Ken looks up from . . . the rug? Maybe he’s still obsessing about the spilled Budweiser. “Yeah, what?” he asks softly. “Trouble?”
Ziggy shakes his head. “Can you come in here? I want to interview you and the kid at the same time. For I Apologize. Isn’t that a brilliant idea?”
Ken’s already in the process of standing. “Okay,” he says between gasps and grunts. “If it’s . . . no, wait.” He tips back on the couch bed, making its springs creak hysterically. “You print that it’s fiction.” He points at Ziggy. “That you made it up.” The finger wiggles. “That it’s your fucked-up fantasy.”
“Sure, sure, sure, sure.” Ziggy’s dancing around on his toes.
“It is an amusing idea.” Ken grunts. He struggles back up to his feet, a labored process that Ziggy’s gotten used to, but it always seems like there should be opera playing while it happens or something.
“Come on,” Ziggy squeals. “Bring some paper and pens. This is going to be so cool.” He spins around, lurches back into the Hole, straight at the kid, putting on the brakes just in time. “This is okay with you, right?” Ziggy asks Robin, easing down on the bed’s edge.
The kid just looks at or through Ziggy with this seeming horror that one almost never gets to see, except in documentaries.
In the background a door clicks shut. Ken takes a breath that could easily be Hurricane Whoever edited down to a sound bite and lumbers to where Ziggy’s sitting. In his hands are paper, pen. “I can . . .” Ken leans over the kid, who just stares back, irises colorless as magnets. “. . . inject him with speed,” Ken continues. “If you’re serious about the interview. That’ll reenergize him. Because he’s Mr. Sedatives at the moment.”
“Sure, great!” Ziggy’s tapping his foot. “But it won’t, like, hurt him any more than he’s already hurt, will it? Please say no, ha ha ha.”
Ken shakes his head, which makes his face wave around on his well-hidden skull again. Yuck. He’s traded the paper and pen for a syringe, and is already pushing a drop of translucent liquid out the tip. “There’s a remote possibility,” he says, sticking the needle into one of the kid’s scrawny biceps, “that it’ll denumb him a little.” The hypodermic fills up with blood, then that’s pushed out. “But supposedly . . . there”—and he withdraws the needle—“parts of the brain blow a fuse in these situations. And it doesn’t completely repair until . . . six, eight months of therapy later, if then.” Ken lays the empty works down on the night table prop. “But you tell me, Ziggy.” He grins. “You’re the expert.”
Is it Ziggy’s imagination or has the Metal kid’s face grown both friendlier and less cute postneedle? It’s like the difference between how forgettable that young actor, Corey What’s-it, looked sitting in court on the news yesterday, as opposed to how faraway and ideal he used to seem in his films like The Lost Boys. Anyway . . . “Uh, so is it okay to do this weird interview thing?” Ziggy looks warily at the kid.
Robin makes a sound that maybe could’ve been a yes.
“Scary,” Ziggy mumbles to himself, and gives Ken a long, meaningful look that says, Untie the gag, yeah?
“Meet Robin,” announces Ken. He takes some rumbly breaths, and starts undoing the gag. “Thirteen years old. Favorite band, Slayer.” He’s toying with a knot. “. . . and . . . that’s . . . all . . . I . . .” The gag loosens, flops down on the pillow, sliding bit by bit over the mattress’s brim in a long, unbroken line, as if it’s slithering off to locate a new victim. But as soon as this “snake” hits the floor, it immediately spreads out into a shabby mat.
“Fuck you,” Robin says, glaring at both of them. His voice is all phlegmy, but under that crass decoration is the flat, high-pitched voice that makes parents all over the world so irritable supposedly. His shaved head lifts up, trembling, but his body stays limp, like it’s just his foundation.
Ken’s rejoined Ziggy now.
Robin gulps down air, his glistening, greenish white skin rising, falling around a treacherous-looking if sort of delicate skeleton.
Ziggy shields his lips. “So, Uncle Ken,” he whispers, and gets a snootful of his own breath, which has gone really sour. “Are you finished with the filming?”
“Let’s ask him,” Ken whispers back. “Robin! Anything left to figure out about you?”
Robin looks at Ken blankly, as far as Ziggy can tell, but there are probably codes galore passing between them. “I . . . don’t know, man,” he says.
