Conversations With the Crow

by Gregory Douglas

  He took a picture of a chinless women with blue hair and broke it out of its frame. The watchmaker reached for another one but Chuck stopped him.

  "Look," he said, slicing the face out of the picture, "do it this way and leave the picture behind. As it is, they barely remember Aunt Peabottom and now, they will remember her not at all. And don't drop the heads on the floor, lad, put them in the fireplace and we can give them a decent cremation."

  The shelf was soon full of the desecrated lares and penares of the Winrod family and pyramids of blankness sprouted atop tinted shoulders.

  Chuck added a final touch to the shambles in the living room by splashing more red dye on the truncated curtains and then joined Lars in a trip to the dining room.

  The long hall that led to it was hung with the sort of paintings sold to the gullible by interior decorators.

  Chuck, who fancied himself an art critic, looked at the monstrosities with his head over to one side.

  "This one here is an excellent example, my Scandinavian friend, of how a color-blind artist makes a living."

  And he slashed it from top to bottom and moved on to the next. Lars was examining a daub that showed a naked young girl in a swimming pool. She was standing up to her knees in what must have been the shallow end of the pool. Of course, it might have been the deep end but she would have to have had legs like a giraffe.

  "I like this picture, Chuck. Can I take it with me?"

  "What did I say? Nothing leaves this house but us and cash."

  And one quick twist of his arm bisected the water sprite from crown to crotch. Bluebeard could not have done better.

  For his next act of cultural barbarism, Chuck slashed a picture showing two wide-eyed children peering through a barbed wire fence. One eye remained hanging from the frame in mute reproach. When they left the hall, flaps of brightly colored canvas dangled behind them from the walls like a tropical jungle vista.

  The dining room was long and narrow with a modern Chippendale table and chairs that were upholstered in a bluish-gray cloth that looked like the lips of a chronic asthma victim.

  Lars was admiring two paintings of sailing ships while Chuck was trying to decide if the sideboard was solid cherry wood or a veneer. Ripping off one of the glass doors, the cheap white wood underneath the ruined hinges answered that question without a doubt and the other door joined a pile on the mauve carpet along with the Winrod best china and some silver-plate bowls. Flapping a damask tablecloth out in front of him, Chuck covered the windrows of family treasures and then proceeded to dance gracefully on top of the pile, rapidly reducing its height with a series of crunching noises.

  He pointed to the chairs and said to Lars, who was slashing wide strips out of the very expensive scenic wall paper,

  "Nice job on the scenic paper, lad. You just beheaded a whole family of rag heads, two camels and a pyramid. Break the arms off the chairs and slash all the upholstery while I tend to the table."

  A sharp chisel ripped gouges in the long, polished table and the textured surface was further enhanced by a liberal application of powerful paint remover. Lars had finished destroying the chairs and now, in a role-reversal, was ripping a very expensive grandfather's clock into small fragments.

  With discordant chimes still sounding, Chuck jumped up on the ruined table and grasped the crystal chandelier by the base. Winding it up as tightly as he could, he jumped back when the chain snapped and then he and Lars took turns kicking it around the room like a tinkling football. Its shattered and twisted remnants joined the shards of the china cabinet and Chuck threw more dye on the curtains and the remnants of the violated carpet. The bright red splatterings made the room look more like a slaughter house run by spastics than a refined place in which the products of such an establishment were eventually consumed.

  The two sailing ships had sunk without a trace but a nineteenth century portrait of a prim woman with carefully coifed hair looked like the victim of a ghetto rat attack. Part of her hairdo and forehead remained but the rest of her face was thoroughly shredded.

  The next stop was the Winrod kitchen, filled with all manner of destructables.

  Chuck's first act was to put the contents of a bottle of Metamucil laxative he found under the sink, down the garbage disposal.

  "This stuff," he said as he let down a length of fishing line into the machinery, which was now laboring under a heavy load, "will plug up the pipes for thirty feet."

  There was a sudden burst of smoke as the jammed disposal self-destructed.

