Boy versus Self: (A Psychological Thriller)

by Harmon Cooper

  The food comes. They talk, they flirt, they make other plans, Boy barely remembers it by the time he heads back to his house with a full stomach.

  ₪₪₪

  Impossible. Boy rounds the corner that leads to his home. He freezes dead in his tracks, sucks in as much as air he can to stabilize himself. Fear fills him, presses against the inside of his chest.

  Glass Wings. The fucked monstrosity is standing next to the END sign, writhing and stretching his mouth wide. The creature is bigger than Boy remembers him being, his wings are twice the size they were when Boy last saw him.

  It can’t be!

  Boy’s jaw drops open to scream. He backpedals, nerves tingling like jellyfish tentacles. No bat, no weapon – only a short distance between the two. Glass Wings sees Boy and his black tongue rolls out of his mouth. It slaps against the curb, loud and sick. The sound of glass dragging against the asphalt rings in Boy’s ears. The monster advances, machine-gunning towards him.

  Boy trips, landing hard on his knees. He hoists himself up with his bandaged hands, begins crawling backwards. He’s in the streets now, his eyes filled with terror, Glass Wings gaining on him.

  Twitching hard now, Boy is able to pull himself back to his feet. His muscles congeal and his eyes go hot. Glass Wings pistons towards Boy, his body springing up and down on his sharp pick legs.

  Headlamps from a fast approaching car. The sound of a horn forces Boy to sprint to the opposite side of the street. The car collides with Glass Wings; a deafening thud sluices the air.

  The monster shrieks as his pick legs flap around, smashing the roof of the car. Shards of glass litter the air like confetti from hell. The creature’s black blood sprays onto the car soaking the windshield in a thick, tar-like substance. Boy is petrified with terror. He claps his hands over his mouth, swallows a bulky scream.

  The creature is suddenly gone. The car is gone. Glass Wings is…? No glass, no blood, no mangled head looking up at Boy with cat sliver eyes. Impossible, fuck this, impossible.

  Boy gathers his wits as best he can, and walks quickly past the END sign to his house. He looks over his shoulder once more, unlocks his door in a hurry.

  ₪₪₪

  He tosses his keys onto the floor and falls onto the couch. His Sri painting on the opposite wall beckons him. That’s life, a mess of colors swirled into a form interpretable by some and indiscernible to others. Let the fear go. Glass Wings? I’m imagining things. I’m high.

  Boy starts to drift off and Glass Wings appears before him. Black olive eyes. The monster is coughing terribly, hacking licorice blood onto his stomach and nest of oily pubic hairs. Suddenly, his glass teeth break from his mouth and spray into Boy’s eyes.

  He wakes to find Salome towering over him.

  ₪₪₪

  Boy jumps up, nearly colliding with his sleepwalking girlfriend.

  She’s still looking down at the couch, her chin against the top of her chest. In her hand is a small work lamp. Salome raises the lamp above her head, and drives it down on the cushion right where Boy’s head would have been seconds ago.

  ‘Salome,’ he whispers, afraid to disturb her in her sleep state. He’s scared shitless now, trembling in the presence of the violent being that hovers over him.

  The lamp rolls from the couch onto the hardwood floor. Upon impact, Salome stops dead in her tracks, turns back towards the couch. His lungs constrict as he watches her glazed eyes regain their color. She wakes up and falls to her knees.

  ‘What did I do?’ The look of stark realization swells across her face.

  ‘Y-you tried to do it again,’ he says helping her stand. He’s trembling now, attempting to calm the sense of delirium that is raging through him.

  ‘I strangled you again? What the hell?’

  ‘No, you tried…’ Boy points at the lamp. ‘You tried to smash my head with that.’

  ‘No! I would never!’ she says, ashamed. ‘Were you sleeping on the couch?’

  ‘Yeah, I couldn’t sleep,’ he smiles weakly at her. The lies have already begun.

  ‘And I walked in here…oh my God!’ she sobs.

  ‘It’s not your fault, I know you didn’t mean to… but, I seriously woke up like fifteen seconds before you tried to hit me with the lamp!’ His mind is agitated, filled with the image of Glass Wings screaming at him; filled with anger, fear and guilt. Boy’s stomach twists into a knot and he takes a deep breath to keep the food down.