“Might as well go ahead, Ziggy.” Ken grabs the writing implements off the bedside table and hands them to his nephew. “Because I’m tired, Robin’s definitely tired.”
“Right.” Ziggy braces a page in one hand, clicks and lowers the pen. Even slight pressure buckles the sheet. So Ken slogs out to the living room, slogs back, and hands him a coffee table book on the Impressionists to use as support. All of this takes about a minute and a half, during which Ziggy looks at everything except the kid, meaning the camera, walls, chair . . . “Okay,” he continues. “I might not actually print this part. It’s mostly to get us, like, going.” He starts doodling a spiral. “Uh, Robin, when you came to my uncle’s last night, what did you think was going to happen?”
The kid’s eyes—which, to this point, have resembled small, unfocused geodes—sharpen, filling with . . . intelligence? Weird. They’re actually a nice dark brown color, even with all the chemicals probably blowing their wiring or whatever. “He . . .,” the kid says. Robin peers at Ken. “. . . was gonna pay me for sex.”
“Okay.” Ziggy’s writing away. “Got . . . it . . . And, uh, when did you realize that something was . . . weird?”
Robin’s eyes go all starey, bypassing Ken, but when Ziggy turns to see what’s in the way, there’s just the more boring part of the room, and . . . oh, right, a framed movie poster for Home Alone, featuring a screaming child actor whom Robin remotely resembles. Hm. “He got me stoned,” Robin says in the background. There’s something very odd about the poster. “And I thought, What if he gives me AIDS?” Maybe it’s just the fake fear on the young actor’s face and how offensive that is at the moment or something. “And then . . .” Robin swallows noisily. “. . . you started saying how . . .” Ziggy forces his eyes back to the Metal kid’s face, which is staring at Ken now. That’s terror, Ziggy thinks, studying the contorted expression. “. . . how you were in love with me.” Down on his chest, Robin’s hands knot together and . . . vibrate?
“You mean, how you were gorgeous.” Ken’s just plopped down on a folding chair over by the camera.
Robin winces.
“That wasn’t love.” Ken chokes out a sluggish rivulet of breath. “Jesus . . . you’re . . . so . . .” He wags his head. Slop, slop.
“But Uncle Ken,” Ziggy says. “You do get all passionate about boys, so Robin could’ve easily thought you were hot for him. He didn’t know.”
“I was hot. I am.” Ken breathes out again, but his body’s so fucked up it could be a laugh or a cough. “But, come on, love? That’s too liberal.” He leans forward, grabs the chest part of his T-shirt, gasps. “You pick a kid out of the zillions of them . . .” Gas-as-as-asp. “. . . you risk prison to fuck him . . .” A couple more gasps. “. . . that’s like love, okay. But Robin means love. Boyfriends, life companions, that nonsense.” And Ken leans back, folds his hands in his lap, breathing as normally as he ever does.
“No, no,” Robin says, voice sort of husky and thinned to a wisp at the same time. His hands hammer down on his chest. “I mean . . .” His face sort of lengthens and freezes there, quivering in places, no longer even remotely good looking, as far as Ziggy can tell. “. . . I mean you were . . . in love.” He swings the hammer up to his lips. They’re wiggling frantically. He’s having a hard time not screaming or something.
Ken exhales paranormally and doesn’t say anything.
Ziggy flips over the page. “Which is it more like, Uncle Ken, love or hate?”
“Neither,” the man barks. “This kid’s just got a prehistoric take on
the world thanks to the stupid lyrics of that band he’s so into. It’s like . . . Ziggy, you know what this is like.”
“Wait, ha ha ha,” Ziggy says, scribbling that down. “Uh, maybe. Listen, do you remember Roger, Brice’s ex-boyfriend? Well, he’s definitely like you are with kids, but about young guys’ asses. It’s so weird, Uncle Ken.” He stops writing for a moment. “Roger’s flying out here from New York tomorrow, and he’s going to move me back East with him.”
“No shit,” Ken says.
In the near distance, Robin’s still freaking out in a taut, quiet way that’s subtle but hard to ignore.
“It’s true!” Ziggy grins. But then he glances at miserable Robin and warms, discolors, etc., in embarrassment. “So anyway.” He repositions his pen. “Uh . . . what kind of sex did you have with Robin?”
“Good question.” Ken’s eyes jitter around like his thoughts are rewinding.