  In the meantime, Lars was humming pleasantly to himself as he punched holes in the tops of all the canned goods with an icepick. This guaranteed the decomposition of the contents which promised to add to the stench caused by Chuck's dumping of all the contents of the under sink area on the tile floor. After fracturing the stone with his hammer, he dumped soap, bleach, drain cleaner, shoe polish and floor wax in puddles on top of the everyday china and glassware which he then covered, discreetly, with another table cloth and poured out the contents of the food cabinets on top. Before this anointment, Chuck and Lars performed an old Norwegian dance on the pile, greatly reducing its altitude. The entire mound crushed flat was then covered with canned spinach, tomato puree, lemon extract, flour, pasta, canned beets, sour cream, hot sauce and a coil of false teeth paste.

  A pile of electric appliances; waffle irons, toasters, knife sharpeners, can openers and portable food processors were heaped by the door for eventual deposit in the swimming pool. A number of knives in an attractive oaken holder were jammed into the doorframe and twisted into interesting abstract shapes. A few moments after these were added to the Everest of food on the broken floor, the door had blown off the microwave as eight potatoes exploded simultaneously, splattering one end of the room with remnants of steaming tuber.

  Picking a piece of potato from his sleeve, Chuck chuckled.

  "Too bad they didn't have a cat. They make such a mess in a microwave."

  The refrigerator was missing its door and its contents were dumped into the sink and covered with a can of blue paint Lars had found in a cupboard. From the exposed freezer compartment, Chuck removed three very large frozen crabs in anticipation of further amusement.

  "Look at this," he said as he dumped a newly discovered cache of gourmet dog food onto a pile of Estelle's late mother's treasured cookbooks, "look at the stuff their mangy dog eats. Mama's Little Precious Beef Wellington, Lobster Newburg and here we have Chicken Kiev. The damned flea farm eats better than we do."

  And the final act occurred when Lars and his friend smashed their hammers down on the placemat-protected granite slabs of the counter tops. Singing as they swung, it was reminiscent of an off-key Anvil Chorus as they worked in happy harmony, sending chips of stone and puffs of dust into an atmosphere laden with an overwhelming smell of vinegar, petroleum products, and heady alcoholic fumes from twenty bottles of very expensive wine that had been poured in a sort of unholy Communion over the mounds of food and kitchen products.

  They paused in the laundry room while Chuck took appreciative note of the large-capacity washer and drier and then opened the door into the Winrod garage.

  Here there was no need for discretion and the overhead light revealed a treasure trove of paints, appliances and a late-model avocado toned station wagon.

  Chuck immediately unplugged the large deep freeze filled with expensive cuts of meat while Lars addressed the vehicle. While he was smashing out the windows, slashing the tires and covering the surface with cans of household enamel and paint remover, Chuck gleefully filled a portable cement mixer with the Winrod silver, Art's bowling trophies, expensive electric drills, sanders and other tools. On top of these he put a large piece of stone that had been used to prop open the outside door that led to the pool area. When the mixer was turned on, it produced a high-pitched grinding noise that sounded like a minimalist tone poem.

  Soon the car was dripping with paint and looked exactly like something found in the front yard of a
ghetto residence. The only thing absent were the illiterate expressions of motherly love found with such prevalence on the walls of the nesting grounds of the sociological bottom-feeders. Both of the artists poured out dozens of large cans of paint onto the floor and in the middle of the Jackson Pollock-like mess dumped such diverse objects as Art's golf clubs, a smashed portable television set, and a religious statue depicting a Jesus that looked like an advertisement for open heart surgery, into the polychromatic swamp.

  All of this was sprinkled with the fragrant contents of bags of cow manure, three boxes of Christmas tree ornaments and a large plastic Santa Claus complete with reindeer and sleigh that had graced the roof of the Winrod house every Christmas season past. Part of the sleigh looked vaguely like the stern of the sinking "Titanic" and one booted leg of Santa Claus stuck up like the conning tower of a Soviet submarine trapped in a psychedelic nightmare of color

  After mutually deciding that there was nothing left to attend to in the garage, the Night Visitors went back through the laundry room and headed for the locked door of the downstairs study. The Winrods kept it locked to prevent Tita, their illegal immigrant maid from stealing old Benny Goodman records. Tita apparently had no interest in sterling silver items but the records were sent off to her brother Estaban in their native Costa Rica and sold by him to local musicologists.

