Talking Heads

by John Domini

  He was aware of his boots, L.L. Beans. Bette was a master at catalogue shopping.

  “I’m murderer and a rapist and a junkie superfreak,” Junior crooned. “Worst nightmare you ever had in your life, and ain’t no help comin.”

  He remained out of reach, at puddle’s edge. “Ain’t nothin comin, believe me. I can see what’s goin down upstairs.”

  All Kit could think of was the conventional wisdom about rape. Keep talking. Don’t let fantasy take over.

  “Junior, I know you, I’m with you. Think about it. Junior, the drugs, talk to me about the drugs. Tell—”

  Junior whipped his cuffed hands to his crotch. “Here’s the drug.” He squeezed till the basket bulged. “Right here.”

  “Yah, whup that faggot asshole, Junior.”

  “Grease the fuck and let us out!”

  Junior grinned. He raised his hands as if taking a bead with a samurai sword. But still he hung back. Blood ran between his untrimmed toes into the water’s edge.

  “Snuff him,” another door said. “Then we gon turn this stinkin rathole inside out.”

  “Aw, please.” Kit looked left, right, behind him, trying to catch someone’s eyes at a slot. “Think about it.”

  The blow caught him in the neck. It got him where he ached, dead on, and the near doorways bulged with fisheye pain. Kit moved without thinking, splashing and scrabbling as he dragged himself away from Junior’s follow-up. A wild follow-up—his attacker couldn’t stand straight and his swings were off-angle, whereas Kit had fallen in cold water and the shock had woken him. It had soaked him to armpit and crotch. It allowed him to spot the half-protected corner behind the bar of the police lock. Plowing the water’s scum with his freezing spread hands, Kit made towards the corner before the staggering con could get a decent hold on the tool belt. Before the screams from the other cells made it impossible to think. Screams, cattlecalls, the howls of a funky singer prompting the beat. Showtime, Junior, someone bellowed. Showtime! Another minute and they’d screech themselves right through their doors. Kit lurched to his feet.

  Find a corner. Back to the wall. Get a weapon.

  Kit fumbled at his belt, undoing the snap on the wrench’s holster. He put his back against the utility closet, inside the police lock’s extended bar. Behind him the inspectors were audible again, banging more than shouting. They had the better weapons, hammer and pliers and flashlight.

  Junior lagged behind, his feet leaking red ribbons across the seepage. He winced with every step, but kept his cuffed fists extended. His knuckles were tight, pink.

  Kit pulled out the wrench.

  Junior stopped at the base of the lock bar, out of reach again. The con tottered, his chin kept dropping, and though Kit had the wrench in both hands now, he let it relax against his unsteady ribs. “Let’s talk,” he said. Junior leapt and belted Kit his worst yet. A clout across the temple with the sound of a belly flop and a red whip to it, slapping Kit sideways into the closet door. The lock’s fitting reeled like a stone in a toilet. Kit came back with the wrench on instinct, shortarm. He fought for something soft. The pain went into his breathing, he grunted for air, and when he faced round again, faced his attacker, it was a movement inside a sandbag. But Junior’s hands were bleeding worse than his feet. He was going for the wrench-head, spidering after it with pink fingers, and Kit could at last see the damage the cuffs had done, a dripping saw-toothed bracelet round each knobby wrist. The con couldn’t get a decent grip. Kit found himself in a crouch and jabbed more efficiently, aiming for the face, the whites. At last he got his arms up for a clear shot.

  Junior cuffed the wrench-head aside and backed off. He and Kit were left facing weapon to weapon.

  “Heyyy,” Junior said.

  “Keep away, Rebes.”

  The inspectors went on hammering behind the locked closet door. The clamor went up his spine and threw red halos wherever he looked. Or was that it the cons who did that, their screaming? There were dizzy effects, outcries from people that weren’t even in the building. Kit heard the voice of a ghost at Bette’s seance, the rough talk of Leo Mirini on the phone. He and Junior seemed the center, the hinge.

  “This is crazy,” Kit said. “Talk to me.”

  “Can’t talk if you be gettin so excited, sweet butt. Gettin excited, they always tellin me, that’s symptoms paranoia. You know? They tellin me I got a history. But if you just give me that iron, man, we won’t have no history.”

