She stomped out the door, slamming it. The walls shook like a bomb blast.
I got it. That was it: the official Beginning of the End.
I don’t know why it all fell into place so effortlessly that day. Her latest tantrum wasn’t any worse than the other thousand times she’d shit all over me, but somehow, that was it.
The End.
After she left, I picked up the phone and dialed.
Doc answered after the second ring. “Pronto . . .”
“You win, fucker!”
“Ehhh? Cigano . . . ? Is that you? What on earth are you talking about, man? Is Narcisa all right?”
“She’s all yours now, shit-for-brains!”
Silence.
“I’m leaving town, ya little turd. I’m finished, got it? You and that miserable whore deserve each other. Good luck, and good fuckin’ riddance, Dickless!”
Silence.
I hung up. It was done.
After that, as the days oozed by, the more abuse Narcisa heaped on me, the more I looked forward to the day I’d put the whole nasty nightmare behind me for good. I’d made the call to Doc, I realized, to cement my decision. Now there was no turning back. My traveling bag was packed, waiting in the closet, ready to go. Everything was ready.
I still hadn’t told Narcisa. I thought it would be best to wait till the last minute. Now I was just biding my time. But, even as she taunted me, mocking me, pushing all of my buttons at once, I took little comfort in knowing I’d soon have the last laugh. Somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate her.
Still, my mind was set; I knew some terrible new trouble was coming. It was too late for Narcisa. I would have to get away now, before it was too late for me.
And, like the last time I’d tried to leave her, I knew it would hurt. I didn’t want to leave. But I knew I would have to.
Now I was just waiting for a sign, an omen; waiting for the Dakini to show up with all guns blazing and make the next move; waiting for that bloodthirsty exterminating angel to give me the one final push I couldn’t possibly ignore.
Soon enough, it came.
105. THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
“NOTHING IN THIS WORLD IS A GIFT. WHATEVER MUST BE LEARNED MUST BE LEARNED THE HARD WAY.”
—Carlos Castañeda
It started at the end of another mad, manic four-day crack run. There was a frigid wind blowing in over the bay, a prelude to another angry winter storm rumbling up the coast from Antarctica; one of those dark, evil-smelling nights that get down into your bones and make your insides shiver like a dying chicken; the kind of night where every drunken festa ends in a gunfight. A night where meek little office workers murder their families and just keep drinking.
Anything could happen. Madness was in the air.
Narcisa had been up on her feet, dancing for hours on end, naked, like a ragged white ghost raised from its tomb; twisting, turning, gyrating, she was a frantic electric tigress in heat, weaving her savage, backbreaking sex-magic spell of horny Dakini lust and passion around my eyes, my soul, my groin.
Safe at home, sheltered from the impending storm, seduced into a glassy-eyed stupor, I’d given in to her relentless manipulations and bought her a good, solid supply of the deadly yellow rock. I’d had my way with her sinewy, crack-ravaged carcass, again and again, and it was good; as good as it had ever been. There was no stopping. It just went on and on and on.
Each time I climaxed, she jumped right up and slithered back into that frenzied, seductive, serpentine rite that grabbed me again; and then I was hard again, ready to go at it again, one more time. Go go go! I’d throw her back down on the sofa and feast on her like a starved wolverine, feeding on her twisted carnal energy, her essence, her body and spaced-out alien soul.
But I wasn’t smoking crack to stay awake. Finally, I came crashing back to earth. She’d been promising for hours that we’d go to sleep at the end of that tireless marathon run, so I’d kept going somehow, knowing there’d soon be an end to it all, then rest for my weary soul. But the minute her stash ran out, she changed her mind.
Pushing away the sandwich I made her, she told me we had to go get more.
I looked at her in shock . . . Oh, God, no! No more, please . . . I can’t go on anymore! No fucking way! I was done. Burnt. Destroyed.
Narcisa stood her ground. She didn’t need any rest, she insisted, just more crack . . . More more more, go go go! I shook my head and told her she could go on with her mission for as long as she wanted—but without me.
“I gotta get some fucking sleep now, Narcisa, I’m gonna keel over and die!”
“You gotta take me up there, Cigano! I too tire to wa-alk!”
“Of course yer tired. Ya been up fer four fuckin’ days now! Por favor! Ya promised we were gonna crash when you were done with this last batch . . .”
“Just one more time, Cigano, go! Take me an’ we gonna go again, go go!”
