Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  ‘Space between thought and action.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I do need that. I’ve been trying to do that when Paco pisses me off.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘Sometimes. It’s getting better. But I don’t think it’s going to work for me, Tenoch.’

  ‘Try it.’

  ‘You think a few minutes of meditation and a bit of camomile tea is going to make me stop wanting to punch cunts in the face?’

  ‘Worth a try, isn’t it? If you want to be better?’ I closed my eyes. ‘Good. Focus on the breaths. You have too much random shit in your head, it will create a mess.’

  ‘Do you actually like that rapey bastard you hang around with?’ I breathed deeply, held it, and let it out, too quickly.

  ‘I’ve known him a long time,’ he replied, on the breath.

  ‘Yeah, but do you like him?’

  ‘Like I said, I have known him a long time. Paco knows me.’

  He was as trapped around Paco as Celestina. He couldn’t do without him. That was why he kept him around. Kept him sweet.

  ‘Don’t rush it, concentrate on holding and releasing those breaths,’ he exhaled. ‘A little of this every day will help you to carve out some space between your bad thoughts and acting on them.’

  ‘Meditation is going to stop me wanting to kill people?’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly, opening his eyes. ‘That will remain with you forever. I can’t get rid of that. But I can help you to make better decisions about who you kill. Focus on those breaths. Allow them in naturally. When your mind is fleeting to those random places again, bring it back to those breaths. Hold them. Release slowly. You are here. You are breathing. You are loved.’

  I snapped open my eyes. It was what Caro had said to me, another lifetime ago. No, not another lifetime – two months ago. Being alive is enough. We’re here, we’re breathing. ‘Who loves me?’

  ‘The universe,’ he said, his eyes still closed. ‘The sun, the animals, your flowers, they love you. They grow for you. Mexico loves you.’

  It did cheer me to hear that. It felt like my feet were touching the ground again. I had a bedrock to work from – as long as I had the sun and the flowers, the salt and scent of the ocean, blue sky and the whispering flight of unidentified birds of all colours overhead each morning, it didn’t matter who else was there. That could be my Enough.

  Later that morning, I’d turned on my shower and went back into my bedroom to grab some clean pants when I heard loud voices downstairs – the Chipmunks were in the living room watching TV and eating the contents of the snack cupboards, no change there. But Celestina and Paco were outside, behind the house, arguing.

  ‘…mas dinero.’ More money.

  ‘…de ninguna manera…’ By no means.

  Paco wanted to do something, but Celestina wasn’t having any of it.

  Or as she put it, ‘No hay manera en el infierno.’ No way in Hell.

  Paco stormed into the house, rallied his Chipmunks and they all left. I watched from my window as the black BMW sped off from the front gates on a cloud of dust. Celestina went back inside and a while later came upstairs with a pile of my folded washing. She normally had her hair scraped back in a messy bun, but it was down, almost covering her face.

  ‘Gracias, señora,’ I said as she placed the pile on the end of my bed. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, gracias,’ she said, vanishing as quickly as she’d arrived. There was no way she wanted a conversation.

  When she’d gone, I wrapped a towel around me and went down to the office to speak to Tenoch.

  ‘Paco and Celestina were arguing.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know. She doesn’t usually speak to him, though. She always leaves as soon as he gets here. He must have cornered her.’

  ‘Celestina can handle it. She’s not a scared girl around him anymore.’

  ‘She told me what Paco did to her.’

  Tenoch sat back in his chair. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I don’t know why you still employ him. He’s a rotten apple.’

  ‘He has not touched a woman since.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So… maybe people deserve second chances. Working for me, maybe that’s his second chance.’

  ‘He’s a rapist. Fact.’

  ‘And you’re a serial killer. Fact.’

  ‘I’d rather employ a cockroach than a rapist.’

  ‘Good job you are not the one who has to employ him then, isn’t it?’

  I scuffed my foot into the hallway carpet and hurt my big toenail in the process. ‘Can I kill him yet?’