Ziggy waits, flexing his cramped right hand, but Ken’s eyes just keep jittering. “Well, uh . . . I’m gonna need some more paper, if you have some. I mean, if you’re having trouble remembering.” Still jittering, period. “So, Uncle Ken, uh . . . it looks like you’ve changed your technique since the, ha ha ha, old days.”
At that Ken awakes, stands, stumbles into the living room. Sound of drawers opening, closing. A few seconds later he’s back with a fresh piece of paper for Ziggy. “I’ve refined some,” he says, handing it over. “If you watch the movie of you, then the video of Robin, you can tell.”
“Maybe later.” Ziggy checks up on Robin, who’s partway back into his fogged-out, original, sexier state. “Uncle Ken, let me ask Robin stuff now, because he’s fading again or whatever.”
Ken sits down on the chair again, crack, squeak, and squints at the kid.
“Robin?” Ziggy asks loudly. “Uh, what were you thinking about during the sex part? I mean, at the time.”
The kid, whose sweaty face has started to look, well, deformed, raises his eyelids a fraction, the right one especially. A teensy flickerette of energy appears deep inside it. “Shomeshing,” he mumbles.
“Fuck, Uncle Ken,” Ziggy croaks. “Robin’s not going to O.D., is he?” He holds the art book in front of his face just in case.
“It’s nothing,” says Ken.
Ziggy peeks over the edge of the book. Robin’s seemingly okayish still. “So was it . . .”—Ziggy lowers the book, paper, pen, and starts doodling in a frenzy—“. . . just horrifying? Like you’d expect something like that would have been? Uh, Robin?” Ziggy wants to look up, but . . . he can’t.
After what feels like three or four minutes, the kid’s voice says, “I . . . don’t know.”
“Did hearing Slayer’s music help?” Doodle, doodle.
Ziggy carefully raises his eyes, and, weird, the old Robin’s back again, or at least the “old Robin” Ziggy’s gotten to know, meaning his face is very, very mellow but not, like, a corpse’s.
“I did hear it.” Robin looks over at Ziggy, uh . . . hopefully? Weird.
“Did it sound as high quality as you thought?”
“Yeah.” Robin nods. His face has begun to sort of glimmer again. It’s actually surprisingly cute, in an obvious, TV star’s way. “Tom . . . Araya’s lyrics are so . . . true.”
“Wait,” Ziggy blurts, floored. “Are you . . . are you saying that Slayer made it easier to endure the, uh, rape and all that? I mean, knowing how good Slayer is?”
Robin’s head shakes, not in any particular direction. Probably a nod. Whuff, whuff, whuff, goes the pillow.
“This is amazing.” Ziggy writes furiously. His script has decayed to the unreadable stage. “So you decided that Slayer’s music’s good enough that being raped isn’t, like, uh . . . important?”
“That’s . . . yeah,” Robin says, and his eyes sort of jab out.
“It’s so bizarre, Uncle Ken.” Ziggy glances back at the man, who’s just sitting there, bulbous arms X-ing his belly. “You don’t think so?”
Ken shakes his head sort of vaguely, then stops, reaches up, gives a scratch to that spooky shag haircut, like he’s reconsidering the question.
“Actually, that’s amazing too. I mean that you’re not sure. Wow.” Ziggy scribbles a note to himself. But when he turns around, checks up on Robin again, something’s new. The kid’s brown eyes are crossed, as if he’s trying to look into the pores on his nose. And he’s swallowing so often his neck’s a tornado. “Uh, Robin?”
“Maybe he is sick.” Ken stands laboriously and heads for the bed. “Finish up.”
“Okay.” Ziggy doodles. “I don’t know. Shit, Uncle Ken.” He peers around the room, desperate for inspiration. The Home Alone poster’s already conveyed everything it could convey. “Well, then, Robin, uh . . .” He looks at the kid, who’s turned a strange color . . . yellowy blue? “Does it matter to you that, uh, Uncle Ken thinks you’re, uh, really beautiful?”
“No . . .” Robin’s voice is a squawk. “I know . . . I’m . . .” The Metal kid’s eyes have gotten so . . . well, frightened doesn’t quite cover it, that Ziggy clutches his throat to keep from crying or yelling, he can’t tell.
Ken takes about seven steps backwards, which shoots a wave of B.O. through the room. Ugh.