  ‘It hasn’t always been this bad,’ she says. ‘Just this last year and for a little while I was in high school. God, I’m such an idiot. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Sleep walking, strangling, screaming… now this?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s why I was out here. You were screaming.’

  The lying feels bad but its ingenuity feels good. Everything falls into place. He looks back at the lamp, transferring his disgust from himself to the inanimate object. Won’t be long now. He thinks this for Maeve, but it also could be for Glass Wings or Salome.

  ‘I’m going home.’ Her hair is a mess and her tears have puffed her cheeks red. ‘I’m going to make a doctor’s appointment. This has gone on long enough.’

  ‘You can sleep here.’

  ‘No, this is the last time for a while. I need to get this straightened out. You’re right.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ Boy says, but it’s an empty gesture.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Salome says, sniffing at him. ‘Just let me find my pants.’

  She returns minutes later with her glasses on and her laptop tucked under her arm. An unlit cigarette hangs from her mouth. Boy is sitting on the couch now, still not quite sure what to make of all this. ‘See you soon.’ She bends over and kisses him on the cheek.

  ‘Please don’t,’ he says, but he can’t find the strength to stop her from leaving.

  ₪₪₪

  Venosa blue sky, tangly and sublime. Boy’s at a funeral.

  The paper cut Tahiti sun has changed from canary to ivory. Damn if it isn’t blinding and beautiful and heavenly sad. The towering man is a Kooning-blur. He’s fastly approaching and his form starts to wither like a Yamashita shadow. The asparagus grass is flush.

  The Warhol blow-up doll has quit suffocating Boy. As the doll shrinks, the coffin looms into view. An Invader mosaic with creepy white eyes sits just below the handle. The surface of the coffin is smooth and polished, Indian laurel. The thought of what’s inside never comes to him.

  The towering man is now standing in front of Boy. He wears a striped bowtie as big as a baby pterodactyl. His arms are long and spidery, his face concealed by a head full of shoulder-length hair. A Scottie Wilson nose peeks out through his hair spidery locks. He raises one arm in the air next to his body.

  From the seam of the towering man’s tuxedo sleeve, a flat-bodied creature with two octopus eyes spools towards the ground like a scroll. The creature’s body is rimmed in Goesh blue electric currents; its skin is old newspaper. After the scroll reaches the ground, numbers from an invisible projector play on its body-screen: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

  The words NO END appear in cursive on the makeshift screen. Distorted Monet blots sparkle on and off, and syrupy ink trickles across the screen as the feature starts. A looped video of Glass Wings getting smashed by the car plays in slow motion. After a few moments, the face of a little girl Boy has never seen before splashes across the screen. The face is superimposed over the looped video. Her pupils are bleached and her mouth is a violent black hole.

  She laughs and her jaw moves up and down like a ventriloquist’s doll. Mascara spreads across her face and forms a blackened raccoon’s mask. The towering man shakes his Schiele-thin arm as the body-screen snaps back up into the seam of his jacket.

  ₪₪₪

  Boy wakes up on the couch with a pounding headache.

  He drinks the rest of Salome’s soy milk and eats an old tamale. His phone buzzes but he doesn’t check it. Needs to paint, needs to finish the Mexican suns. Needs a name for the Mexican suns but the
name can come later. He could just call it untitled, or maybe untitled using the Spanish word. Boy doesn’t speak Spanish. Maybe he could call it Untitled in Spanish.

  Untitled in Spanish.

  He looks at the painting and the sad/happy eyes of the sun on the left. His streaked blood has dried across the canvas in a beautiful way. Can’t even tell it is blood; looks more like watered-down paint. Subtle enough.

  Untitled in Spanish.

  That would work. Boy paints a stream of turquoise parallel to his streaked blood. The colors blend like the way the sky does on a particularly polluted day. He’s starting to cover the suns, not what he originally anticipated, but the effect is ghastly, smoky, and strikingly blue, even the reds. He adds more colors on top of the suns. Lighter colors: Cream, Mandarin, Sea Foam. Life is a pastel haze.

