Paulie spat out a mouthful of grape drink. “What?”

  “Don’t’cha know? He’s our toppest slinger, blood. He on the grooves’n bustin’ moves. He’s jackin’ down ’cos he’s top as a crown.”

  Argi sighed. “Shit, boss, I think he means the guy’s out takin’ care of business.”

  “Right,” Case Piece said.

  Paulie shook his head. “You sell any of that smack yet?”

  Case Piece cocked a glance. “Fo’ shizzle, my mizzle!”

  Paulie spat out more grape drink. “What?”

  Argi rubbed his face. “Means, I think, yeah, boss, they sold some smack.”

  Case Piece forked his ‘fro. “Shit, Paulie. We slung two keys in two motherfuckin’ days. First key we couldn’t kick out the door fast enough. Mid-bags from Radford, Roanoke, shit, all over, they come’n take it off our hands faster than it take Sung to come.”

  “Aw, fruck you, Clase!” Sung laughed.

  “Second key we peddled ourselves right here. All’s a sudden the junkies are out. Maybe my man Obama got more’a them stimulus checks mailed ’cos, fuck, last week we couldn’t sell shit’n this week we got more hypes with green in their hands than Florida’s got old people.”

  “Well, fuck, that’s great,” Paulie said, but his distraction was evident. He seemed to beam through some inner joy. “Keep sellin’ that smack. Keep, uh, rizzlin’ and McFizzlin’ or whatever the fuck.” He snapped his fingers. “Ready, guys?”

  Paulie’s men were.

  “Then let’s split, or…sky up, or whatever the fuck. Oh, and tell your whore I’m sorry I stuck her head back in Melda’s cunt.”

  “Fo’ shizzl”—but then Case Piece let it slide. “I’ll tell her, man.”

  Paulie and his men made their exit into the night. All of them, save for Dr. Prouty, were rubbing their crotches for no apparent reason.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 9

  (I)

  Veronica awoke at daybreak, frowning at her recollection of the most hideous nightmare. Abducted by rednecks, she thought with a shudder but then she looked around to find herself in a reeking sleeping bag with one wrist handcuffed to a metal table in the back compartment of a large truck. The sound inside was akin to that of a bear cave, her three “hosts” snoring like machines. Micky-Mack and Dumar each lay on the floor in their own sleeping bags while Helton slept sitting upright in the corner.

  Veronica choked back tears upon the eventual recognition that none of this was a nightmare. It was all real.

  Just a few days before Christmas…and here I am…

  Dim morning light flowed from the front windshield through the shower curtain.

  The snoring went on an on.

  Oh, for goodness sake! her thoughts shrilled. She had to urinate. Her nose crinkled at the sleeping bag’s stink as she clumsily crawled out. She took the empty bean can, frowned hard at it, then, with great awkwardness, pulled her pants and panties down, squatted, then began to void in the can. Her nose crinkled again, for her urine smelled like Veggie Chips.

  The nearly musical chime of the stream hitting the can woke the others at once.

  “Well, hey there, Veronnerka,” Helton greeted and stretched his great arms. “Havin’ yerself a pee, huh? I’se’ll tell ya. First pee’a the day’s a saturs-fyin’ thing indeed, ain’t it?”

  Veronica couldn’t fathom a response.

  Dumar shrugged out of his bag. “‘Mornin’ Veronnerka! And hows are you doin’ today?”

  Veronica, still in the awkward squat, glared. “I’m peeing!”

  “Ya sleep well, I’se hope?”

  How could I possibly have slept WELL?

  Micky-Mack was awake too, and looked right at her with eyes abloom. “Hot dang! I’se love seein’ a gal with a purdy pussy takin’ a pee!” He was obviously rubbin
g his crotch. “Puts some lead in my pencil, yessir!”

  Veronica finished, frustrated to tears, and pulled her pants back up. When she tried to sit down—

  clang!

  “Oh NO!”

  —the awkward movement caused her to knock the bean can over with her elbow, and all that warm urine flowed right beneath her.

  The men all laughed.

  “It’s NOT FUNNY!” she screamed. “My pants are DRENCHED!”

  “Ain’t nothin’ but a li’l pee,” Dumar said.

  Helton chuckled. “Gals shore do get bitchy ’bout the littlest things.”

  Micky-Mack was grinning, sniffing the air. “Ya know? There’s sumpthin’ ’bout the smell of a purdy gal’s pee gits my dick dribblin’.”