  The locked door was but a moments' work for Chuck who habitually carried a high quality lock pick set in his pocket wherever he went. He was a man of great optimism and greater skill and the door opened almost as swiftly as if he had used a key.

  They looked around the room and then brought in various bags and containers to continue their entertainment. A bronze wire statue that had been welded together in fifteen minutes by a French lesbian who was stewed to the gills on cheap vin ordinaire yielded gracefully to Lars' foot. Chuck went into the small bathroom and began to smash the tile, the fixtures and the fittings with his well-used and badly stained hammer.

  All of the sound system, a small computer, family photo albums and all the Benny Goodman records were stacked by the door along with framed local civic achievement certificates, a picture of two long-winged angels fondling each other and a collection of pewter kittens.

  Sometime later, after they had slashed all the leather chairs, Chuck was looking at the books that had been on the now-legless coffee table.

  "Look at this trash, Lars. What is this? Courses of liberal worship for Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. And another whale book. Now here's a wonderful title for you: 'The Iron Orgasm...a History of Militant Feminism in Boston.' Estelle hasn't had an orgasm since the cucumber got stuck during an Elvis concert and Art hasn't had an erection since the second Bush administration. Mercy, look at all the wonderful music. What do we have here? 'Andrew Lloyd Webber played on the Forest Lawn Organ,' ' Wayne Newton sings Verdi,' 'Oklahoma Sung in Greek,' 'The Chipmunks Sing Your Favorite Christmas Carols' and...oh my God, what a find! Look at this CD. Lars! 'The Special Olympics Chorus Sings the Messiah.’”

  Lars looked at the pile of disks with curiosity.

  "Please Chuck, what is the Special Olympics?"

  "You don't know about that? Oh, what you have missed my boy. A whole pack of crips and droolers playing at sports, lurching off in all directions with their keepers right after them. You really ought to consider a brief romance with one of the younger ladies who is a member."

  "Doing it with a retard is not fun, Chuck," Osvald said with some spirit.

  "You ought to know. You've probably tried. You know I saw you last week down at the bus depot when I went to get a package. You had a really young one in one hand and a big pink rabbit in the other. What ever were you up to? Maybe some aerobics behind the dumpster? A little hide and seek in the bushes?"

  "That's disgusting, Chuck! That was my niece just in from Minnesota if you must know."

  "No, I must not know. I like our host’s religious attitude. Remind me to tell you about the time I put a voice-activated tape recorder in a church confessional. You know, I have never heard such really filthy conversation, even at a whore's convention. It really is remarkable, Lars. Cheat on your spouse, rob the boss, finger your niece and you can still get into heaven by saying a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father or two."

  Lars looked very interested in the thrust of the conversation.

  "Were they very interesting, these tapes? Do you still have them?"

  "Not so much interesting as profitable, friend. And no, I don't have them. I sold them back to the penitents. Now, shall we go upstairs and investigate the bedrooms?"

  There was excited anticipation in Lars' voice.

  "Oh my yes, and I want to rescue Art's magazines. I mean if he is impotent now, what does he want with magazines? I can keep those, can't I?"

  "Why certainly, friend, if the pages aren't all stuck together."

  And the Winrods' best salesman and the Norwegian nymph-muncher ascended towards heaven, containers in hand.

  On the second floor were a master bedroom and bath, a guest room and half bath and a small office.

  They looked around the master bedroom with its mirrored closet doors, bad abstracts and furniture covered with family pictures, ancient stuffed animals, a small TV set, two vases of paper flowers and a medley of Lladro china figurines.

  Chuck pointed to the closets.

  "I'll do the bathroom while you get into the closets and cut a sleeve off of every piece of clothing. Oh yes, and one leg off of every pair of pants. And pile up one shoe from each pair on the floor. I'll just be a few minutes in the powder room."