“I can’t, Narcisa! I’m fried. A big storm’s comin’. It’s cold and raining out there, and I’m not smoking that shit to stay up fer days like you. I gotta get some sleep.”
She stared at me. I could see her face darkening.
Then she snapped. “E’sleep!!” She vomited the word like a burning radioactive Gila monster, hateful, bloody claws snatching at the air in front of my face. “Fock you e’stupid e’sleep!! Hah! Why you don’ just go an’ fock you focking mattress, hein? Seu veado! Faggot! All de time you only wanna e’sleep like e’stupid old womans! E’sleep sleep sleep like old bitch, cuz you don’ got de dick to be a man, hein!?”
I recoiled in horror. But the Crack Monster was just getting warmed up.
“Hah! You wanna go e’sleep now, hein? Good! Bravo!! Okey, so now you can go an’ kiss you focking pillow an’ fock de pillow an’ de mattress an’ e’sleep together with you e’stupid focking pillows, Cigano, got it? Cuz I am e’sick of you an’ all you e’stupid old lady bool-e’sheet! Hah! You can go fock you e’self now!!”
Raving on, she started getting dressed, struggling into her denim miniskirt and a sparkly see-through blouse I’d bought her. My heart sank like a fish turd to the bottom of the sea.
“Whaddya doin’, Narcisa? Where ya goin’?”
“Gonna go to Copacabana an’ find de REAL man, de young gringo who got plenty money an’ don’ jus’ wanna e’sleep all de time! Hah! I need a REAL man who like de young girl an’ gonna make me e’satisfy, got it? Now you can go an’ get all you focking e’sleep, old lady, old bitch, an’ you can dream about de Narcisa getting de REAL fock with de REAL man, de YOUNG man, HANDSOME man, no UGLY an’ OLD an’ e’sleepy an’ e’stupid like you! E’sweet dream, old lady!”
As Narcisa raged on, I wanted to choke her. I wanted to kick her in the teeth, in the cunt; anything to shut her up. I wished she was dead, that she’d never been born. That I’d never been born.
I took a long, deep breath. Lowering my head, I sat down on the sofa and closed my eyes, breathing in and out, praying, saying nothing. Exhausted, I could feel myself shutting down, going numb again, as I sat there in the silence of the tomb, waiting, waiting, slipping in and out of consciousness, waiting for her to finish her mad tirade and storm out the door.
106. SOUND AND FURY
“TROUBLE AND SUFFERING ARE OFTEN EXTREMELY USEFUL, BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE WILL NOT BOTHER TO LEARN THE TRUTH UNTIL DRIVEN TO DO SO BY SORROW OR FAILURE. SORROW THEN BECOMES RELATIVELY A GOOD THING.”
—Emmet Fox
I was already half asleep as she clomped across the room and stood over me, jabbing her crack-blackened finger into the tender wound of my fresh tattoo.
“Eiiií!! Wake up, e’stupid!”
My eyes shot open as a bolt of searing red pain screamed up from my chest to the top of my skull. “Arrgghhh!” I jumped up.
Narcisa stood there before me, facing me down, pointing the blazing twin shotgun barrels of her eyes right in my face, wailing like an ambulance siren.
“You think you gonna sit down an’ go e’s
leep now, hein? Hah! Não!! No focking way, e’stupid! First you gonna gimme some focking money!!”
I winced in pain. Blood was running down my chest, staining my shirt where she’d punctured the thin tattoo scab. I could feel my hands balling up into angry fists as she cackled on like a bloodthirsty bird of prey.
“Hah! Why you wanna go make my name tattoo on you, hein!? Fala serio! You try make de joke, e’stupid clown!? No funny!! I wan’ you take off these e’stupid tatuagem now, go!! If you don’ take these e’sheet off, I gonna cut it out, got it!?”
Hollering, she reached over and started tearing through the clutter on my table, piled with pens and paper and books and writing and drawings.
Watch it! She’s looking for something sharp! Fuck! My scissors! Stop her!
Wide awake now, stomach churning, I followed her like a shadow, ready to disarm her if she tried something crazy.
In a flash, she snatched up the butterfly I’d drawn for her, her voice booming like thunder. “Hah!! I clean my ass with you focking e’stupid picture! I don’ wan’ these focking e’sheet!!” Before I could stop her, she balled it up, ripped it to shreds and threw it into the air like a swarm of murdered moths.