  Helton and Dumar nodded in assent.

  Madness, madness, madness! Veronica thought as her pants soaked up the urine. She began to blubber. “Helton! Would you please let me go!”

  “Don’t be all cryin’ and such, hon. See, the way feuds work is, see, they ain’t over till the fella yer feudin’ with up’n cries uncle. Ya know? He’s gotta give up, and, well”—Helton shook his head—“when Paulie calt last night after seein’ our movin’ picture, it didn’t sound like he were gonna do that.”

  Dumar stood now at the truck’s open door, urinating loudly. The cool air caused the void’s arch to steam. “Shee-it, Paw. That Paulie, he’s all talk. Once he watched our movie, he know full well he’s messin’ with the best.”

  “Paulie ain’t got the balls to try’n hit us again,” Micky-Mack said. He cocked a buttock and farted. “And even if he wanted to, what could he do?”

  Helton seemed to consider this but suddenly—

  They all froze.

  The cellphone was ringing.

  “Gee,” Veronica said with some sarcasm. “Why do I think that’s Paulie?”

  “Ya gonna answer it, Paw?”

  Helton peered with annoyance at the little phone. “Here, Veronnerka. Why’n you answer it? Sumpin’ ’bout these little magic phones git my goat.”

  Veronica snatched the phone from him and answered.

  “Hello?”

  A steely, Jersey accent snapped back, “Who’s this? This Tuckton’s whore?”

  “I beg your pardon!” Veronica half-yelled and half-sobbed.

  “This is Paulie!” the man on the other end barked. “You tell that white-trash Gomer Pyle fuck that he’s got an email!” and then the line went dead.

  “Well?” the others all seemed to say simultaneously.

  “Paulie sent you an email,” she told them. “And, gee! Why do I think he’s attached a movie to it?”

  “Dang, Paw! Ya reckon he done sumpin’ back ta us alls-ready?”

  “But what the hail could he do?” Micky-Mack said in disbelief.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Veronica snapped. “I have to go online.”

  “On what?”Dumar asked. “Like a clothes line? Paw, what she talkin’ ’bout?”

  “I think,” Helton perceived, “that it’s the same magic phone line like what she used last night to send Paulie our movin’ picture. Am I right, hon?”

  “Yes, and if you want to see what he sent you, you’ll have to give me my laptop.”

  “Oh, ya mean yer fancy ‘puter?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, slumping in her own piss. “My fancy ‘puter.”

  Helton brought the laptop, and in minutes, Veronica was downloading the file sent to the new eddress she’d created last night.

  “Is it…,” Helton began with a dry dread in his voice.

  “It’s a digital video file,” she told them. She opened it through her media player, then passed the laptop to Helton. “Here. Whatever it is, I don’t want to see it.”

  “Probably fer the best, hon…” He set the unit on the metal table. “Come on, boys. We needs ta watch this.”

  “Just hit the enter button,” Veronica said, then sulked in her corner.

  With some difficulty, Helton did so, and then…

  They watched.

  ««—»»

  It’s nighttime, though there’s an icy glare from some mode of auxiliary lighting. The camera pans across leafless trees, then the forms of three men are waving at the camera: men with the most curious rubber masks. The husky man wears the face of Abraham Lincoln, while a slimmer man wears Mr. Spock. A third, who carries the air of ringleader, looks back with the face of Richard M. Nixon. The masks look very old but remain quite flexible. The men wave for quite awhile. Then the scene cuts to—

  A roaring fire.

  It’s an elaborate yet quite ramshackle dwelling made of wood planks and what appears to be hand-hewn cedar shingles. Sound that is somehow grainy accommodates the image: the crackling of abundant flames. In only minutes, the wooden edifice is consumed, collapsing in a minor mushroom cloud of smoke and sparks. There’s something almost awesome about the fire’s voracity, as well as the promptitude of its reducing the shack to a pile of raving embers.

  Nixon steps into the foreground and says in an undeniable Jersey accent: “See that pile of shit house, Helton? I’ll bet it looks familiar, don’t it?” and there several robust off-screen laughs are heard. “But that’s just for starters…,” and the scene cuts again to—

  A wooden plank sticking in the ground. The camera zooms in, for there seems to be crude writing on that plank.