  The painting starts to feel crowded. Using an old Austin Chronicle (with a picture of Rick Perry depicted as a coyote on the cover), Boy smears the colors together over the suns until they are less felt. He avoids wiping away his own blood. Maybe pride, maybe artistic eye, maybe something far removed from him – he decides not to investigate any further.

  His phone buzzes again.

  Paint crusts his hands and fingers, sticks to the hairs on his arm. He wipes his hands on an old beach towel spoiled with colors and looks at his phone. Friend has called twice. He ignores it and keeps painting.

  ₪₪₪

  Startled by a sharp crack in the kitchen, Boy drops his paintbrush onto the floor. The paintbrush rights itself, wobbles for a moment, and begins to dawdle away from him. He hears the patter of feet. The front door swings open and the brush picks up speed.

  ‘What the…’

  He follows at a distance behind the brush as it trails a line of blue paint on the floor. The brush taps against the bottom of the door frame, nearly breaching the barrier of the door. It stands upright on its bristled end, erect like a frozen blade of grass. The brush topples over the door frame and lands outside on the porch. The door slams shut.

  A blue line now connects his studio to the front door.

  Boy stands for a moment, not sure how to react. No one would believe him. He thinks about calling Friend, but Friend would just tell him that he’s high.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  The house is silent. It’s a stupid question to ask aloud but he doesn’t know what else to say. It’s another ghost, he knows it, and Boy’s curious as to why he can’t see this one.

  The light in the living room dims and regains its luminosity. He hears a car pull into his driveway. His phone buzzes but he ignores it. He walks alongside the trail of bright blue paint that now connects his studio to his front door. Evidence. But who would believe me?

  There’s a knock at the door. Boy jumps backwards into the Chinese lamp in his living room. It smashes onto the floor and the pieces scatter to the far corners of the room.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Salome calls from the other side of the door. She sees a paintbrush on the porch and picks it up. Opening the door, she finds Boy standing with his hands in the air like a found burglar.

  ₪₪₪

  ‘What happened?’ she asks. The smell of cigarette smoke wafts off her jacket, circles the room.

  ‘Um, you won’t believe me.’

  ‘New installation piece?’ Salome asks as she enters his home. Walking along the trail of blue paint cautiously, she sets his brush down on the table near the door with the tip hanging off its edge. ‘Need help cleaning?’

  ‘Just leave it for now.’

  ‘Front porch?’ she asks. ‘Oh, I brought some tacos.’ She sniffs at him playfully. Bunny mode in full effect.

  ‘Sure.’

  Outside sun bright, but the day is still cold. Boy doesn’t like his front porch in the late morning, but he goes there anyway at Salome’s request. She’s wearing her glasses and a red sweatshirt pulled over a pair of black leggings. She looks sexy and smart, like Waldo’s girlfriend.

  ‘What kind of tacos?’ he asks.

  ‘The special and an avocado.’

  ‘Thanks, I was feeling a little hungry.’

  ‘I thought you would be.’

  Salome plops down onto the sofa and kicks off her shoes. She crosses her legs under her body and pulls out her laptop. Boy leans against the railing, occasionally glancing at the place where the brush had landed outside his doorframe. A bright blue circle was drying in the sun.

  His phone buzzes but he ignores it.

  ‘You’ve been a bad boy lately,’ Salome says, looking from her laptop screen to Boy.

  Boy nearly drops his taco. Does she know about Maeve? He chews slowly, careful not to make eye contact with her. ‘What d-do you mean?’

  ‘The dead end sign.’

  ‘Oh that,’ Boy says, relieved.

  ‘Looks like you’re obsessed with blue these days.’

  ‘Blue?’

  ‘The sign, you pulled it down so all it says now is END, right?’

  ‘Yea…’

  ‘And you painted NO in blue on the part that had been pulled down. NO END. The same color blue that’s on your living room floor now. You should cover that blue smear in front of your door with a mat or something, though. The police might be able to connect you to the sign if they see it.’

  Boy starts to protest.

  ‘You know I don’t care. I love guerrilla art, it’s cool. Banksy would be proud,’ Salome looks at Boy over the rim of her glasses.

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘I love us,’ she says. ‘An artist and an erotic novelist. It’s nice to be around creative people.’ She smiles at him. ‘But anyway, you ready to hear the start of a mother-daughter-stepfather threesome?’