  Osvald stared at the bureau as if trying to see through the veneered doors.

  "Where did you say that Art kept his nice magazines?"

  "I didn't. They usually keep them in the sock drawers," Chuck said as he disappeared into the bathroom. hammer in hand.

  In only a few minutes he had smashed the toilet and its tank, broken all the mirrors, cracked most of the tile on the walls, shattered the shower stall glass doors, crushed the weight machine and sprinkled the contents of the cabinets in artistic piles on the floor. He closed the drain on the large bathtub and turned on the hot water. With clouds of steam pouring out into the bedroom, he returned to observe his companion ripping the sleeves off of Art's sweaters and adding them to a large pile of eviscerated garment parts lying haphazardly on one of the beds.

  Soon, these forlorn remnants of sartorial pleasure were lying in the filling tub, joined quickly by armfuls of shoes, watches, family pictures and the shredded remnants of underwear, socks and electric blankets. Five gallons of concentrated bleach, a can of drain cleaner and a gallon of black wood stain joined the walloping mess.

  Lars had found no books with pictures of fat women socializing with Shetland ponies in Art's collection of oversized underwear but in the back of his closet he discovered a number of videotapes that looked promising.

  "Oh look, Chuck, I found some lovely tapes. 'Carla does Downtown Modesto’, ’Wet Wendy' and here's one called 'The Organ Grinder'. What do you think that one's all about?"

  "Probably a whore with chipped teeth. That bathroom is a real mess, Lars. I advise you not to go in there because there's water all over the floor and it's starting to come in here. Let me go downstairs for a minute and bring back a big surprise for our hosts."

  He returned a moment later with the three semi-frozen crabs, which he began to insert underneath the box mattresses. Lars put down the tapes long enough to watch his efforts.

  "Why are you doing that, Chuck? Why don't we just cut up the mattresses?"

  He waved a sharp linoleum knife in savage half-circles.

  Chuck straightened up, wiping his fish-smelling hands on the pillow of Estelle's bed.

  "We can do that too, friend, and let's rip up these pillows and make it look like your Grandpa's chicken plucking emporium."

  When the sheets and mattresses looked like Jack the Ripper had finished with them, they added insult to injury by urinating copiously
on the tufted messes.

  "The crab, by the way, will go off in a few hours. Have you ever smelt rotten crab? No? It smells like a drunk diabetic pissing on a hot car manifold. Not that the smell will be noticed much. Just think of Art and Estelle downstairs, hip deep in hot water, rotten food and decayed cunt ointment. By the way, the water is not only coming in here but it's starting to run down the steps so I suggest we go into the other room and attend to redecorating it before we get flooded."

  As a final act of societal barbarity, he picked up what was obviously a well loved and much repaired stuffed toy bear and proceeded to disembowel it, slice off the head and stick the shoe-button eyes in his coat pocket. The empty husk was thrown onto the floor where it instantly changed color in a spreading puddle of water coming out of the bathroom.

  As the water began to rise in the first bedroom, they went into the second, Lars clutching a bag of tools in one arm and his precious tapes in the other.

  The guest bedroom held a waterbed and Lars rushed joyfully into the room, knife upraised.

  ""It's all mine, Chuck, all mine!" he said as he began to slash at it.

  "Cut the bottom too, Lars, let the water escape. Let it run free and be sure to rip out the heating element when you're down there."

  The cheap furniture yielded gracelessly to pistoning feet and slashed drapes, bed covers and an electric clock went into the half-bath where Chuck jammed pieces of drape into the shower drain and soaked everything with bleach, a bottle of green dye and a jar of laxative he found in the medicine cabinet. When he had finished, he turned on the shower full force

  2.

  Back in the guest room, they wrenched off the closet doors, broke the clothes pole and slashed swatches out of the rug before amusing themselves playing tic-tac-toe with linoleum knives on a large colored picture of an Aryan Jesus. This sacrilege was thrown down onto the floor into the vale of tears caused by the hemorrhaging waterbed and they sloshed through the flooding bathroom and into the office.