by John Bruni
Not even Randall had ever seen this area. He couldn’t believe how many people lay on the sidewalks with needles in their arms and smoking pipes clutched in their bony white hands. The fuckslingers didn’t even look appetizing. They held cardboard signs that advertised prices which no self-respecting human would accept. One woman, covered in warts and filth, had a sign that said she’d blow anyone for a sandwich. Sex cost a bottle of rotgut.
All the store fronts had a crumbled look about them, as if they were on their last legs. Dirt smeared all the windows, many of which sported cracks and taped-over bullet holes. He wondered if anyone really operated businesses out here. Upon closer examination, he saw a number of pawn shops and taverns had neon OPEN signs in their filthy windows.
“Jesus. Do you go down here often?”
“Only when I’m told to,” Roberto said. He let the limo park itself and went around to open Randall’s door. “Be very careful, sir. If someone conscious and sober enough comes along, they will mug you. I’m not kidding.”
“I’ll be fine.” Randall patted the gun in his pocket.
Roberto leaned against the side of the car, smoking as he watched after his customer.
Randall headed for the liquor store. Laying near the doorway was what he initially took to be a passed-out junkie. As he got closer, he saw the puddle of blood circling the corpse’s cracked-open head, making him look like a bizarro saint.
He looked away as he focused on the liquor store’s dirty glass door. Upon entering, he noticed an enormous man behind the counter. His shaved head gleamed in the overhead light, and tattoos of swastikas and KKK symbols covered his body. A smear of red marked the floor where a customer buying booze might stand.
“There’s a body in front of your store,” Randall said.
“I know,” the clerk said. He produced a lead pipe from behind the counter. One end had been taped up, and the other shone red with blood. “I put him there.”
Oh fuck. “Uh, what did he do?”
“Tried to hold me up.”
Randall thought it might be best to not ask any more questions. Under a handlebar mustache, the clerk’s mouth curled up in a snarl, and his muscles bristled like an angry cat’s fur. He still held the lead pipe, and he looked eager to use it again.
“That’s cool.” Randall turned away from him to look at the selection. There were no big name products here, but he didn’t want that, anyway. He needed cheap slop with a high proof – higher than was legal. He didn’t have to search long before he found some moonshine at 196 proof. Perfect. He started gathering bottles into his arms.
The clerk cleared his throat. “You ain’t planning on holding me up, too, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Then why’re you grabbing all that booze?”
“I’m going to a party,” Randall said. “I want to make sure everyone has their own bottle.”
“That’s a lot of money you’re talking right there, man. You’re already holding fifty bucks worth.”
Randall looked down at the four bottles he held so far. He restrained the urge to laugh, as he figured that might get him a lead pipe head adjustment. “I’ve got the money to back up my grip.”
Something changed on the clerk’s face. “You a faggot?”
Henry’s Likkker was not the kind of place to get up on a soapbox about prejudiced assholes, so Randall yet again restrained himself. “Nope.”
“I don’t like the way you talk.”
Randall thought about answering with a witty quip, but again, he didn’t want to get his ass kicked, or maybe even killed. Instead, he came up to the counter with about twenty bottles of rotgut. The clerk scanned them and said, “Including Uncle Sam’s cut, that’ll be two-seventy.”
Randall held his hand over the chip reader and transferred the money. As soon as the reader dinged with a green light, the clerk put the bottles into a box. Randall carried it out to the limo, and Roberto took it from him and loaded it into the trunk.
“Where to next?” he asked Randall.
“102 Bingham.”
Roberto laughed. “That’s in the rich neighborhood.”
“That’s right. That’s where I want to go.”
Randall got in the back, and Roberto closed the door for him. As soon as he knew his client wouldn’t be able to hear him, Roberto muttered, “Talk about variety.”
4
Roberto opened the door. “102 Bingham, sir.”
Randall got out and asked him to please fetch the box of booze from the trunk. While the driver went to do this, Randall went to the gate, to the intercom. He pressed the buzzer and waited.
“Yes?”
Huh. That voice sounded familiar. “Johnson? Is that you?”
“Yes. Whom may I ask is there?”
Wow. Johnson had been old back when Randall still lived here. He couldn’t imagine him still doing butler work. “It’s me, Junior.”
“Mr. Barnabas! We haven’t heard from you in quite some time, sir.”
“Is my father there?”
“I’m afraid he’s out at the moment. May I be of service?”
“Hm. Could you let me in?”
“I’m afraid Mr. Barnabas—your father, I mean—issued strict orders not to admit you, Mr. Barnabas.”
Shit. He hadn’t counted on that, but he did have one thing in his back pocket. Suddenly, he felt grateful that Johnson still worked here. “Need I remind you that you owe me?”
A pause. Then: “Of course not, sir. I’ll buzz you in.”
Randall smiled as the buzzer went off, and the gates opened. He turned to Roberto and said, “You wait here, okay? I’ll get back to you shortly.”
“Sure.” Roberto handed over the box. Then, as soon as Randall was out of sight, he started up the Waiting Ritual. He lit up a cigarette, discreetly hid himself in the shadows thrown by towering bushes and relaxed.