  “Junior, Junior listen.” He was freezing, soaked. “I can still help you. We can put this behind us.”

  The con limped a step nearer, fists bobbing.

  “Back off!”

  “How you gonna help me?” Junior’s eyes were lemon wedges. “You don’t know. I been through all my symptoms paranoia, been down to the end of every line. You know what a man can go through, when he’s alone in his own place? I been scratchin them walls, writin. Takes me right to the end of every line there is.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Don’t try no sweet talk, pretty boy. I’m here to tell you, ain’t nobody out on the street knows what’s the shit like the man at the end of the line.”

  “I want to hear it, Junior. Everything you know.”

  “Oh yeah?” Junior’s mouth flattened. “That why you din say nothin when Garrison was crackin me upside the head?”

  Nowhere else for Kit to look.

  “I know what’s the shit,” Junior said.

  “I came down here, Junior. I tried.”

  “You tried. That’s the shit, the oldest most stinkin ofay tourist dogshit ever. Man, your story bout me din even use my real name.”

  He might still have been inching closer, his chin over his claws, a yellow mantis. Or was it only the effort of listening? Kit bent more defensively, his butt against the door. “I guess you did a lot of thinking.”

  “I did me so much thinkin I learned I didn have to think. Thinkin’s like Tinkertoys, nowadays you get a computer. I’m way past thinkin, man. The world’s worst nightmare.”

  “But you want people to know, don’t you? You want them to know the truth.”

  “Aw, man. Still just thinkin. Oh this poor victim of society, thinkin Tinkertoys, clickety-click. Oh this poor child, picked himself the wrong way to get a pretty piece of butt. I’m way out free from all that, my man. I’m everywhere.”

  Junior smiled, and his battered complexion gave him a natural eye shadow. “I’m way out there scattered all over naked and free. A rapist and murderin superfreak, floatin free at the end of every line.”

  Kit kept the iron bar angled up.

  “Like see, you ask me, where’s the drug? Use to think it was the drugs they givin me too, you know, use to think the drugs takin me away. But the drugs, they make you weak. You gotta be strong to make it out where I am, gotta be strong and do like I did with that chain. Whomp on it, whomp on it some!” For a moment, arms pumping, it looked as if Junior had Houdini handcuffs. Punch a button somewhere and they’d come apart. “You want to be everyone’s nightmare, man, you got to do somethin unreal. You got to whomp, you know what I sayin? Then you Superfly. Whomp, whomp. Everybody can see you ain’t no faggot victim of society.

  “But the drugs, man, those drugs.” His eyes shrinking once more, Junior shook his head. “They make you weak. Garrison and the guy on Monday-Wednesday, tryin to make me weak.”

  “That’s something people need to hear,” Kit said. “The truth about the drugs, Junior, that’s—”

  “Aww, honky dogshit. Drugs ain’t nothin to tell. My Mama’s had the drugs all her life, you know. It ain’t a Saturday night for her less she’s got her wine.”

  The word Mama sounded wildly out of place.

  “Useto watch my mama down at that church,” Junior said. “That wine all in her eyes. Wine stay in her eyes for days, after some Saturday nights. She screamin about Jesus. I see my Jesus up there, see the face of my Lord Jesus lookin down! Man, Jesus is the drug. Some big old Jesus face lookin down makin th
ings right—that’s the drug. That church my mama got, only way to get the dogshit out of that place be to burn it down and piss all over the ashes.”

  Junior spoke as if they were alone, almost a gossip’s side-of-the-mouth. Yet by now, the inspectors weren’t the only ones banging. The other cons were at it, using God knows what. Food trays, knuckles, the rubber bottoms of their institutional shoes. Kit’s wooze grew worse, stickum between his ears. It was all he could do just to keep a good grip on the wrench.

  “I know you,” he tried again.

  “Big ol Jesus face lookin down.” Junior showed his teeth, he spat. “Jesus nothin against your worst nightmare.”

  “Nothing compared to what’s at the end of the line.”

  The boy met his eyes. “My mama’s reverend you know, he say, ‘Keep movin on up. Brother, keep movin on up.’ On up to what, man? We nothin and we always be nothin.”

  “Junior, Junior. Let me help.”