  Tenoch snickered and sat forward in his chair. ‘No, you cannot.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am.’ I made to leave, stopping to check my nose for the millionth time in the hallway mirror – it was so nice being able to breathe properly again without my teeth aching.

  ‘Your sister’s getting a hard time, isn’t she?’ he called out.

  ‘Yeah.’ I leaned on the door frame. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘If my sister had called the cops on me, her head would be on a spike outside her house right now.’

  ‘Paco said the same thing.’

  ‘But you not say that. You not like us. You care about her, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want her dead. So yeah, I must do.’

  He spun the laptop towards me and clicked play on a video from my niece Mabli’s vlog – she was crying on camera. Her brother Ashton’s rabbit had got out of its hutch and been killed on the road and the pig had got too big and had to be sent to a farm. Her dad Cody had bought them both Tamagotchis to replace them but hers had died after she took it swimming.

  ‘Poor kid,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realise Tamagotchis were still going. I used to have one myself until I set fire to it.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Tenoch. There was another reason Mabli was crying – some woman had attempted to abduct Mabli after her dance class a few weeks ago – by that ‘woman who said she was Auntie Rhee’.

  ‘Some woman’s pretending to be me?’

  ‘And attempting to abduct your niece, yes.’

  Mabli was still crying on the video.

  ‘Everything’s getting on top of me,’ she said as her Stranger Things-inspired fairy lights twinkled on the wall behind her. ‘My pets keep dying. And my friends are ignoring me. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure at the moment. And I worry about my mom. Like, that video that’s going round of her and the supermarket and stuff. Even my friends are sharing that video and they think it’s funny. I’m like, dude, that’s my mom…’

  ‘What video is she talking about?’ I said, to no one in particular.

  Tenoch tapped ‘Supermarket’ into YouTube and it came up as a suggestion before he’d finished writing her name. The footage had been watched over four million times – two women had followed Seren to her local supermarket and one had filmed as the other had straight up accosted her.

  ‘Why d’you do that to your sister, yo? Why d’you do that? You a bitch, girl. That chick ain’t done nothing wrong. She’s a fucking hero compared to you.’

  Seren tried to front it out, wheeling her cart along the aisle, staring straight ahead. She looked washed out. Grey hairs at her dark temples. They were pulling at her coat, trying to get her to turn round to face the camera.

  ‘My daughter was taken from a burger bar when she was five by one of those assholes and he molested her, yo. He didn’t even get fuckin’ jail time!’

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘You think I don’t want Rhianna to finish him off? You think if I had the courage I wouldn’t do that myself? She’s saving kids’ lives, you stupid bitch. What kinda sister are you for ratting on Rhianna to the cops?’

  ‘Some fan. Can’t even get my fucking name right,’ I seethed.

  At this point, Seren dumped her shopping cart, grabbed her bag and marched out of the store. But the women followed her into the sunlit car p
ark.

  ‘Yo come back here. Why d’you do that to her? She wan’t doing nothin’ to you. Rhianna’s ten times the woman you are, bitch!’

  The camera got juddery as the women ran after Seren and all I could hear was her screaming, ‘Let go! Let go of me! You’re hurting me!’

  And they tripped her up and they beat her, right there in the car park. People surrounded them. A couple of them cheered. And there’s one image of Seren’s face as the video stops – blood streaming from her nose.

  My fingers lengthened. That’s what got through to me – seeing her like that. If I’d have been there, I’d have slit both of their throats. You don’t attack my sister and live to tell the tale. Grandad didn’t. Neither did Pete McMahon. I felt the same as I did then – lustful. Hateful. Ferocious.

  Tenoch snapped the computer lid shut. ‘That makes you want to kill again, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ I lied.

  ‘You have the hot sauce, gatita. Watching someone you love in pain or fear brings it out of you.’

  ‘I thought it had gone, when I had Ivy. The need went, overnight. But some things do bring it back.’