  The writing reads:

  MARY BETH TUCKTON

  WIFE OF DUMAR TUCKTON

  DAWTER OF CLONNER MARTIN

  NEECE OF JAKE MARTIN

  LUVING WIFE & MOTHER

  B. Apr. 30, 1977

  D. Dec. 13, 2010

  The camera pulls back wider amid an erratic, gritty sound that is soon revealed to be the sound of shovels digging into the crude grave. Wider and wider, the lens retreats and at last the grave-diggers are shown: Spock and Lincoln.

  Again, the scene cuts to—

  The grave now fully opened. It’s only several feet deep and the shrouded form within indicates that no liner or coffin was available for the interred.

  “There’s our bitch,” Nixon relates off-screen. “Good job, guys.”

  Hands reach into the shallow pit and haul out the long, shrouded bundle. A tearing sound is heard, while—closer—two sets of hands rip the shroud open. The glare of moonlight reveals the form of a shapely female corpse: light hair that’s probably blond, a face that would’ve been pretty in life. The corpse has been dressed in a simple cotton nightgown with some unidentifiable floral print; then this, too, is riiiiiiiiiiiiiipped open. The globes of large, firm breasts fill the screen: frost-white, with large, oblong nipples puckered in death and tinted the faintest blue.

  “Damn,” an off-screen voice comments. “Not a bad set of tits for a stiff.”

  “I ain’t never tit-fucked a corpse before but”—a chuckle—“there’s always a first time.”

  Brusk laughter.

  “Doc. Go up and down the whole body.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The camera tracks down over the flat stomach, curvaceous hips, plush thighs. It is a conspiracy of visual elements that collide now: the crisp December night, the crisp radiance of moonlight, and the crisp white skin. They all seem to contribute to an overall image of death-perversity and, somehow, death-beauty. The thighs are parted to afford the camera a more concise vision: the furred pubis, and the plump slit beneath the hair.

  More off-screen voices deliberate…

  “How ya like that? This is one dynamite-lookin’ dead redneck tramp.”

  “Yeah. Drop-dead gorgeous.”

  Laughter.

  “She don’t even stink. Says on the marker she’s been dead, what, ten days?”

  “Nine, sir.”

  “Then how come she don’t stink? Wouldn’t her cunt and mouth and all be full of worms?”

  “Actually, no, sir. The cool temperatures of the December climate have essentially kept the corpus refrigerated, forestalling most, if not all,
putrefaction. There will be evidence of post-mortal lividity, of course, and some visual venosity contrasting with the death-pallor. Rigor has passed, though. She’s quite well preserved…”

  A rough cut, then—

  A vigorous slapping sound as the screen is now full of a hairy, pumping male buttocks. The dead woman’s parted thighs jostle aside.

  slap, slap, slap, slap, slap

  “Pussy’s cold but—fuck—I think I’m gonna be able ta—”

  The copulation intensifies.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’…”

  “Bitch is gettin’ her Christmas present early!”

  The hairy buttocks slows, then stops, then withdraws. During the withdrawal, a string of semen dangles from the stout, limpening penis.

  “Argi the man!”

  A rough cut, then another penis is quickly sliding in and out of the cleavage between the woman’s pressed-together breasts. Upon the moment of climax, the erection rises, throbbing, then releases splotches of sperm across the corpse’s face.

  “Not a bad nut. You want a go, boss?”

  “Naw, I’ll leave the corpse-fucking to the pros.”

  More laughter.

  “All right, let’s fill the bitch up now. I love this idea of Argi’s…”

  A rough cut, or more like what a screenwriter would call a smash-cut: an off-angle close-up of the dead woman’s face. Her lips, like her nipples, are faintly blue. Fingers peel open her eyelids, then open her mouth to a gape.

  “I’m goin’ first,” the voice that seems to be the ringleader’s says, then, quite abruptly, yet with some finesse, a spread male buttocks carefully squats over the corpse’s face, adjusting in hitches, until the rectum has been positioned tightly over the dead mouth.

  Sounds of flatulence issue; the buttocks flexes.

  “Damn. Feels like I’m shittin’ a foot-long turd!”

  Eventually the buttocks lifts off, and the camera slowly zooms to show that the woman’s mouth has been filled with fresh feces. With no prelude, a small rubber drain-plunger is affixed. The fingers of one hand keep the plunger’s rubber cup sealed over the lips. The other hand deftly and with force—

  shhhhhlush

  —pushes the handle down once hard, then removes the plunger altogether to show that the woman’s mouth is now empty.