Randall walked down the drive until he reached the sprawling Barnabas manor, where Johnson waited for him on the doorstep. Johnson, who stood stiffly as his crisp suit. He’d been with the family since Randall had been a boy and longer, yet he still looked strong and firm.
“It’s been a long time, sir.”
“Good to see you, Johnson.”
“May I take your box, sir?”
“No, I’ll carry it. However, you can take the rest of the night off.” He balanced the box against the door frame and held out his left hand for transfer.
Johnson looked at it momentarily before shifting his gaze to Randall’s eyes. “Might I be so bold as to ask why?”
“Just take it and go.”
Johnson held his left hand against Randall’s and accepted a three hundred dollar transfer. “Thank you, sir.”
“Is there anyone else here?” Randall asked.
“Just the maid.”
“Take her out with you. Have a night on the town.”
“Most respectable places are closed for the night.”
Randall grinned. “Then take her to an unrespectable place. Get the old long and gnarly wet.”
“I detest that remark, sir. You know I prefer the stable boy.”
Randall laughed and clapped Johnson on the back. “Just get out of here, all right? And don’t look back.”
Johnson nodded. “Certainly, sir.”
Randall entered the house he hadn’t so much as seen for the past three years. Everything looked the same. Art everywhere, outnumbered only by stuffed animal heads. He set the box down and waited in the foyer until Johnson returned with the maid and exited. He noticed they both carried suitcases, as if they knew exactly what he had in mind. He also wondered if they’d taken some of his father’s valuables to go with their clothes. He hoped they did, especially since they no longer had jobs.
He walked through the mansion, taking a last look around, remembering the good times, when he didn’t have to sell himself to get by. The playroom still contained his favorite toys, as if waiting for their master to return to them. The game room, a favo
rite hang-out for himself and his friends in high school, still had the pool table where he’d spent many evenings scamming people out of their money. Though his father never knew it, he’d fucked Tommy Sanders on it after they’d played a game with their assholes as the stakes.
He found his bedroom and marveled at how it looked the exact same as it had before, if a bit dusty, as if Samuel had sealed it after finding him fucking his boyfriend in the back seat of his car.
Randall stopped in his father’s study, filled with old, crumbling books Samuel had never read. A monstrously large oak desk stood at the heart of the room, everything meticulously cleaned and organized. All around the study were stuffed animals, all of which had been killed by Samuel except the panda. When Samuel had heard the last panda had died, he bought its corpse for a hefty donation to the zoo. The most impressive of his trophies, however, was a lion and grizzly bear couple. They’d been stuffed and positioned so it looked like they were battling with each other.
He thought about that bear and remembered his first hunting trip. Both father and son had taken the bear down, and even though Randall had merely been ten years old at the time, Samuel had given him his first beer so they could celebrate together. It had been one of his happiest moments.
A glass case ran the length of one of the walls, filled with Samuel’s most prized possessions. A signed manuscript of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, a signed first edition of Robert Ruark’s Use Enough Gun and many other things, mostly Civil War antiques, a six-shooter reputed to have been used by Wyatt Earp and a tri-cornered hat that supposedly had belonged to George Washington.
A gun case took up the wall opposite, which Randall found empty, much to his surprise. Every rifle, shotgun and handgun was gone.
Then, he noticed that even the blackjack was gone. He remembered the only time he’d ever seen his father use it, which stood out in Randall’s mind as his absolute favorite memory of his father, even though a lot of terrible shit had led up to it.
When he’d been eight years old, Randall had been a Boy Scout. He’d been out with Samuel on the annual father/son camping trip. While Samuel had been taking the other boys on a hike, the scout master stayed behind with Randall, who had been stricken with a charley horse and couldn’t walk very comfortably.
The scout master had taken it upon himself to make Randall very comfortable in one of the bigger tents. He’d stripped down to his undershirt and shorts, and as the scout master surrounded him with pillows, his hand accidentally brushed the young boy’s crotch.
“I’m sorry,” the scout master had said. When Randall shrugged it off, the scout master thought the boy wouldn’t mind. He slipped his hand into the front of Randall’s shorts and began to massage softly. “Do you feel better now?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Randall had shouted. He punched the scout master as hard as he could in the face, but he just didn’t have the power an adult would have had. He couldn’t stop the scout master from overpowering him. His charley horse howled, crippling him as the scout master flipped him over and pulled his shorts down. The scout master jabbed himself into Randall’s ass, twisting and gouging until blood flowed freely.
Randall didn’t know which hurt more, the rape or the charley horse. His mind went crazy trying to find some way to rescue himself.
When the scout master finished, he pulled up his pants and cleaned the boy off. “Don’t tell anyone about this, or I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and feed you to my dog. My dog loves to eat little boys.”
Randall couldn’t say anything through the tears he cried into a pillow.
He didn’t intend to tell his father, but when Samuel saw blood in the boy’s underwear, he demanded to know what had happened. He demanded an explanation, and Randall, more afraid of his father than the scout master, told all about it. Samuel took the blackjack from his pack and marched toward the scout master’s tent, Randall following behind.