  “We nothin, ofay. Nothin unless we floatin free and fuckin naked everywhere, pissin all over the ashes.”

  “Yah, Junior!” one of the other cons screamed. “Showtime!”

  “I’m trying,” Kit said. “I think I can do some good.”

  “Aw you messed-up lyin tourist asshole. You don even like havin me this close.”

  The cuffed fists nearly touched the wrench head. Yet Kit had leaned forward, his face exposed. Junior was right—he’d been a coward and a liar, and now it was time to do better. Time to act.

  A slam from the stairwell, a shock in spite of everything.

  A blood-colored can sailed into the center of the room. Had one of the others gotten loose? But what would they be doing with a tear-gas canister? The cylinder splashed down and boiled across the puddle, coils of greasy air hissing from each end. Finally, the security officer:

  “Ad? Amby? What the fuck?”

  The canister worked fast, a bad ‘60s memory on top of everything else. It stung Kit’s eyes, it turned the room to smoke, and he couldn’t answer. The inspectors hammered, it got to his knees, he couldn’t answer. Now came the first hot shock in his lungs as the canister squirmed and boiled.

  “Smart boy?”

  A shadow loomed in the rusty air. Kit glanced up, startled, and Junior caught him hard across the face.

  “Mothafuck,” he said.

  “Hey, is that you?” Garrison called.

  Junior whacked him again, backhand and off-balance but a dead hit on the original sore spot. “Nothin but talk.”

  “Is that you?”

  “I got him!” Kit screamed.

  The last slap had left him stooped. With one red glare he fixed Junior’s position—those lemon-wedge eyes sunk in shadow, those prideful cheekbones—and whipped the wrench up into his face. Kit swung from the gut. Something gave at the end of the clout, a breakage that sent a tremor up the iron. A shiver up the elongated tool and right to the ends of Kit’s nerves, so that while Junior’s head was still lifted by the first blow, Kit jerked his weapon back down. From the gut, putting his back into it, Kit yanked the handle like a pulley-rope so the head’s fat metal Gshape caught Junior a second time between the eyes. A second hit. The follow-through carried Kit’s shoulder forward into the kid’s chest. Junior’s cuffed hands dropped into the center of Kit’s back.

  His touch was something else in the middle of this. Light fingers, gently spread—an embrace, in the middle of this. Together they fell into the nearest wall, rolled up so tight that Kit might have caught a vague heartbeat. But when he and Junior hit the wall the wind went out of them both.

  When Kit got a breath, he tasted no gas, only Junior’s stink. Also there was some sort of warm drool down the back of his neck. Kit wrung himself over, facing up from within Junior’s limp hold. At his first glimpse of the kid’s face and he was bucked free and got to his feet.

  He discovered the wrench in his hand and dropped it.

  Come on, look. Even a tourist can look. From this angle, Junior appeared merely sleepy and out of it again. Saving his strength, clap clap. But the gas had gotten to the other cells, the bitter industrial air. Even the guard and the inspectors couldn’t get away from it, choking and spitting as they struggled with the jammed closet door. Even a tourist couldn’t pretend it had never happened. Junior might have been bleeding from the eyes, from the inner corners of the eyes. His face was enlarged but hard to read, a carnival balloon that had started to deflate, a pocked and smudged documentary face whorly and gray with bad reception. Then a shudder passed under the undone prison uniform, a chest-lifting flinch, and for a moment there Kit was watching a different kind of documentary, Junior Rebes in the hundred-yard dash, the kid in slo-mo trying to steal an extra fraction of a second at the wire. He would have made a good man in the dash.

  Then Junior’s chest heaved, and some mess swilled up between his parted front teeth, a winy pulp. It swilled up and Kit went down—down again while his legs still ached from getting up, his white-boy desk-job legs. Junior’s last spasm had left his neck arched, his chin in the air. Most of what came out of his mouth ran towards his hairline. Under the seepage his looks disappeared.

  How could he breathe? Kit pawed through the sticky shirt, squeezing up a double-handful of hairless unmoving chest. How could Junior breathe?

  The guard had hold of his tool belt.

  Chapter 4

  WHITE NOISE ZIA SEE

  Boston Media Cleans Up Monsod

  Dilettantes in the Demi-Monde: Mr. Right’s Got It Wrong.