I watched in disgust as she turned to the dresser and began rummaging through the drawers, strewing my clothes all across the floor.
“Where my focking blue-jeans jacket, hein, e’stupid trick!?”
I bent down to pick it up from the scattered mess. “Right here,” I growled through clenched teeth. With a sigh, I handed it over.
I’d always loved that jacket . . . Shit! I sat back down and closed my eyes again, holding my head in my hands, praying for her to finish and go.
When I looked up again, she was trampling across my clean underwear with her filthy black boots. Then she stomped into the bathroom, grabbing the bar of soap from the sink, slipping it into her pocket, along with my toothbrush and toothpaste.
“What th’ fuck ya think yer doin’, Narcisa?”
“I am leaving you, Cigano! I gonna go away now forever!! Very far away, so I never gotta see you ugly e’stupid monkey clown face again no more, never!”
She stormed past me again and snatched up my cigarettes, cramming the pack into her bulging jacket pocket. I stood watching, waiting, praying for her to finish her demented scavenging spree and leave . . . Please! Just get the fuck outa here already, you freak!
As I continued trying to ignore her, Narcisa scurried around the apartment like a crazed looter, bellowing, cursing.
She turned and glared at me. “You got any money for me, old lady?”
I rolled my eyes, saying nothing.
She reached over the coffee table for the ring I’d taken off the night before. Snatching it up like a lizard eating a fly, she slipped it onto her finger.
No-oo! The only fucking thing this selfish little creep ever gave me!
I shot up from the sofa. “Hey, that’s mine! Gimme that, ya cunt!”
She stood facing me, her mad, bulging eyes blazing like a tiger.
“You don’ do nothing to earn it, so is no belong to you! You wanna buy it from me now, hein? Other way you gotta kill me to get it back! You gonna kill me, now Cigano, hein? G’wan, do it! Go! Kee-eel me now! Go ahead! Do it! Go!”
In that moment, I hated Narcisa. She actually wanted to die at my hands. I could see it in the hollow, dark pits of her eyes. She was a soulless monster of limitless destruction, lower than a cockroach, a rat; she didn’t even care about her own fucking existence anymore, other than as a cheap bargaining chip in her sick, narcissistic little mind games . . . Miserable whore!
Those malevolent orbs were glowing with hatred and spite, taunting, challenging me to end her unhappy life with such poisonous dementia, it disgusted me to the core. I couldn’t stand it. I looked away. Backing down. Shutting Narcisa out. Shutting down again.
Then she grabbed my wallet off the dresser.
That’s it! I flew across the room and snatched it out of her hand.
She tried to punch me in the face. I ducked. With a flashing surge of adrenaline, I grabbed her by the throat and slammed her up against the wall, hard.
“That’s it, bitch! Now yer gonna leave, got it, Narcisa!? Get th’ fuck outa my fuggin’ house, ya miserable little shit!”
She fought back, struggling, shouting. As her face went red, she ratcheted her voice up an octave. “Lemme go-oo!! Leggo-oo!! Me larga, seu covarde!! Coward!!”
Her words were a noose closing around my neck. I tightened my grip on her windpipe, choking her, pinning her to the wall as she screeched on.
“Socorro!! Haaaalp!! Some-bady haa-aalp me!! He kee-eelling me!!”
Jesus! Neighbors! They’re gonna call the fucking cops! Panic stabbed at my guts, like when the UP elevator you’re in suddenly starts going down—only worse. A million times worse. This elevator was going all the way down to hell . . . Gotta shut her up!
Still holding her against the wall with one hand, I clamped my other hand over her mouth. She started biting and scratching me with her filthy, ashy fingernails, those septic, savage crack-claws grabbing at my face like a pair of maddened tarantulas. Then she snatched my glasses off. Everything went fuzzy.
In a burst of wild emotion, I was that feral little gutter urchin again, struggling in a life-or-death street fight. Half blind, I grappled with her, trying to get my glasses back. She kicked me in the shin with her steel-toed boot, then stomped down on my bare foot, hard.
I howled in pain. “Arrgghhh! Filha da puta!”