  ‘Like your sister.’

  ‘Yeah. And children. And animals being hurt. I think I can handle everything else now. But that still does it for me. I still get irritated by everything. I… don’t want to kill every last person I meet who moves my Pop Tarts or sneezes too loudly or says they prefer the British Office to the American one. It’s sort of polarised things. She’s polarised things for me.’

  ‘Your little Ivy?’

  ‘Just Ivy. She’s not mine anymore.’

  ‘It is a good thing for you to say that. What about your sister?’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do, is there?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘This is one battle she will have to fight without you.’

  Friday, 29 March – Hacienda Santuario

  Rich people – you do realise a fifty grand watch and a £50 watch tell the same time, don’t you?

  John Cena and The Rock – who said you could act?

  Noel Gallagher

  Liam Gallagher

  Overly woke people – sometimes, you put me to fucking sleep

  When I finally looked at myself in the full-length mirror in Marisol’s bedroom that late March morning, without the bandages, without the compression suit or corset, when the scars on my stomach had crusted over and the bruising had diminished enough to be able to tell what I actually looked like, I saw what I’d wanted to see for a long time – someone who wasn’t me.

  The waistband of my knickers had finally seen the light of day for the first time in years – flatness from tummy to mons pubis. I had a neat, thin scar spanning the length of said knicker line, but the saggy pouch of before had gone. It was tight. Bumpless. Like she’d never existed.

  My nose was smooth to the tip. Forehead smaller than before with a faint regrowth starting where the follicles now sat. My ears were nestled at the side of my head, all identifying moles had vanished. If you asked me whether I’d ever had chickenpox, I could say no with the full certainty that no tell-tale scar could be found anywhere on my person.

  Once I put on a bit of slap, my lenses and hair dye, I crept into the room next to Tenoch’s and sifted through the clothes in Marisol’s wardrobe. I put on a white huipil dress embroidered with golden flowers all around the neckline and waist, sprayed on a bit of perfume and practised the knowing, overbitey Marisol smile from the gold staircase painting. I slotted on her straw hat and helped myself to a bit of jewellery from a trinket box – some silver rings that fit my fingers and a gemstone necklace that looked like a flaming orb when it caught the light. I flicked my short brown plait from one shoulder to the other. It was a facsimile – by no means perfect, but good enough.

  I sauntered downstairs to where Tenoch was watching the episode of The Golden Girls where Rose inherits a pig. I stood under the crossed machetes, waiting, until I had to kick the metal fender to get his attention.

  He flicked me a classic double take and his face went flat, like I’d smacked it with a tray. He bounced to his feet.

  ‘Well?’ I said, twirling. ‘What do you think?’

  He couldn’t close his mouth. ‘Santa madre de dios,’ he kept saying, quietly, whispering. Rubbing his face. ‘I thought you were Marisol.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ I said, playfully chewing the chain of her necklace. ‘I look like… your daughter?’

  ‘That is her dress. And she used to wear her hair like that.’ He came closer and frowned. ‘You smell like her too. That is her perfume.’

  ‘You said I could, didn’t you? I found it at the back of that wardrobe. Oh, this is bad, isn’t it? I’ve offended you. I’m sorry, I’ll go change—’

  ‘—don’t be sorry.’ He cupped my face gently, like I was priceless. He had tears in his eyes but blinked them away. ‘She wore that to her prom. The opal necklace too – I bought her that for her sixteenth. It suits you.’

  ‘You approve?’

  He wiped his cheeks. ‘Yes. It make me so happy but so sad to see that dress. To smell her perfume again.’ He reached out and pulled on my plait playfully, before dropping it. ‘Dios mio, la extraño mucho.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tenoch.’ I wasn’t sorry and I knew exactly what I’d done. But something he said did get to me. When he hugged me and breathed in her perfume. He couldn’t let go. ‘I’m not her, Tenoch.’

  He nodded against me. ‘You are the nearest thing.’