Without a word, Samuel grabbed the scout master and whipped him in the face with the blackjack. His nose exploded in a geyser of blood, and Samuel struck him again, this time in the mouth. The scout master fell, spitting out jagged teeth and even more blood. He drew in a breath to scream, but Samuel booted him in the head, knocking him face down.
“You like fucking little boys, huh? I hope you like this, then.” He yanked the scout master’s pants down and beat his ass. Literally. The blackjack came down so hard and often that it tore the flesh from the scout master’s body. By the time he’d finished, his ass had been reduced to pulped meat with a bit of tail bone sticking through.
When Samuel’s arm got tired, he stopped and turned the scout master over. The scout master’s eyes were wide, and his throat tendons stuck out like bars. “Peeshe,” he managed to say. “Nuh mr.”
Samuel stomped on the scout master’s bare genitals and ground his heel. The scout master’s breath whooshed from him, and he made some rather pathetic noises as he tried to regain his lungs.
“You’re the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever seen,” Samuel said. He put all of his weight on the one foot. “I’d kill you, but I’d rather have you suffer for the rest of your life.”
He lifted his foot and brought the blackjack down on the scout master’s dick over and over until it resembled a broken, bloated and split sausage. The scout master couldn’t even scream anymore. Empty eyes dripped tears as he fell away into a world of shock.
Samuel pointed the gory blackjack at the scout master. “Feel free to tell everyone who did this to you.” Then, with one last blow to the face, Samuel walked out of the tent, wiping blood from his blackjack.
Randall had been so proud of his father in that moment. He knew that no matter what might happen to him, his father would be there to make things right.
“God, I loved you so much,” Randall muttered to the stuffed animals.
He thought once again of the night when his father had caught him in the backseat with his boyfriend, the star quarterback, but he shook it out of his head. Why dwell on the point now?
He went back to the foyer and looked down at the box of booze. He wished he could have gotten actual explosives, but this would have to do. He picked up two bottles and went back to the study, where he broke the seal on each and splashed their contents on everything. The desk, the animals, the glass case. He only stopped long enough to go through Samuel’s papers. An old fashioned guy, he was the only one he knew who actually kept a physical address book instead of just using an app. He found the book and tucked it away in his pocket.
The next two bottles doused everything in his father’s bedroom. He went back and forth between the foyer and each room in the house, pouring rotgut whiskey all over everything he could find. He did this so often that he couldn’t even smell the acrid stink of it.
The last bottle he used to run a trail from the closest room—the parlor—to the front door. He carelessly tossed the empty behind him, where it shattered on the floor. Satisfied, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a book of matches. He plucked one and held it above the strip on the back, pausing to reflect on this moment.
“Fuck you, Dad.” He struck the match and dropped it into the booze. It ignited immediately, and he watched it burn down the hallway into the parlor, which practically exploded into flames. It soon stretched into the next room and the next and the next.
Randall exited the house and walked down toward the gate. The blaze behind him blew out the windows and licked at the night sky so brightly he could see his own shadow stretch out in front of him in the dark of the night.
~
Edward laughed harder than he ever had in his entire life. After a moment of hilarity, he began coughing . . . and then broke out into laughter again.
“Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked.
“Samuel . . . he’s . . .” Edward gave up trying to speak and lapsed back into laughter.
“Samuel’s going to be pissed,” William said.
“To hell with Samuel,” Coppergate
said. His teeth shone from between his withered lips. “His son is more like himself than anyone could have ever imagined.”
~
When Randall got back to the limo, he saw Roberto sitting inside, listening to the radio. He saw his client and jumped out, opening the back door. “I think we should be going, sir.”
“Why’s that?”
“I just heard on the radio. There’s a riot going on about a mile from here. There’s a bunch of people cutting their way through the rich neighborhood, and they’re on their way here.”
Randall laughed. “Then I beat ‘em to the punch.” He got into the back.
Roberto glanced at the house and saw the conflagration. “Oh.” His client had just made him an accessory to arson, but what the hell? Roberto never really liked the rich, anyway. They usually tipped badly.
“Who’s rioting?”
“A bunch of punks.”
“Like, the Two-Fisted Nunfuckers type of punks? Or just layabouts?”
“No, real punks. Spiked hair, piercings, moving tattoos, mutilations and all.”
Randall thought about one of the other contestants. Skank, wasn’t it? She had been just as opposed to the game as he was. Could it be . . . ? “Drive in closer to the riot.”
Roberto forgot himself. “Are you nuts? Get closer to the riot?” He didn’t even think about his job at this point.
“Yeah. I think I might know someone in that neighborhood.” He thought Skank had maybe decided on a scorched earth policy when it came to fighting back against the rich fucks, as evidenced by her tearing the east side to pieces. Of course, Randall would make things much easier with the help of his father’s address book.
“This sounds bad,” Roberto said.
Randall flicked his eyes over and saw he still had an extra two hundred from the kidnappers. “I’ll pay you two hundred right now if you’ll do it.”
“Right now? Up front?”
“Up front.” Randall held up his left hand.