Before I could stop her, she threw my glasses to the ground and stomped on them, grinding them into fragments, all the while wiggling like a wild albino boa constrictor, trying to get free. I struggled to restrain her. She fought back with wild animal force, screeching like an air-raid siren. “Socoro!! Haaalp!! Por favor!! Haa-aalp!! Some-bady haa-aalp me-ee!!” As we battled on, knocking things asunder, she made a sudden grab for my balls. I pivoted sideways. Clutching a big handful of her hair, I started banging her head against the wall, thump thump thump!
As if from very far away, I could hear my own disembodied voice shouting, “Shaddup shaddup shaddup!!” as I pounded her head on the hard plaster, thump thump thump, in rhythm with the angry sounds flying from my mouth like missiles.
“Shaddup shaddup shaddup shaddup shaddup!!” Thump thump thump thump thump! “Shaddup shaddup shaddup shaddup shaddup!!”
In a blur, Narcisa’s hand vanished behind her back, then came up flashing silver with the big butcher’s knife from my kitchen. With a hot wave of horror, I realized she must have tucked it into her belt line when I wasn’t looking. Before I could react, the slashing cold metal sliced into my face, and there was blood pouring from the wound. I could taste the sweet, warm liquid flowing into my mouth. I let go of her throat, grabbed her forearm with both hands and slammed it down against my knee, hard. The blade went skittering across the floor. Then, in a burst of wild animal strength, Narcisa broke free! Quick as a flashing white rattlesnake, she lunged after the knife.
No! Grab her! Don’t let her get it, man! Get her! Stop her! Quick!
I ran up beside her and yanked her by the arm. As she bent down, going for the knife, I spun her around and brought my knee up to her face. Splaafftt!
Narcisa reeled back, stunned. I saw blood on her mouth. Her blood. Good! I grabbed her and turned her around again, fast, pinning both arms behind her back . . . Got ya now! Bitch! Breathing hard, I held them in place, tight.
Dazed, she quit struggling. She was beaten, at last.
You lose, bitch!
But this was the game where everybody loses. Nobody wins. That’s why Narcisa had won. Because she was Nobody, and now she had won for good, by losing. Because now she’d gotten just what she wanted; another brutish, bloody, violent drama. Another excuse to hate and feel sorry for herself.
Blood dripping from my face, breathing hard, holding her arms behind her, I kneed her in the back, then marched her toward the door.
&nbs
p; “This has been a long time coming, ya miserable, degenerate little shit!”
Even shouting at the top of my lungs my voice sounded very far off, as if broadcasting from a distant radio somewhere.
“Yer outa here fer good now, bitch! And don’t you ever come back!”
Cursing, I edged her out into the hallway . . . Almost out now . . . Almost out. . .
Suddenly, in another wild surge of demonic strength, she wiggled free. Before I could grab her, she flashed past me at the speed of light, the speed of rage, the speed of a furious, homicidal, raging Crack Monster.
Fuck! No! Get her! Stop her!
It was too late! Back inside, she reached up onto my little altar on the shelf, snatching my hand-painted plaster statue of São Jorge . . . Ogum! No! She grasped it in her dirty black crack-claw.
No! My Ogum! Oh God! No! São Jorge! Pai Ogum!
She stood there, glaring at me, snarling, baring her yellow teeth like a mad, rabid hyena, holding it in her angry fist, my faithful icon of peace and protection and faith and love and hope and power and comfort through all the months and years and lifetimes of pain and torment and torture and terror of Narcisa.
No-ooo!
I looked on in frozen dread as she dashed it to the ground.
Craauuu!
Paralyzed with horror, I watched in surreal slow motion as she brought her big black Nazi boot down, down, again and again, stomping at the broken pieces of my Ogum, my hope, my faith, smashing and grinding it into a pile of colorful dust.
Snapping out of it, I grabbed her and shoved her out the door again, hard. I slammed it behind her, then opened it a crack and slammed it again. And again! Again!
Boom! Boom! Again! Again! Slamming it! Boom! Boom! Boom! Slamming, slamming, slamming the door behind this evil, horrible, dirty, depraved, crack-smoking hell-monster forever! Forever!
Breathing hard, I went over to the empty altar. Blood dripped to the floor as I looked down at my proud, beautiful statue of Ogum, lying in a bloody pile of plaster rubble. A flash flood of memories tore through my head; all the times I’d stared up at that image, praying . . . Pai Ogum, guerreiro invincível na fé em Deus, protect her from the Curse, meu Pai amado! Protect her from herself and from all things seen and unseen! Ô, meu Pai Ogum, please keep her safe another day!
Narcisa Page 52