  It took me straight back to Ivy and how much I hadn’t wanted to let go of her little pudge hand in that incubator. I did the same thing sometimes with Mátilda when we were playing – I’d hold her hand, like some creep. Ugh. I was doing what he was doing – coveting something that wasn’t mine, merely because it bore the slightest resemblance to the thing I’d lost.

  ‘What happened to her?’ I asked, as we broke out of our hug.

  He turned away from me and marched back to his chair where a new rerun of The GGs was starting. He turned up the volume.

  I sat on the footstool.

  ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ he sniffed.

  ‘You said we’re not the same, you and me, but we are, Tenoch.’ I muted the TV. ‘You feel your daughter’s loss like I do. We can only forget them for so long. The men I buried, did they kill Marisol?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. But they rolled with the ones who did.’ He said it more to the muted Golden Girls than to me. ‘They thought I was informant for the drug police. I was not. Their minds had been poisoned. They tried everything to get me to confess. But I did not do it. I was set up.’

  ‘By who? Paco?’

  ‘No. Paco may be an asshole, but he has proved himself to me time and time again in business.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They started with the animals, one by one. Chickens, goats, pigs. My dogs. Then Errol, my tortoise since I was five years old. They cut off his head. Then they started on my family. My wife, and then my daughter. I had to hear their screams. For two days. I wanted them to kill me, but instead they left me with the pain. Revenge became all. I went crazy.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went to the desert and tried to die. But God or Santa Muerte made me live. I got water, found food and I got strong. And when you are strong, you can think clearly. Body strong, mind strong. I’ve been the same ever since. I decided I wanted to kill more than I wanted to die.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  He looked at me, the glint of a smile in his eyes but not on his lips. ‘Paco was the one who found me – he told me where to find their warehouse. I know you hate him, but you do not know him like I do. He loyal. We learned their movements, their weaknesses. That’s what you do when you want to get the better of someone, gatita. You don’t rip a book down its pages, you break its spine. The weak point. We got some guns and went to their warehouse – they were expecting a shipment from Europe. Probably from your friend Bobby.’
r />   ‘Was this when you cut off their heads? Paco told me about it.’

  ‘I shot all of them first, and I watched them bleed out. When they were nearly dead, I cut off their limbs with those two machetes, right there. And I burned their arms and legs in an oil barrel, right before their eyes.’

  I looked back towards the fireplace where the gleaming knives sat on their presentation nail, unmoved and unstained.

  ‘And I made sure my face was the last each of those hijos de puta saw. I cut off their heads and I stuck them on long pikes, and I planted them in front of the warehouse so their associates would find them the next morning. It sent out a warning that nobody could fuck with me. They looked like your little flowers. Dead heads.’

  ‘How many did you kill?’

  ‘Seventeen. But worse still, I took their money. A lot of money. And I hit the road, eventually ending up here where I build my little house with my bare hands. And I started my business again. Those men you buried are from a splinter group of the same gang. They have been looking for me these past twelve years. They have better comms now so it was only a matter of time before they got lucky. But they still have not cracked the code of El Mago.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You’re right. Another cell will come, another day. But for now—’

  ‘You’re safe.’

  He shook his head. ‘Never up here,’ he said, tapping the side of his head. ‘Up here, I am forever in the depths of Hell. Where I belong.’

  ‘The revenge didn’t make you happy?’

  ‘How could it?’ he said. ‘Revenge is a temporary thrill, like sugar. You want it, you crave it, but it does you no good. Celestina told you what Paco did to her?’ I nodded. ‘It makes you want to kill him more?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you have not killed him yet.’

  ‘He’s a big guy. And he has guns. And friends. And you.’

  ‘You know when to strike and when not to strike. You are clever.’

  ‘No, I’m not clever. I’m just not stupid. I’ve always relied on speed and surprise. I get the impression with Paco he’d always know I was coming.’

  ‘You are learning, gatita. Your instincts are good. You can read people. Sometimes it is necessary to read between the lines.’