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Boy says as he stuffs the foil taco wrapper into the paper sack. He takes a breath to clear his mind of all the things that have happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  ‘The scene I’m working on is when Salome is dancing for her step-dad, Herod, while her mother, Herodias, is watching. You familiar with this?’ Salome clicks through some documents.

  ‘Not really,’ Boy says. ‘Refresh me.’

  ‘Um, in a nutshell, Herod tells Salome – his step-daughter – that he’ll basically do anything for her after seeing her dance. She turns to her mom, Herodias, and her mom tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist.’

  ‘The famous one, right?’ Boy asks.

  ‘Yeah, the famous one. I can’t believe you don’t know who John the Baptist is.’

  ‘Sorry. I do, I do.’

  ‘So, Salome asks her stepfather for his head, and while he feels guilty about it, King Herod decides to decapitate John the Baptist, who is in prison at this time, and gives the head to Salome, who then gives it to her mother, Herodius.’

  ‘That’s fucked up.’

  ‘Exactly, and it’s so sexual!’ she says.

  ‘How’s it sexual?’

  ‘Stepfather seduced by hot daughter, mother asking for another man’s head, stepfather getting said head for hot daughter to give to her mother. If there ever was a chance for a downright nasty mother-daughter threesome, this is the moment! I’ve actually been saving the ménage à trois for this final book. I mean, there was a gangbang in Volume Four between Job’s daughters, but the threesome is special to me, plus it kind of symbolizes the Holy Trinity – even better!’

  ‘What about David and Goliath tag-teaming that slave girl? Didn’t that happen?’ Boy remembers her reading something to him a few weeks back.

  ‘They never tag-teamed her. I was thinking about writing a BSDM scene with them, but didn’t.’

  ‘The fact this has become your full-time job is mind-blowingly awesome.’

  ‘Hey, you make art, I write my books; albeit nasty Bible smut under a pseudonym. Moved a thousand digital copies over the last week.’

  ‘Too bad you can’t tell your parents about your books.’

  ‘It’s kind of their fault, anyway. They’re the ones that paid for me to go to seminar
y school! I’ll just let them continue thinking I’m a copywriter. The irony. So, you ready?’

  ‘Sure.’ Boy sits down next to her and kisses her on the cheek.

  She reads, ‘‘‘King Herod sat on his golden throne, his stomach full of mutton and his energy high. His lords and his highest captains of Galilee surrounded him, burping and drinking the kingdom’s finest wines. An attendant rushed by announcing Salome’s arrival, and Herod’s stomach twisted into a Boy Scout knot.

  ‘‘‘Salome entered wearing a white scarf draped around her body. She dropped the scarf to reveal a fishnet bodysuit that was connected to a leather collar around her neck. Bending over in front of Herod and his company, she arched her back until her ass popped out.

  ‘‘‘Herod felt his cock harden until it pressed against the inside of his tunic. He was well hung – as all kings should be – lengthy enough to knight half his constituents from the comfort of his throne if he so desired. Salome continued to churn her hips left and right. Bending over slowly and arching her back, she blew a kiss at Herod through the upside down V of her legs.

  ‘‘‘Blood surged to King Herod’s meaty member. The veins that ran along the side of his massive cock filled like the deep blue rivers of Mesopotamia with unholy amounts of blood. He could see Herodias watching her daughter dance, could see his wife touching herself too. They locked eyes. His wife dipped her finger in a bowl of cream on the table and pressed it against her lips.

  ‘‘‘He imagined sliding his throbbing joystick into his Herodias’s wet mouth as he’d done countless times before. The warm graze of her tongue around his shaft; the way her cheeks swelled when he came; the way she asked for more. He turned his attention back to Salome.’’’

  ‘This is dirty!’ Boy says.

  ‘Not finished…’ Salome smirks at Boy over the rim of her glasses.

  ‘Please continue.’

  ‘‘‘Salome stood slowly and turned to Herod and the men surrounding him. With all eyes on her, she took a few small steps forward, practically tip-toeing in her high heels. She was now directly in front of the five marble steps that lead to Herod’s golden throne. She hooked her fingernails into the small holes of the fishnet bodysuit stretched across her chest.