  The Monsod on TV isn’t there. It’s a fairy tale. Thursday’s violence at the state’s largest prison facility was the worst yet, resulting in at least one death. Coverage by the Boston mainstream media has proven woefully off the mark—even deliberately misleading. Television, radio, and the Globe have avoided the real story. How can you tell a tourist?

  I mean, no question, already our scene has tourists. Our leathery late-’70s punk scene, our search for something or other across cellars by starlight—already it’s attracting fly-bys and poseurs. No question. It’s attracting the folks who have some notion of being hip, right?

  The MBTA ran nearly empty at this hour. Past drivetime, well into dinnertime, Kit rode a car that held at most a half-dozen others. Students, swing-shifters. And these people kept their distance. Kit clung to one of the seats for the handicapped, his elbow hooked round the vertical pole. A bandage sawed off one corner of his forehead. Under that his ear and temple bulged, purple, and across his long jacket exploded uncertain new colors: graveyard-red, trowel-black. When Kit blinked his whole upper body shivered.

  The emptier the car, the worse the sway and rattle. People kept their distance.

  The trolley’s racket got through Kit’s painkillers. Back at Massachusetts General, over an untouched cafeteria lunch, he’d taken only half the prescribed dose. In the Law Library he’d gone pretty much cold turkey. Cold turkey, he’d kept the hours he’d assigned himself.

  He’d done his research cross-legged on the floor, on the neoprened concrete between the stacks. Down there, he could tell when someone was coming. Even when his eyesight turned murky and his ears filled with moans, so long as he stayed on the floor he could feel the approaching footsteps.

  After finishing at the Law Library, Kit had hobbled back to the “T” station in Harvard Square. He’d ignored the turnoff towards his own apartment. He’d headed downtown.

  Yet he hadn’t been able to get to the office either. He’d come near, the end of the block. Then for an hour or so Kit had struggled through the wind tunnels of the financial district, the high sheer urban development. What few storefronts he came across staggered him. He got lost in the glare of a record store, the checkerboard of new LPs.

  In time, he’d allowed himself alcohol. The bar was as murky as the Law Library, with Happy Hour chili. He’d gulped another half a painkiller. He’d decided to climb back into the “T”. But Kit still wasn’t heading home, to Cambridge, to Bette. He was riding the other way, out of town, towar
ds the ethnic-pride suburbs beyond Dorchester. Zia should be there, at the Sons of Columbus.

  Big media has been actively avoiding telling the truth. When it comes to Monsod, they can’t face the truth. Instead, Boston’s primary news outlets have fallen back on quick and easy notions of crime and punishment. On Hollywood. They won’t run any story too complicated for a thirty-second plug.

  Once again, it’s up to the alternative press to set the record straight.

  This reporter caught Thursday’s early-evening news on a TV at a downtown tavern. Even in these first reports, the major media distorted the facts. Editors had no idea what they were up against.

  You know the kind of lames our scene’s starting to attract. The ones who dream all week about slumming on Saturday night. Dream about waking up hip.

  My basement boys and girls, to these lames our scene amounts to nothing more than a fairy tale. It’s Sleeping fucking Beauty—one kiss and she’s hip. I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by a fairy tale. But when you encounter a tourist, down in our dank—how can you tell? Clothes, hair? An uninformed line of talk?

  Ah, it goes deeper. Zia see, boys and girls. Zia see.

  At the Sons of Columbus, he’d find Zia and he’d break the news about the next issue. A special issue, a double issue, devoted exclusively to the scandal of Massachusetts building contracts. Kit would include the Monsod story, of course. Sea Level would tell the real story, not the kind of pap they ran on TV. Kit would tell the whole truth. He’d figure out whatever was going on with those overhead pipes, that uncertain buzz. Seepage, drugs, violent death—the whole truth. Of course.

  But this issue had more to it than that. More than today’s trouble. It goes deeper, Kit thought.

  Or possibly he said it aloud: “It goes deeper.” With the rocking and screeching of the trolley car, it was hard to tell when he was talking to himself. Also, the line hooked south through Roxbury, the ghetto. For a few stops Kit’s was the only white face in the car, so he couldn’t be sure what the other riders were staring at.