Robin tries to roll onto his side several times, can’t, whips his head to the right, making his neck twist into this huge, crude rope, and vomits a lumpy mush across the pillow, then just lies there, burnt, gasping.
The room starts to smell of . . . stomach acid?
“You’ve got to go,” Ken says, pinching his nose shut. “I have to decide what to do.”
“I dig.” Ziggy fans the air. “But you have to let me ask what you’re thinking.” He points at what’s left of Robin. “I mean, ’cos he’s, like, gross now, so . . .” Ziggy has to let his fanning/writing arm fall to his side, it’s so used up and achy.
“I’m letting him register,” Ken says. “If that makes any sense.”
Ziggy copies that down. “Maybe. Like when you love someone, you don’t mind the gross parts. They’re just . . . part of the bargain.” Ziggy scratches his filthy hair. “That’s what my school therapist says.”
“Close.” Ken’s huge face twists in two or three directions at once if that’s possible. “Phew!” He staggers out of the Hole.
“Except,” Ziggy shouts after him, fanning again. “Well, you raped and whatever someone who maybe didn’t deserve it!” Ziggy bunches his lips, still scratching, weighing positives and negatives. “And is that . . . cool?”
“There are a lot of human beings,” Ken bellows from the living room.
“Yeah, so?” Ziggy eyes Robin, who’s either asleep now or praying, then eyes Ken, or, more specifically, a shadow. That shadow and Robin are like . . . polar opposites? Note. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Selectivity,” yells Ken’s voice. “Choose a couple of friends . . . Everyone else is just there.” It sounds like he’s straightening up. “Not your or my problem . . . So if Robin’s been fucked psychologically . . . I won’t know. That’s a theory . . . But I had a great time. I did. And . . . Robin’s not quite . . . intelligent enough to . . . be of interest to anyone other than . . . sex maniacs like myself . . . Because unless you’re fixated on druggies . . . he’s not worth the hassle.”
Ziggy knows he should’ve written that down, but he’s brain dead. “Can I borrow the Slayer tape?” he manages to yell. “Do you think he’d mind?” He nods at Robin, who’s probably still too nauseous to care what’s going on. “I want to transcribe the lyrics. Hey, Uncle Ken! You never know, they might add . . . color?”
“Sure, whatever.” Ken slams a door somewhere.
Ziggy folds the several-page interview, slipping it into his blue jeans’ back pocket. He heads out to the living room, which seems to have this weird, homey quality he never noticed before. The bed being there helps, obviously. So he pauses for a few seconds, yawning. Tick, tick . . . He pops Ken’s cassette deck, removes the Slayer tape, jamming same
into his jacket’s stuffed pocket, clack, clack, and glances back at the open Sex Hole. The vomity odor is filtering out.
“Bye, Uncle Ken,” he shouts, already through the front door. “Talk to you tomorrow! This was . . . interesting!”
From deep inside the house there’s a muffled flush.
Robin could . . . focus . . . his eyes . . . but . . .
When the fat man reentered the Sex Hole to clean up their mess, he realized the extent and practically crushed his nose shut.
“You didn’t,” Ken said.
Around Robin’s bare hips, thighs, the very first fringe of a creeping brown stain.
“Take a shower,” the fat man yelled. He grabbed the kid’s wrist, yanked. Robin stumbled out of bed, fell to his knees, took a few screechy breaths. “Apologies,” Ken added.
“I’m . . . okay,” Robin said.
Then Ken ripped up the soggy bedding and bunched it. He unlatched a window, heaved-ho, and inhaled some cold night. In his peripheral vision, the kid crawled away.
Shower noise, whish, like an auditory eraser, whish, removed a little bit of the experience, whish, for the kid anyhow.
Robin lay crookedly under the hot, itchy jets. “My . . . hair,” he said, gripping the rim of the bathtub. He missed its gentle weight on his shoulders. “Fuck.” After a second he picked up the soap.
Ken mopped for a half hour, whistling.
The air in the Sex Hole got better and better and better.
The kid limped to Ken’s living room, nude, drippy, located clothes, dressed himself.
“I’ve made your check out to Barry,” the fat man said, watching the kid hide his body. “He’ll cash it.”
“Can I . . .?” asked Robin. He stood there, fists clenched. “. . . crash here? Just till tomorrow?” He made his eyes look distraught, if they had any powers left in them, that is.
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